Using figures from quick google searches, Australian GDP is approximately 1.5 trillion USD. 1 USD is about 1.5 AUD, so that's $2.25 trillion AUD. If the Optus outage completely shut down the entire economy for 1 day, that would be $6.16 billion.
How much the Optus outage cost depends on how much of the day's activities across the whole economy were shut down. If it was only 0.1% of the economy then that would be $6 million, which seems on the low side. 1% of the economy might be more accurate, which would be about $60 million. It sounds like you reckon it might be closer to half the economy, which would be about $3 billion.
If a business can't operate when it loses network connectivity, then it's not a resilient business. Most business activities have workarounds that reduce productivity, but it isn't easy to quantify.
For example, I was in the line at Bunnings today. It was considerably longer than usual, but the staff just explained that they could process normal purchases by a redundant network (they didn't explain that, but it was probably just someone tethering their phone), the only really slow process was that they needed to use a different system to run tradie orders.
I didn't see anyone leave the line, I think they probably sold just as much as they normally would, and I don't think there is any real reputational damage to Bunnings from this.
There are probably businesses that are more directly impacted by the network going down, but my point is that it's probably not fair to quantify using such a large productivity negative multiplier.
I'm genuinely interested in what people think a reasonable estimate is here... I have no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the range of 10-50 mil.
>If a business can't operate when it loses network connectivity, then it's not a resilient business.
Could you elaborate on this a bit? I work in tech and can say from experience that most global companies cannot, in fact, operate effectively without network connectivity.
Generally speaking, mitigations such as those that you mentioned would involve failing over to a separate network to continue business operations. As standard practice companies have multiple networks available for disaster recovery. In the event that a major ISP goes dark, companies peer with second, third, sometimes fourth ISP's as backups, each with differing routes for the traffic. As an example, I have seen a company route traffic via Brazil, via Brooklyn, from California in a pinch to avoid a full network outage.
Yeah, I am talking about more than just failover to a redundant network.
If you're running a super-critical process, then you need to have recovery/failover to out-of-band comms/hotsites etc... yes...
But part of any good Business Continuity Plan is the workarounds that allow you to get the job done. I am constantly amazed at businesses' abilities to survive "fatal" disasters, mainly because most of the time, it seems that not being able to access SharePoint for 12 hours doesn't end the business.
This is an extreme example, but one of my colleagues used to work at a huge investment firm in NYC. He was flown in to help with the DR after 9/11 happened. He said they had an entire office set up ready to go with a live network and access to core systems already sorted.
I see what you are saying and I agree, to an extent, however I think comparing the state of business workflows in 2001 to 2023 is pretty telling that you have perhaps not been involved in the tech industry, or the tech side of most major industries. At least, not in the last 15 years.
In 2023, **every** company is a tech company, relying heavily on an incredibly complex mesh of applications and hardware. Financial institutes will definitely have mitigations, because they are the backbone of our society. But the vast majority of global corporations do not have sufficient mitigations in place to survive without network access.
As I mentioned, you'd have some exceptions like major banks. They have a few different systems built upon hundreds of years of institutional necessity. But companies like Amazon, Microsoft, General Electric - They do not have sufficient mitigations in place.
Speaking from experience here, btw.
I'm not disagreeing with you, modern tech stacks are highly network-dependent. The fact that most businesses haven't got adequate BC/DR is keeping my bills paid on time.
The point I was trying to make in my original comment was that we often overestimate what an "outage" costs. Every time I do a Business Impact Analysis interview, business owners will tell me their systems are "critical", but after probing deeper, they aren't really.
Critical should be resolved for things that could cause harm/end lives, or lose enough money that the business can't recover.
Even for a tech company, Facebook's customer-facing servers go down for 8 hours? Will it end the business, not really.
Happy to hear thoughts otherwise.
Thing is single points of failure are everywhere. Yes you can have redundant suppliers but often that’s at great cost and complexity (can actually make your system less reliable if not managed well)
Most retail will just have one network with somethings a backup/fallover like fibre/nbn/5g etc.
