Optus Archives - InnovationAus.com

‘Premature’ 3G shutdown risks public safety, inquiry warns

Justin Hendry — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:18:38 +0000

Australia’s 3G network shutdown should not go ahead as planned later this month, with a Senate committee warning the dangers it poses to public safety are “too great to ignore”. The committee has called on Communications minister Michelle Rowland to “urgently” meet with Telstra and Optus to postpone the shutdown, which is slated to take...

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Mass hack exposes ‘gaping’ hole in small business privacy

Justin Hendry — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 05:46:41 +0000

The federal government is being urged to close a “gaping” hole in Australia’s antiquated privacy regime by removing the small business carve out, following the country’s largest data breach since 2018. Simon Bush, the chief executive of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), made the appeal on Friday, ahead of long-awaited amendments to the Privacy...

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ACCC uncovers Google’s secret ad deal with Telstra and Optus

Joseph Brookes — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 07:09:23 +0000

The competition regulator has uncovered deals between Google and Australia’s biggest telcos that saw the tech giant’s search services preinstalled on mobile phones in exchange for a cut of its digital ad revenue. Optus and Telstra held the deals with Google since at least 2017 but have provided the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)...

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Optus picks up $578m Services Aus contact centre work

Joseph Brookes — Fri, 07 Jun 2024 08:13:12 +0000

Services Australia is switching its monster contact centre services contract to Optus after more than a decade with Telstra, with the smaller rival inking a new $578 million deal to replace the bulk of the work. Optus’s six-year contract kicked off this week to allow an 18-month transition off Telstra’s contact centre systems by the...

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Privacy watchdog loses $12m and faces funding cliff

Joseph Brookes — Thu, 30 May 2024 03:29:53 +0000

Australia’s national privacy office will lose more than $11 million in the next financial year as it faces a funding cliff and a backlog of investigations and freedom of information reviews. On Wednesday, the office said the investigations will continue as one-off funding for them runs dry, with other areas at the Office of the...

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Optus outage review: Telcos to face new Triple Zero rules

Justin Hendry — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 12:30:47 +0000

Telcos will face a suite of new obligations to ensure emergency calls are carried by other networks in the event of an outage and share real-time network data with a new co-ordination body under the biggest overhaul of Australia’s Triple Zero system in a decade. A post-incident review of the nationwide Optus outage that left...

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Stolen ID register blocks 300k fraud attempts

Justin Hendry — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 05:59:15 +0000

A government register introduced following one of Australia’s worst data breaches on record has blocked more than 300,000 fraudulent attempts to use stolen identity credentials legitimately in 18 months. The figures reveal for the first time the scale of attempts by fraudsters to use compromised passports, Medicare and driver’s licence data in the wake of...

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3G shutdown in spotlight after minister intervenes

Justin Hendry — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 03:53:06 +0000

Communications minister Michelle Rowland took the unprecedented step this week of intervening in the upcoming shutdown of Telstra and Optus’ 3G networks to ensure that more is done to notify customers that they may be affected. The minister’s intervention appears to have occurred as a response to the growing concern among the community that the...

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Readying for the looming 3G network shutdown

Justin Hendry — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 20:12:11 +0000

The three mobile network operators are progressively closing their 3G networks. TPG Telecom (Vodafone) commenced a progressive 3G network closure from 15 December 2023. Telstra will follow with a gradual shutdown of its 3G network commencing 30 June 2024. Optus commences its gradual shutdown on September 2024. Devices that only support 3G should be replaced...

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11 times more Triple Zero calls failed during Optus outage

Justin Hendry — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 07:42:16 +0000

Almost 2,700 emergency calls during last year’s Optus outage failed to connect to a Triple Zero operator, 11 times more than the embattled telco first disclosed to the media regulator and the Senate. The company made the admission late on Tuesday, with at least 2,697 customers unable to reach Triple Zero operators during the nationwide...

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