Australia vows to bolster resilience of telco networks after Singtel-owned Optus outage

An Optus shop in Sydney, Australia on Nov 8, 2023. (File photo: Reuters/Kirsty Needham)

SYDNEY: Australia's government pledged on Sunday (Sep 13) to bolster resilience in the nation's telecommunications networks after an outage at Optus, the country's No. 2 carrier, impacted users in three states and disrupted some emergency service calls.

The 76-minute technical glitch on Friday affected Optus voice calling services ​in parts of Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania states and ​the Northern Territory, with some customers experiencing "intermittent call ⁠dropouts", according to Optus.

It followed an Optus network ​issue last year that left hundreds of people unable to contact police, fire and ambulance services and resulted in two deaths.

Asked on Sunday about the latest outage, Communications Minister Anika Wells said "no piece of infrastructure, be it roads, bridges, poles, wires, is 100 per cent resilient".

"What we need to do is make sure these systems are as resilient as we can possibly make them," Wells said in televised remarks.

Optus, ⁠owned by Singapore Telecommunications, on Saturday apologised for the glitch, which the centre-left government described as "deeply concerning" and said was being investigated.

In ​2024, Optus was fined A$12 million by regulators for failing to provide emergency call services to thousands during ⁠a ​nationwide outage in 2023. Optus also ​suffered a cyberattack in 2022 that affected the data of around 9.5 million ​Australians.

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2023年11月8日，澳大利亚悉尼的一家Optus门店。（资料照片：路透社/Kirsty Needham）

悉尼：澳大利亚政府周日（9 月 13 日）承诺加强该国电信网络的韧性。此前，该国第二大电信运营商 Optus 发生网络故障，影响了三个州的用户，并中断了一些紧急服务电话。

据 Optus 称，周五发生的 76 分钟技术故障影响了维多利亚州、南澳大利亚州、塔斯马尼亚州和北领地部分地区的 Optus 语音通话服务，一些客户遇到了“间歇性通话中断”。

此前，Optus 去年曾出现网络故障，导致数百人无法联系警察、消防和救护服务，并造成两人死亡。

周日，当被问及最近发生的停电事件时，通信部长阿尼卡·威尔斯表示，“没有任何基础设施，无论是道路、桥梁、电线杆还是电线，是 100% 具有弹性的。”

“我们需要做的就是确保这些系统尽可能地具有韧性，”威尔斯在电视讲话中说道。

新加坡电信旗下的Optus公司周六就此次故障道歉，中左翼政府称该故障“令人深感担忧”，并表示正在对此进行调查。

2024年，Optus因在2023年全国范围内的网络中断期间未能向数千人提供紧急呼叫服务，被监管机构罚款1200万澳元。Optus还在2022年遭受了一次网络攻击，影响了约950万澳大利亚人的数据。

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