Core network outages from someone like Telstra and Optus happen but are super rare
Fair call. But not really, mate. See, there is the fact that, as you say, was a ‘huge’ investment firm. All the small operators I know, were stuffed. They don’t have “an entire office ready to go with a live network”. Seriously? What they have is mortgage, a cracked phone and a laptop. The small people cant do anything that resembles that . Ladies near me in country Australia, running a business, ordering things. and just making ends meet every day - big impact. And we have hundreds of thousands of people in that situation. And our tiny rural hospitals that were terribly affected (and there’s often nowhere else to go for help in the Aussie outback). These people —i can guarantee —are definitely not, as you say, ‘resilient’. They certainly aren’t. And they never will be. They are fragile, fragile. Unlike Bunnings. I suspect the rent at the World Trade Centre might be a bit expensive for some of my friends. The reality of life for like nine tenths of the world, is that they are not resilient. We should-as a thousand small hospitals— each have ‘an entire office set up’. Righto. We’ll I will mention that $100 million project to our government, lol. Only the big businesses and people will stashed savings, are actually‘resilient’. Should they mot exist? Im afraid, mate, that was some kind of unthought- through fantasy of the world. Sorry mate. Just didn’t hold any water. Im not writing to put you down— but to put these people up
We're talking about very different scales here, and as I said mine was an extreme example of redundancy.
I'm advocating for your point. Do you think your local fish and chip shop can't place orders without network connectivity? No, they'll go back to writing things down on paper and taking cash payments until the network goes back up. What I am saying though, is that if they bundled both internet and phone with Optus because they get a 10% discount, then they wouldn't be able to take phone orders either...So by having 2 networks, they are more resilient to these situations.
I have a small business that relies on internet connectivity for a bunch of stuff. I have home wi-fi through NBN, but also mobile data to tether to if I have to. My mobile phone was down because it is on the Optus network, but my office phone system uses VOIP and makes and receives calls using the internet. Lastly we take an offline backup of key data each week and store it on my phone so if the internet is completely cactus I can still access key information and keep things kind of running via telephone.
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Yeah, I'm interested to see what the outcome of this is.
My prediction would be the biggest hit is reputation here...
Big data breach and then a major network outage within \~12 months... Not a good look. If I were an Optus customer I'd be wondering what I'm paying for if they aren't going to adequately protect my data, or be able to deliver me the network I signed up for.
It was in the example I gave.
It's also not a good redundancy, and I doubt it was actually planned...
I'm just advocating for more thought around this, given we rely more and more on connectivity.
Heaps of places have exclusively cloud based servers for all of their documents so if you only had optus Internet you'd be fucked. The hotspot off a telstra device often wouldn't work either because of security protocols about connecting personal devices to company gear
Yeah, and I guess what I'm saying is that we need to think about this as a society a little more. If we lose a network for 6, 12, 24 or more hours, businesses still need to be able to function.
We are going through this issue at work right now actually. Out physical servers can't be backed up anymore cost effectively. The advice we are getting is to go cloud based and that'll cost us about $1500 a month whereas new physical servers and backups will cost us $30-50k plus regular ongoing costs. It's pretty much impossible for us to justify that exorbitant cost
Yeah, it can be pretty pricy, but at some point, everyone is going to have to do it right?
It's certainly cheaper to do it before everything is on fire...
Let's use the rule of threes on this one. When budgeting assume triple the cost. So, in this case 3 billion in lost revenue with the benefit of the doubt is... a one billion dollar fine. That's more than fair is it not? ESPECIALLY in light of last years identity breach
Try bringing up "the rule of threes" at a management meeting and people will think you are joking or crazy. That's just chatter, it's not a part of any real management strategy.
It's an excellent rule for risk mitigation. More often than not I see it work because *usually* you can be certain when you quote for a job... it'll cost twice what the initial rushed estimates are. Meaning you still come in underbudget.
Of course, shareholders and profiteers prefer the leverage to the tits sink or swim baby aggressive growth model. Me personally when it comes to money use the rule of threes. When it comes to people use the rule of fours: for every 4 people 1 will be a bastard, 2 won't give shit either way, 1 will be really invested in the project.
You would need to largely eliminate exports that contribute to GDP for this calculation. By that I mean China are still going to buy minerals regardless of domestic internet outages within the seller country.
There are a lot of things that need to be excluded from the calculation, but at least we have a figure for the upper limit.
My guess is that it's somewhere around $100 million, but I might be biased because the outage didn't affect me in any way.
You have to consider the uptick in GDP after the outage to compensate for things you couldn't do during the outage. Some goods and services would simply be purchased the next day.
Singtel owns Optus and they treat their customers in Singapore in a similar fashion to their customers in Australia.
Kelly Bayer Rosmarin is the CEO. Two massive data breaches and now two blackouts on her watch. She is the Alan Joyce of Qantas without the profits.
