Has Optus learnt anything from the ‘technical’ problems of the past two years?

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Any chance of Optus’ new boss, Stephen Rue, moving Australia’s second-biggest telco in the right direction has been fatally derailed.

A surprise press conference late on Friday afternoon hinted at trouble. A 5.30pm all-hands-on-deck chat with the press usually means little else – and that’s exactly what was in store.

Optus boss Stephen Rue announced the deaths on Friday.

A solemn-faced Rue delivered the news – a technical failure, 600 Triple Zero calls failing to connect, three people dead.

Rue’s tenure as chief executive is almost certainly headed for a swift end.

Optus showed its former chief executive, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, the door after the telco endured a data breach that exposed sensitive details of 9.8 million customers in 2022, and a nationwide outage in 2023 that scuttled almost 2100 Triple Zero calls, under her watch that led to a $12 million fine. The stakes are much higher for Rue.

One can only imagine what Rue’s paymaster in Singapore (Optus is owned by Singtel) would be thinking about the latest fiasco to plague their Australian outfit.

Rue was appointed chief executive by Singtel to clean up the joint after a horror 18 months or so at Optus, and to his credit he hit the ground running when he started in November. Management lines were streamlined, plans were in place to bring costs under control, and the mea culpas for problems inherited were dutifully delivered.

But on Friday, Rue was staring down a problem that at the very least raises serious questions about whether Optus has learnt anything from the “technical” problems of the past two years.

The outage in 2023 and the latest blunder, with its deadly consequences, all took place during network upgrades. These upgrades – where a telco such as Telstra, Optus or TPG, selectively shuts down systems to improve their network and then brings them back online – are routine.

They happen regularly and mostly with minimal problems. Optus has now had two botched upgrades, with the latest one preventing Triple Zero calls in three states and territories that led to three deaths – two in South Australia and one in Western Australia.

Optus has promised a thorough, forensic investigation, which should reveal what exactly went wrong. A band of network engineers, possibly contractors, and project managers would have some serious questions to answer. And it still remains to be verified that the deaths were directly related to an inability to make Triple Zero calls.

But that will all be cold comfort to the families of the deceased, and do nothing for Optus’ reputation, already tarnished by its previous mistakes.

Apart from Rue, this technical error will also be a test for Optus’ new chairman, John Arthur, who replaced Paul O’Sullivan, in August. After a turbulent couple of years, Singtel was banking on Rue and Arthur to get down with the task of reasserting Optus as a credible alternative to Telstra.

It may be back to square one for Optus on that front.

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