Optus insiders claim last week’s outage was inevitable because the telecom provider’s systems were not ready for an upgrade.
The company revealed on Monday that a “routine software upgrade” had caused last Wednesday’s blackout, which left 10 million users without service for up to 12 hours.
However, some staff within Optus claim the blackout was ‘avoidable’ because the telecom provider’s systems could not cope with the upgrade, 7News reported.
The revelation comes as a technology expert revealed how customers could turn their free data into cash – after Optus donated up to 200GB to Australians in compensation.
Optus told its unhappy customers on Monday afternoon that it had spent the past six days trying to discover what went wrong and insisted it had “taken steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again”.
Optus insiders claim last week’s outage was unavoidable because the telco’s systems were not ready for an upgrade, which ultimately caused the outage.
“Around 4:05 a.m. on Wednesday morning, the Optus network received changes to the routing information of an international peering network following a routine software upgrade,” the statement said.
“These changes to routing information propagated through multiple layers in our network and exceeded preset security levels on key routers that could not handle them.”
Optus insiders who claimed the outage would inevitably occur have reportedly been advised not to speak publicly about the matter.
Griffith University’s Graeme Hughes said Optus was currently playing a “fine line” and demanding transparency from the telecommunications giant.
Ny Breaking Australia contacted Optus for comment.
Along with an apology, Optus users have been offered up to 200GB of free data to make up for the blackout.
With many left unimpressed by the compensation offer, technology expert Trevor Long has shared his tips on how customers can get the free data and some extra cash in their pockets.
“Look, I’ve been pretty clear that I think the 200GB data offer to Optus customers is a joke,” he said in a column for EFTM.
“Offering a lot of data to people who already have a lot of data and yet not having to pay anything for excess data is merely symbolic and shows a lack of understanding of consumer sentiment.”
Mr Long advised people to switch to a cheaper plan, which would mean paying less for less data as they are still entitled to the 200GB.
He said the average user had a $69 per month subscription.
Tech expert Trevor Long has shared his tips on how customers can get the free data and some extra cash in their pockets
“But if you called Optus today and asked them to switch to the $49 plan, which offers 30GB of data, they would lose $20 in revenue this month,” he continued.
“100,000 people do that, they lost $2 million. The more the merrier.
‘I hear you now – 30 GB is not enough, oh, but alas, dear friends, on Monday (according to Optus) or between then and the end of the year you can activate an additional 200 GB of data – thanks to the outage.
“So from $69 to $49 you’re basically back to square one: the same amount of data to use (or a little more), and an extra $20 in your pocket for Christmas!”
Mr Long said Optus customers who need more data can always call the telecoms provider next month and increase their phone plan.