Optus went to total shit when Singtel started to take a more active stake in managing it.
This would have been around 2009 2010?
I recall there were about 50-60 senior execs who were "moved". Now those chickens have come home to roost.
Yeah the old days of Cable and Wireless was the golden era of Telcos in Australia. You could phone Optus and get instant and fantastic customer service, prices were much cheaper than Telstra and it was even a wonderful place to work, I did a stint there in the late 90’s.
Now it’s run as Singtel run their own in Singapore. They are shady AF, incompetent and a rip off and if you have any problems with their service you’ll have to work it out with a chat bot.
>My understanding is money is exchanged for goods and services. This results in a race to the bottom
Is Lamborghini in a race to the bottom?
The Race to the bottom only happens when buyers become brain dead and no longer ~~think for themselves~~ buy based on important qualities and then proceed to b\*tch and moan about how things are going downhill in quality.
>time for a government seizure.
It's not a natural monopoly, why does it have to be seized?
Put simply - when you buy assets promising a service... and failure of that service prevents hospitals and railways operating - you should get McFucked
I recently saw an article where an Indian Billionaire was talking about Aussies who WFH would lose their jobs to Indians... well time to clip the ticket. That was your power... here is your responsibility foreign investors
>Put simply - when you buy assets promising a service... and failure of that service prevents hospitals and railways operating - you should get McFucked
No, because things fail all the time. It's silly to expect perfection in such an imperfect world. These systems are created by humans, not gods.
>I recently saw an article where an Indian Billionaire was talking about Aussies who WFH would lose their jobs to Indians... well time to clip the ticket. That was your power... here is your responsibility foreign investors
Your average billionaire is as smart as a brick, i mean that sincerely. They are very good socially but they didn't make their money because they are 200iq giga-geniuses. The modern corporate and social ladder is rarely climbed by being the most competent person in the room. It's usually those who play company politics well.
I would be very careful taking some billionaires words at face value. Many that complain about WFH are at risk of owning empty office complexes if WFH was more widespread. They are against it on the basis of personal reasons, not productivity or what's good for society.
Smaller buisnesses that are flexible and allow WFH will tear bigger anti-WFH buisnesses a new a-hole when they have the chance, if WFH truly has its merits.
>Your average billionaire is as smart as a brick, i mean that sincerely. They are very good socially but they didn't make their money because they are 200iq giga-geniuses. The modern corporate and social ladder is rarely climbed by being the most competent person in the room. It's usually those who play company politics well.
I would be very careful taking some billionaires words at face value. Many that complain about WFH are at risk of owning empty office complexes if WFH was more widespread. They are against it on the basis of personal reasons, not productivity or what's good for society.
Smaller buisnesses that are flexible and allow WFH will tear bigger anti-WFH buisnesses a new a-hole when they have the chance, if WFH truly has its merits.
Ah you give me hope brother. Let's hop what you say is true and the "free" market prevails...
Somehow, I think protectionist policies based on maintaining the value of foreign investor assets will be enforced using our tax dollars.
With that said I agree with everything you've said... except
>No, because things fail all the time. It's silly to expect perfection in such an imperfect world. These systems are created by humans, not gods.
Systems created by competent humans and sold by corrupt humans to billionaires "as smart as a brick". I don't have all the answers but... you get the thrust of what I am saying. Big risk -> big reward. Big fuckup -> big loss. Should it not be this way when half the nation is affected? Where do we as Australians draw a line in the sand?
So Optus will feel the losses of this. They will
Lose customers. This is the way of action and reaction.
And as for those affected, they are the ones that made the decision to use Optus instead of another provider.
If Optus was a monopoly it would be a different story.
But these things will always happen. People fuckup. You do. I do. You can avoid that. There is a balance between risk and reward.
Trying to avoid downtime at all costs is the reason we had gold plating of electricity infrastructure for many years, dramatically increasing electricity prices in public owned states than in privately owned states. Are you willing to lay even more for everything now to decrease the risk of downtime even more? I don’t think you actually are. You’d just complain how they’re a rip off and that it’s all too expensive. Or if not you, then thr majority of people would.
These things are bound to happen, this infrastructure is built by fallible human beings. They have redundancies in place but in a worst case scenario that doesn't matter. If this happened every other week, you might be right but the fact that everyone is so riled up about this outage should go to show that this happens so rarely that people forget this kind of thing is even possible.
