15 Nov 2023

What really caused the Optus outage?

From Nights, 9:20 pm on 15 November 2023

A spot of technological chaos befell Australia last week, when Optus - the second-largest telco operator in the country - experienced a catastrophic, 14-hour outage, preventing people from making calls or using the internet, and forcing shops to go cash-only for the period More than 10-million Australians and some 400-thousand businesses were affected, and Optus was heavily criticised for its … unforthcoming … response. It's now been revealed the outage was caused by a routine software update gone awry - but does that explanation stack up, and what does it say about the solidity of telco services that something so routine could lead to such calamity? We're joined by technology commentator Bill Bennett.