Optus Says Cisco Routers Responsible for Nationwide Outage

Optus CEO faced tough Senate questioning regarding the telco’s management of a recent 14-hour nationwide outage.

A Optus service message is displayed on a phone outside an Optus store in Sydney, Australia, on Oct. 5, 2022. Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin faced a grilling from senators about the telco’s handling of last week’s 14-hour nationwide outage,  which she said was caused by Cisco routers. 

“[The root cause of the issue] was that Cisco routers hit a fail-safe mechanism, which meant that each one of them independently shut down. That was triggered by the upgrade on the Singtel international peering network,” Ms. Rosmarin said.