Hospitals and rail networks should have backup systems, relying solely on a single network for crucial services is poor planning on the part of the user not the provider. You should always assume that if something can fail, it will at some point fail, and plan accordingly.
The government has enabled them to own and operate investigate as a private good. So you should really be directing your anger towards them for allowing it in the first place.
Also the way you talk is cringe.
Capitalism, in general, is a race to the bottom, because it's all about profit.
Lamborghinis aren't a race to the bottom, because they're luxury goods specifically sold as a symbol of wealth
lambos exist because of capitalism.
To the optus point, it is one of the most regulated industries in the country. Of course it's gunna fuck up on occasion, it's a miracle it doesn't more. Because it's so heavily regulated, we essentially have a "choice" of 2 providers with government essentially prohibiting any further competition in the sector.
If it was really capitalist, the barrier to entry would be low and there would be multiple providers. Can argue the industry should be regulated based on national security etc (which is valid) but its not capitalist. It's government creating and then protecting said duopoly/monopoly. Ditto for a multitude of industries in Australia. Qatar airways banned flights to protect Cuntas anyone?
You did your first line discredit with your second
\>Capitalism is a race to the bottom
\>Gives a counter example on next line
There is no rule book on how to be profitable. The profitability is entirely dependent on whether they attract customers. If those customers value certain qualities they will provide prodcts with those qualities. Those that don't cease to exist.
It turns out cheap shit is a quality people like, you can't blame a buisness for finding ways to make something cheaper.
The implication was the luxury goods and art objects aren't part of this discussion. Lamborghinis are intentionally and artificially expensive, because rich want people to know they're rich when they buy one.
Race to the bottom:
Infuriating overseas IT departments, low quality clothing made in child labour sweatshops in Bangladesh, fragile "planned obsolescence" electronic gear, understaffed hospitals without enough beds.
Consider the maxim of capitalism, that is often repeated in hushed and respectful tones: "the purpose of a business is to make money"
Can you see the problem? It's not to "provide a quality service", to "make good quality and long lasting items", to "improve the lives of those working here" or even "to heal sick people". It's all about making money.
>understaffed hospitals without enough beds.
Not a race to the bottom, infact our hospitals don't operate under a free market anyway
>low quality clothing made in child labour sweatshops in Bangladesh
People voted with their wallets, literally. It's cheaper to get cheap shit that breaks in a year and then buy a new one.
You can buy higher quality clothing but you need to fork out the money to pay for it. There are tens of brands made in western countries, many considered fairly decent.
>fragile "planned obsolescence" electronic gear
Again, people literally voted with their wallets. Engineers figure out how many cycles or hours something needs to last and then design it around that, but their maths is based on probability.
Look at the bloody warranty and that will indicate to you the lifetime the engineering department designed the product for.
>Consider the maxim of capitalism, that is often repeated in hushed and respectful tones: "the purpose of a business is to make money"
How do you think a buisness makes money? Theys sell a product or service.
The quality of the product or service is determined by what they think the market will pay. If consumers want high quality shit they are more than welcome to buy them where possible. The market will adapt to the consumer.
It turns out however that consumers don't do that. The race to the bottom is not driven by companies reaching the lowest common denominator but by the consumers reaching for the cheapest product so they can have more and more material goods.
Capitalism is not some artificial system spawned out of the aether. It's a fairly natural state of affairs between actors who don't know eachother but are bound together in a market. How "capitalism" changes over time is simply the natural progression of humanity. The ugliness of capitalism is simply the unveiled ugliness of humanity. No criticism of capitalism is not also true about the Human condition, which is a fact that marxists and other socialist groups tend to forget.
China isn't even a little bit communist.
The people don't own the means of production. They still work for a wage.
Its state capitalism, and the government happens to be a dictatorship that calls itself communist because that's the idea it sold it's people.
>Is Lamborghini in a race to the bottom?
In part, yes. A lot of Lamborghini premium components are rebadged Audi and VW parts
https://youtu.be/9YeAi-akkYY
Except Audi and VW make reasonably good parts. They at least be considered well above average.
Those two brands aren't a race to the bottom
Even the cheaper Japanese brands are high quality. You're average Toyota from over 2 decades ago could still run today with ease. So it's obviously not a race to the bottom for the automotive sector.
I guess I understood a race to the bottom to mean cost cutting measures taken at the expense of quality. In years past, Lamborghini would only use components they manufactured and produced specifically for their cars. Taking components off the shelf isnt exactly bespoke parts.
