Oliver Peterson: Australian correspondent on the Optus outage that impacted triple-0 calls

Australian telco giant Optus  is investigating another network outage that led to nine failed triple-0 calls on the NSW south coast.

Optus has issued a statement saying the problem stemmed from a mobile phone tower site in Dapto.

It affected calls between 3am and 12:20pm on Sunday, including calls to the triple-0 network.

Australian correspondent Oliver Peterson says this incident will cause significant damage to the relationship Optus has with its customers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk. Sa'd be
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Olli Peterson six PR Perth Live presenters with us. Hello, Oli,
Hey Heather, talk about the ref go on.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
I was actually playing golf well afternoon. Yeah, yeah, I
was just waiting.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
For the return. I was worring for the return. About
in Perth this week? Are you coming over? Yeah? So
so yeah, you don't really want to talk about this then? No?
Not really, no, not really, Okay, you know we were
robbed since we've had the Bleedders Low Cup by the.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Way, what Australia New Zealand, I think you've I don't
think we've had it about twenty years now.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
I don't know if you've been alive for it. Anyway, Look,
you'll get it too, and don't worry about it now. Jeez.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
I'll tell you what.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
However bad your day is, it's worse with Optus, isn't it.
I'll tell you what.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Stephen Rue would be ruining the decision pardon the partner
taking on the job of the CEO of op this
because yet another triple zero outage on the weekend, and
it was for quite some time as well, from about
three o'clock on that Saturday or Sunday morning. It was
in the end three am Sunday morning till about midday
Sunday in the Dapdo area, So we're talking around Woollongong,

(01:22):
about an hour and a half south of Sydney. The
Optus network went down in regards to triple zero phone calls.
Nine affected phone calls, with that one person deciding when
they needed an ambulance to actually use a different phone
that was an Optus and they got connected straight through.
Police have done the welfare checks on the other eight.
Everybody else is okay, but this is just terrible. They
do not know how or why this one has happened,

(01:44):
but it makes you wonder there are severe problems aren't
they now with the entire network if this has happened
again within a week. Stephen ru Tomorrow Tuesday will be
meeting the Federal Communications Minister Annika Wells, who's returning from
her delegation being part of the United Nations gathering there
in New York. And you could just imagine how hostile
those conversations are going to be.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
I mean, they must be losing customers at a ra
to not.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Say absolutely they would be, but they were when the
data hack, which is not that long ago, it's just
over a year ago. So look, the thing about Australia
is if you live outside of the metropolitan area of
one of our capital cities, chances are you're not a
customer of Optis or voteraphone anyway, you're with Telstra because
you've got that national network. But this is going to

(02:28):
cause significant damage to the customer relationship between the telco
and Australians. And look there's calls over in this country
as well that the license should be taken off Optus,
which is obviously on now by Singtel, the Singaporean back company,
and redistributed to somebody else. So I don't know that
the government will go that far, but I'll tell you
what some of the language from Prime Minister Albanzi and
Anika Well's or Communications Minister, they are not impressed.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
I can imagine. Now, run me through what Clive Palmer's done.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Oh, he just loves, particularly going to war with where
I live in Western Australia, the WA government. So he
was effectively trying to quote bankrupt the state with a
claim that he made and legislation was rushed during the
COVID years in regards to some of the iron ore
royalties and the royalties that he had to pay to.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
West in Australia.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
The WA government claimed that this was going to again
bankrupt the state the tune of thirty billion dollars. He
didn't like it, so he took it on in all
the courts in Australia. It's been thrown out, but he's
not happy with that. He's going all the way to
a court in Switzerland to try and take on effectively
the Australian government. His argument is that because of what
happened through the COVID years, it affected his trade. But

(03:36):
because he's an Australian citizen, he's not entitled to even
basically take this on in the court.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
So look, he just enjoys the theater. Let's be blunt header.
He enjoys the show.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
He never liked the fact that he wasn't allowed into
a particularly during those COVID years to run his businesses.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
So this is all, I believe, a bit of a charade.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
But yeah, he's still trying to get thirty billion dollars
out of Western Australia.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
A nice try Hey, do you believe that solar panels
can add twenty three thousand dollars to the value of
your house?

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Oh? See, this is what I find fascinating. Now much
sun in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
But he is not really wrong with you.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
You might have the blenderslow cuts, but do you get
any sunshine?

Speaker 2 (04:16):
I don't know what I'd rather, but I thought this was.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Really interesting because we just had all of this. You know,
it comes out all the time, right, but the annual
what's everybody looking up? What was everybody searching for when
they're trying to buy a home and it's down to
granny flats and pulls?

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Now again, do you have pools and us? You're a pain? Sorry, yeah,
that I can't help myself today.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
But I find this interesting, and I it's not something
that we really considered that you would look at that.
But when you have a federal government policy at the
moment which is all about giving your rebates for putting
soul and batteries in your home, you can probably understand
where this sort of research comes out. But twenty three
thousand dollars extra to your home having a few panels
on the roof. I went to Google Earth to just

(04:59):
have a look in my street, I don't have panels,
but I think I'm in the minority. Like there's about
twelve houses in my street and there's only two or
three of us that don't have panels.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
So look, I might be missing out on something.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
But it's going to cost you more than twenty three
thousand dollars to install these things, So I don't know
if it adds twenty three thousand dollars. I just think
it's the clean energy mob just trying to get us
to all sign up. And by the way, and as
for all governments around the world, it's your job to
be able to provide the infrastructure to keep the lights on,
not down to homeowners like turn it up. They're just
you know, shrugging their shoulders and saying it's back on

(05:29):
us to do it.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Oh, I love you, Ollie.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Thanks very much. Olive It Peters and six PR Perth
Live presenter.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
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