Two years of failures have left problem-plagued Optus with a multi-million-dollar hit to the brand's crumbling reputation, according to a public relations expert.
Sphere PR Managing Director Louise Roberts said reliability is everything to a telco and, after three triple-zero outages since 2023 and a mass data breach in 2022, Optus' brand has taken repeated blows.
"The Optus brand is now in a fragile, high-risk state," she told 9news.com.au.
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"For telcos, reliability and resilience are really non-negotiables, and repeated failures will damage their credibility in ways that a single event may not have."
Roberts said the continued blunders could cost Optus millions in a loss of customers, fines, and a damaged brand reputation.
She added that there may be lawsuits from the families of the three people who died during the triple-zero outage on September 18.
"They'll risk ongoing customer churn, intensified reliability scrutiny, they're probably going to be subject to quite significant fines," Roberts said.
"Companies can recover their reputation, but I think you'll find that Optus' issues will be mentioned for years to come."
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Days before the outage, a Roy Morgan survey ranked Optus as Australia's fourth most distrusted brand.
"It still has not recovered from the 2022 data breach," she said.
"Optus has really got to take a long, hard look at itself and make sure that in future, that they have not only invested in their network and resilience, but they have also revised their processes.
"They really need to demonstrate that they've made long-term structural changes."
Optus' problems started years before the first triple-zero outage earlier this month. Here is a breakdown of everything that led to today.
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November 8, 2023
4am: Optus begins experiencing a nationwide outage that affects all services, including triple-zero calls and NBN.
6.47am: Optus tells customers it is aware of the issue and is working to restore services.
12.55pm: Some services begin to come back online.
4pm: Most, if not all, services are restored.
November 13, 2023
The Australian Communications and Media Authority begins an investigation into the outage.
November 17, 2023
The Optus chief executive at the time, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, appears before the Senate to field questions on the outage and how the telco responded.
She insists she is not facing internal calls to step down.
November 20, 2023
Rosmarin resigns.
"Having now had time for some personal reflection, I have come to the decision that my resignation is in the best interest of Optus moving forward," she said at the time.
She is replaced in the interim by chief financial officer Michael Venter.
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January 24, 2023
Optus admits that almost 2700 triple-zero calls failed to connect, up from the initial 228 figure.
March 21, 2024
A government-commissioned review into the outage handed down its final report, making 18 recommendations to address structural issues within the broader telco system.
The federal government accepts all the recommendations.
May 6, 2024
Optus announces Stephen Rue as its new chief executive effective from November.
He is brought in to review the company and recover its reputation.
November 8, 2024
Exactly a year on from the 2023 triple-zero outage, the Australian Communications and Media Authority finds Optus failed to provide access to emergency services for 2145 people and failed to conduct 369 welfare checks on people who had tried to make an emergency call during the outage.
The telco pays a $12 million fine.
September 18, 2025
12.17am — 12.30am: Optus crews ready themselves for a firewall upgrade.
12.30am: Crews begin the upgrade.
1.30pm: Thirteen hours later, Optus becomes aware of an issue affecting triple-zero calls and works to resolve it.
3pm: Optus tells the Australian Communications and Media Authority that the outage affected 10 calls.
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September 19, 2025
3.40pm: Optus tells the Australian Communications and Media Authority that the outage actually affected 100 calls.
4pm: Optus tells the Australian Communications and Media Authority that the outage restricted more than 600 triple-zero calls, and three people died.
4.40pm: Newsrooms across the country receive an email alerting them to a flash press conference.
5.45pm: Rue tells the media that three people died in a triple-zero outage – two in South Australia and one in Western Australia.
This is the first time the public hears about the outage.
7pm: South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas holds his own press conference, in which he tells the media that Optus did not tell the state about the deaths before Rue fronted the media.
He says he has not witnessed "such incompetence from an Australian corporation in respect to communications worse than this".
Police in South Australia and Western Australia also say they were unaware of the emergency service breakdown until the press conference.
September 20, 2025
Rue tells the media that a fourth death has been confirmed in Western Australia.
He reveals that two people had called Optus' customer service centres alerting them to an issue affecting triple-zero calls on September 18, but the matter was not escalated.
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September 21, 2025
Rue calls another press conference, where he confirms the telco actually received at least five calls to the customer line about the outage, none of which were escalated.
"As we had not detected the triple-zero failures in our network at the time of these calls, there were no red flags for the contact centre to alert them to any live issues," he said.
South Australia Police confirm that the death of a four-month-old baby, which was initially linked to the outage, was most likely unrelated.
The death toll stands at two in Western Australia and one in South Australia.
September 22, 2025
The outage widens.
Optus says seven people were unable to contact triple-zero during the brief period the upgrade was being readied between 12.17am to 12.30am on September 18.
Communications Minister Anika Wells promises to hold the telco to account.
September 24, 2025
Rue confirms the outage was caused by human error.
Crews, comprised of Optus and third-party Nokia staff in Australia and India, had failed to follow step one of the upgrade process, which would have allowed emergency calls to be redirected through the network.
Optus commissions an independent review as its owner, Singapore-based Singtel Group, issues its first apology.
Singtel CEO Yuen Kuan Moon announces he will visit Australia the following week.
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September 28, 2025
Optus experiences yet another outage that affects 4500 people in NSW's Dapto region between 3am and 12.20pm and impacts nine triple-zero calls.
Optus confirms all the people who tried to contact triple zero were okay, with several of them being accidental or test calls.
September 30, 2025
Moon meets with Wells in Australia, where she tells him to bring in external advisors to independently assess the company's plans to avoid another outage.
Speaking to reporters, Moon declined to say whether he backs Rue.
"We brought in Stephen 11 months ago to transform Optus to really address the issues that we've had since 2022 and 2023," he said.
"It is very early days, it takes time to transform a company."
Where to now?
Optus has commissioned an internal review, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority is investigating.
Wells hints that there may be a wider review into the telco industry and emergency service network.
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