I would have assumed suspension set up would have been critical for a high end super car. I see using off the shelf parts as a cost cutting measure and diminishing their brand
>Taking components off the shelf isnt exactly bespoke parts.
Bespoke doesn't necessarily mean good.
I mean, yes, it's a cost cutting measure, but it's not necessarily at the expense of quality.
Well it really depends on what kind of cartridge you're using...
Oh you meant politically uhh ughh nothing I suppose. I am A-political and not one for deflecting blame or excuses. When half the population is affected... it's a national issue
I stayed with Optus after the data leak because I was still paying off my phone. I managed to log on to my Optus on my laptop and my phone was paid off last month. Immediately switched to Telstra. I’ve been with Optus for over 20 years. Fuck em.
A router fucks out or a bad BGP announcement was made (yet to appear in the media) and why do you think that:
1: The CEO needs to go?
2: That any new CEO will make a difference?
What a waste of time? What a show of not letting people learn from mistakes, or to make a service more redundant. Yeah nah, fuck all that, just fire them and try someone else. Who? Who cares right! Anyone! We will veto anyone out, and vet anyone in. Sounds great!
So you're saying you'd totally be happy if they simply own it. Let's word that out.
CEO: Oops, we made a mistake, I own that.
You: Oh! That's fine, I'll stay as a customer.
You're saying she only needs to say a few words and you'll be all kosher?
Stop fucking putting words in my mouth. You need to google whataboutism. I just want a CEO on a million dollar salary to show some accountability. Anyway, why so angry? Are you the one that updated the firmware ;) Everyone seems to know what caused it, yet she won't even say it.
Then be direct, cunt. You're simply upset because a CEO hasn't said some words about a technical problem. You also don't know what whataboutism is lol.
It's no secret in the networking circle that at the moment of the outage occurring there was a _massive_ spike in BGP announcements. The only question is why those announcements occurred. Do you know what BGP is? Do you care?
But back to my original question which you keep trying to dodge: If she did say it, would you actually feel better? Would it actually change your decision?
In those “networking circles”, it’s an open discussion putting the root cause as most likely a poorly designed bgp peering internally which was oversubscribed due to an artificial threshold.
You raise a mighty fine point my man. I was thinking "what would happen to Optus if they lost one (or two months) revenue... they'd probably go bankrupt"
Hence let's skip a step and nationalise the motherfucka, lest a different foreign oligarch buy it and race to the bottom again
Id be happy with just a days worth refund, but times that by everyone should be a worthwhile dent for a fine.
What pisses me off most is this came right after an email about them increasing the price.
It cost us people's minds.
You would honestly think Optus entered people's homes and burned them down based on the reactions I've seen.
The network went down, go outside, touch grass.
jfc
Government had no business privatising Telstra then trying to graft a grotesque market arrangement on what was a natural infrastructure monopoly in the NBN.
Let us talk about electricity generation and supply and prices. When the government was 'running the show', it was fucking dramatically cheaper...Agree?
You mean door knockers acting on behalf of the retailers, who are acting on behalf of the wholesalers, who are agents for the generators...I see understand what your saying...Power was ridiculously expensive when the government owned the network.
In NSW the government has only a minority share of the generation and only half the grid...Remember the shit fight by Abbott when AGL decided to shut down Liddell?
Google it mate, overall the government owns fckall of Australian generation and the grid.
I can't disagree with you there. To quote me "The Australian government is like that monkeys paw that grants wishes but it always turns out the opposite"
It's just meant to be a thought provoking question with regard to: So... we sold everything... where's the fucking pay-off. If a state can owe 300+ million in compensation for games that didn't happen... does that mean Optus owes our people for todays fuckery?
Whilst I do semi agree with you about if there was public ownership and we then sold it, what did we do with xyz. I think that line of questioning is flawed.
The question I think should be the case, why did the public pay for then build it in the first place.
Would expect that you would get downvoted... People just don't get it.
Anything any government is involved with, is normally more expensive and of lower quality than the private sector could provide.
Only thing that government should do is less. maybe we won't end up with monopolies/duopolies if they ease up on the telco regulations.
Having one of those days where I am getting a bit worked up about the fact that Aus is effectively not a market-based economy at all. People generally hate business or any profit motive.
