An error committed during a firewall upgrade in September resulted in a widespread service outage affecting multiple states and territories, leaving customers unable to reach emergency services.

Appearing before a Senate inquiry today, Optus CEO Stephen Rue acknowledged the shortcomings in the company’s handling of the incident both during and after the disruption.

“It’s clear from the timeline that there were delays and mistakes,” Rue stated.

He expressed regret over the tragic loss of life during the outage, emphasizing that the impact lingers both personally for individuals and collectively for the company as they continue their investigation.

“I completely accept that there were elements of how events unfolded and how we communicated on September 18 and 19 that should have been managed more effectively,” Rue admitted.

Rue said correct steps and procedures were not followed after the company became aware of the outage and admitted that despite the offshore call centre believing the network hadn’t failed, the issue should have been escalated.

“This was a unique situation whereby the call centre people believed the network was not failing, but they should have escalated those calls,” Rue said.

“The initial mistake, a human error, occurred when the wrong process plan was selected for a routine firewall upgrade.

“The selected plan did not divert traffic before locking equipment inside the exchange that routes triple-zero calls.

“This error was not detected because control steps were not followed and alarms were not acted on at the time.”

Rue insisted this was “an explanation, not an excuse”.

He also insisted the company had not been misleading in its delay in confirming how many calls were impacted in the outage.

“I wouldn’t characterise it as misleading, it was information as we knew it at the time,” he said.

“Sadly, it turned out to be different, we accept that.”

Rue, who came into the company in 2023 after previous CEO Kelly Rosmarin resigned in the wake of a nationwide outage, is also under increased pressure to keep his job.

“There were I think 10 failures here, 10 failures. And if you’re asking me whether I am alarmed at that, I can assure you I am,” he said.

“However, this man was brought into this company to make sure we became a company that didn’t have 10 failures like that.

“Now that’s his job, and I’m expecting him to finish it.”

Rue said it was not the right time for him to step away from the company.

“I firmly believe that another change of leader at this time is not what Optus needs, or what our customers need,” he said.

Optus has been criticised for having critical infrastructure and call centres located offshore, and Rue said the company had made changes as a result of the triple-zero failure.

“We will take back calls that relate to triple-zero calls and relate to vulnerable customers… and ensure that they are dealt with onshore in Australia. And we’re in the process of doing exactly that,” he said.

“Our contact centre procedures have been overhauled, including a mandatory escalation process for any customer reports of triple-zero issues.”