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Three people died after Optus network failure impacted triple-0 calls (www.abc.net.au)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/australia@aussie.zone
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[–] [S] -3 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I'm not defending or particularly interested in the outage. If their service is unsatisfactory, leave them. That's business and they probably deserve it.

What I find amazing is that they're being held to a standard that no other private business is held to. I see no fundamental difference between this company offering a service and any other.

Forget tech, compare them to Macca's. Imagine a service outage that meant Macca's couldn't sell you burgers today. You'd shrug and take your business elsewhere.

Optus is getting brought before the government for a "Please explain" and a $12 Million fine. Yes, they own infrastructure. That's my point. It's theirs. They can in theory decide to just stop offering their product tomorrow.

Somehow we have reached a point where enough people totally rely on their service that they face this level of scrutiny when they stuff up.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    Well, we privatised our national carrier, so who else are we going to hold accountable for people being able to call emergency services?

    I think you're also failing to understand the concept that Optus don't just get to operate with zero conditions. They hold a license to operate their service, and one of the conditions of that license is providing emergency service access.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    Forget tech, compare them to Macca’s. Imagine a service outage that meant Macca’s couldn’t sell you burgers today. You’d shrug and take your business elsewhere.

    Kinda yeah but nah, I see this with apps like Duolingo where people bitch endlessly about it, I'm like if you hate it so much just go use another app :| why are you rewarding them with your subscription money if you hate it so much?

    But Telcos are regulated by these guys:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Communications_and_Media_Authority

    We recently had this requirement (thanks to Optus 🫥) handed to us all:

    https://www.acma.gov.au/rules-significant-and-major-outages

    If we want to make sure we don't get fined we all agree to implement this rule (despite being a pain in the ass) and all the other rules they set for us

    the equivalent would be regulations that Maccas have to agree to in order to sell burgers, so I assume it would be something like food safety standards? https://www.health.gov.au/topics/food-and-nutrition/about/food-standards-and-safety

    So if Maccas screw up and violate one of these standards then they are fined and if it was a big enough issue where multiple people died I assume they'd be dragged before the government for a please explain and maybe even shut down until the issue was fixed

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Telstra got fucked for the same thing literally last year though

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  • [–] [S] -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Telstra is a different matter. The government still has hooks into them. They're under contractual obligations and service level agreements and if they breach those, there are financial penalties.

    I suppose Optus must have signed something with the government also? Though I don't recall reading anything about it. I can't think under what other pretext the government can just issue a huge fine for not providing a product.

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