Sphere PR’s Managing Director Louise Roberts highlighted that for a telecom company, dependability is crucial. With three emergency service disruptions occurring since 2023 and a significant data breach in 2022, Optus’ reputation has been continuously undermined.

“The Optus brand is now in a fragile, high-risk state,” she told 9news.com.au.

“For telecoms, reliability and resilience are essential, and recurrent failures will tarnish their credibility in a manner that a single incident might not cause,” she explained.

Roberts said the continued blunders could cost Optus millions in a loss of customers, fines, and a damaged brand reputation. 

She added that there may be lawsuits from the families of the three people who died during the triple-zero outage on September 18. 

“They face the risk of ongoing customer loss, heightened scrutiny regarding reliability, and likely substantial penalties,” Roberts stated.

“Companies can recover their reputation, but I think you’ll find that Optus’ issues will be mentioned for years to come.”

Days before the outage, a Roy Morgan survey ranked Optus as Australia’s fourth most distrusted brand.

“It still has not recovered from the 2022 data breach,” she said. 

“Optus must critically evaluate its operations and ensure future investments not only enhance their network and resilience but also improve their procedures,” she added.

“They really need to demonstrate that they’ve made long-term structural changes.”

Optus’ problems started years before the first triple-zero outage earlier this month. Here is a breakdown of everything that led to today.

4am: Optus begins experiencing a nationwide outage that affects all services, including triple-zero calls and NBN.

6.47am: Optus tells customers it is aware of the issue and is working to restore services.

12.55pm: Some services begin to come back online.

4pm: Most, if not all, services are restored. 

The Australian Communications and Media Authority begins an investigation into the outage.

Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, who was Optus’ CEO at the time, is set to appear before the Senate to address queries regarding the outage and the company’s response strategy.

She insists she is not facing internal calls to step down.

“Having now had time for some personal reflection, I have come to the decision that my resignation is in the best interest of Optus moving forward,” she said at the time.

She is replaced in the interim by chief financial officer Michael Venter.

Optus admits that almost 2700 triple-zero calls failed to connect, up from the initial 228 figure.

A government-commissioned review into the outage handed down its final report, making 18 recommendations to address structural issues within the broader telco system. 

The federal government accepts all the recommendations. 

Optus announces Stephen Rue as its new chief executive effective from November.

He is brought in to review the company and recover its reputation.

Exactly a year on from the 2023 triple-zero outage, the Australian Communications and Media Authority finds Optus failed to provide access to emergency services for 2145 people and failed to conduct 369 welfare checks on people who had tried to make an emergency call during the outage. 

The telco pays a $12 million fine. 

12.17am — 12.30am: Optus crews ready themselves for a firewall upgrade.

12.30am: Crews begin the upgrade.

1.30pm: Thirteen hours later, Optus becomes aware of an issue affecting triple-zero calls and works to resolve it.

3pm: Optus tells the Australian Communications and Media Authority that the outage affected 10 calls.

3.40pm: Optus tells the Australian Communications and Media Authority that the outage actually affected 100 calls.

4pm: Optus tells the Australian Communications and Media Authority that the outage restricted more than 600 triple-zero calls, and three people died.

4.40pm: Newsrooms across the country receive an email alerting them to a flash press conference.

5.45pm: Rue tells the media that three people died in a triple-zero outage – two in South Australia and one in Western Australia.

This is the first time the public hears about the outage. 

7pm: South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas holds his own press conference, in which he tells the media that Optus did not tell the state about the deaths before Rue fronted the media.

He says he has not witnessed “such incompetence from an Australian corporation in respect to communications worse than this”.

Police in South Australia and Western Australia also say they were unaware of the emergency service breakdown until the press conference. 

Rue tells the media that a fourth death has been confirmed in Western Australia.

He reveals that two people had called Optus’ customer service centres alerting them to an issue affecting triple-zero calls on September 18, but the matter was not escalated.

Rue calls another press conference, where he confirms the telco actually received at least five calls to the customer line about the outage, none of which were escalated.

”As we had not detected the triple-zero failures in our network at the time of these calls, there were no red flags for the contact centre to alert them to any live issues,” he said.

South Australia Police confirm that the death of a four-month-old baby, which was initially linked to the outage, was most likely unrelated.

The death toll stands at two in Western Australia and one in South Australia. 

Optus says seven people were unable to contact triple-zero during the brief period the upgrade was being readied between 12.17am to 12.30am on September 18. 

Communications Minister Anika Wells promises to hold the telco to account. 

Rue confirms the outage was caused by human error.

Crews, comprised of Optus and third-party Nokia staff in Australia and India, had failed to follow step one of the upgrade process, which would have allowed emergency calls to be redirected through the network.

Optus commissions an independent review as its owner, Singapore-based Singtel Group, issues its first apology.

Singtel CEO Yuen Kuan Moon announces he will visit Australia the following week.

Optus experiences yet another outage that affects 4500 people in NSW’s Dapto region between 3am and 12.20pm and impacts nine triple-zero calls.

Optus confirms all the people who tried to contact triple zero were okay, with several of them being accidental or test calls. 

Moon meets with Wells in Australia, where she tells him to bring in external advisors to independently assess the company’s plans to avoid another outage.

Speaking to reporters, Moon declined to say whether he backs Rue.

”We brought in Stephen 11 months ago to transform Optus to really address the issues that we’ve had since 2022 and 2023,” he said.

“It is very early days, it takes time to transform a company.”

Optus has commissioned an internal review, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority is investigating.

Wells hints that there may be a wider review into the telco industry and emergency service network.