Telco facing growing scrutiny over failed triple-0 calls
Optus customers who couldn't get through to triple zero last week are furious over the company's handling of the crisis. The telecommunications ombudsman has received multiple complaints from people who were unable to connect to emergency services during the nationwide outage.
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TVTranscript
00:00 Cancer patient Adrian Ashenden woke up last Wednesday feeling gravely unwell.
00:07 And it very quickly got worse.
00:09 Worried his life was in danger, he grabbed his phone.
00:12 It was dead. The screen was blank and there was no dial tone.
00:15 So I did a restart and, no, still nothing.
00:18 His wife tried triple zero on her phone. Same thing.
00:22 We're getting a bit anxious by this time because I needed help.
00:25 Adrian's one of millions of Australians who lost mobile and internet connections
00:31 during the Optus outage last week.
00:33 That morning, the company told customers that only landlines were cut off from triple zero.
00:41 But later confirmed some mobiles were also struggling to get through.
00:45 That is really, really strange.
00:48 By law, telcos are meant to ensure customers can reach triple zero.
00:53 Normally what you have is that the triple zero is a totally dedicated,
00:58 separated system, not connected to the other services.
01:02 Mobile providers are also required to check on the welfare of anyone
01:06 who couldn't reach emergency services.
01:09 But Adrian Ashenden says he's had no contact from Optus.
01:13 Instead, the couple who say they use about five gigabytes of data a month
01:18 were offered 200 gigabytes as compensation.
01:22 Considering what happened to me at that time, I can't believe they could be so insensitive.
01:26 It's amazing.
01:28 The telco ombudsman says she's investigating multiple complaints
01:31 from people who couldn't get through to triple zero.
01:34 And tomorrow, Optus CEO Kelly Beyer-Rosmarin will face a grilling
01:39 before a Senate inquiry into its handling of the crisis.
01:42 One of the key questions I've got is how many people were unable to get through
01:47 and what are we going to do about this?
01:51 The inquiry is also looking at what government can do
01:54 to ensure there's reliable mobile coverage for all.
01:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]