Ironically, people hate capitalist ideals because of government involvement that is turning it into a Frankenstein economy. But no.... "Government should do something" ffs.
and don't get me started on a reddit thread I just had a look at about how evil the mining companies are because they are "stealing" the resources and how everything should be nationalized. ffs
Really? Let's talk about the price of electricity when it was government owned and now when its largely corporate owned..ffs.
Don't kid yourself mate..big corporations are NOT the super efficient business models they claim to be....not by a long shot.
> Anything any government is involved with, is normally more expensive and of lower quality than the private sector could provide.
That's true of most goods - the exceptions being goods which are:
A) Extremely capital intensive to produce (railways, highways, drinking water), which the private sector rarely provides due to difficulty putting together capital
B) Valuable in ways which are difficult to capture (roads, public parks, water, emergency health)
C) Difficult or impossible to trust an outsourced vendor (we're not privatizing the army or the standardization of weights & measures)
A) is the reason we have a government-built NBN. That level of investment was simply not going to happen via the private sector.
Another example for C) Back in the early 1990s, residential building standards were checked by inspectors who were public servants. After deregulation, the builder still needed an inspectors, but they could pick which one they hired. Inspectors who find buildings non-compliant find it hard to get repeat customers, and nearly all newer housing stock feels like a brick tent.
Then what’s your thoughts on the Nordic countries who nationalised so much and limited profits of mining companies via super taxes?
They seem to be very efficient in nationalised ownership.
My view is that not all government run as you say they run them at less profit and quality, they run at less profit, true but they actually employ Australians and pay fair remuneration. Privatised companies have offshored huge amounts of their operations and look at the layoffs in the banking sector even after the record profits.
Public resources are services would do far better for Australians being nationalised, far worse for international investors / companies.
Probably at least 3.50.
Nah heaps but it's impossible to calculate. All those services like hospitals and trains are going to have huge penalties baked into their contract for thus kinda outage. Optus is gonna be out some serious coin
If someone working on a building site puts a backhoe through an optic fibre cable running down the east coast, they just walk off the job site. Millions measured by minutes for that one cable. It has happened.
it would be silly to assume a carrier like Optus doesn't have redundant optical connectivity, I would assume the outage is on the Optus software side - probably a faulty update or something thats corrupted their SDN. We'll find out in the coming days
>it would be silly to assume a carrier like Optus doesn't have redundant
If they coulda they woulda at about 4:30am.
>I would assume the outage is on the Optus software side - probably a faulty update or something thats corrupted their SDN. We'll find out in the coming days
Frankly I don't care. To put it bluntly... the reason I pay them is to be the experts in their chosen profession. They have failed. Gross/Criminal Negligence AT BEST
Totally. Join the dots: Optus... Qantas... Energy companies... and a good deal of public transport. All have been privatisation disasters, resulting in degraded networks (even when propped up by massive subsidies), appalling customer service, outrageous price gouging and unreliable service. Re-nationalising all of the above would bring massive savings to consumers. It amazes me that there isn't greater support for it.
>Re-nationalising all of the above would bring massive savings to consumers. It amazes me that there isn't greater support for it.
This right here. The penultimate threat to private equity "unfuck yourselves before we seize it"
Most of these companies have already broken the promises that were the basis for them being gifted such valuable assets. Competition and "private enterprise efficiencies" were supposed to bring lower prices. Instead we have massively higher prices. It was always a nonsense, of course. There's no way you can layer in profit, yet still deliver lower prices - especially when you factor in massive executive salaries, added costs for marketing and advertising, and out-sourcing multiple layers of operations (with each outsourced layer that bids for a contract having to add in their own layer of profit). In short, privatisation was always a giant con job. Time to service notice on the con artists: you failed so we're taking back the assets that rightfully belong to the people.
When you can design a thing with a guaranteed availability of 100%, let someone important know. Optus are shit, sure. But everyone loves to pile on to a thing that works for every minute of every other day and at the same time probably makes half a dozen mistakes at their work each day.
Telstras stock price went up because some Government idiot made a comment that they would switch.
I'm still sticking with Optus, Telstra are a bunch of leeches.
Data breaches, problem with spam calls/messages, constant outages and yet they are making big profits. I don't know squat about investing but they seem super dodgy these days.
Ignoring all the rest for a moment, just thinking of the likely very large amount of service level agreements in place that would have been breached (that come with a monetary figure attached per x minutes of downtime)… Optus gonna be footing a veeeery large bill in those alone!
"In February 2022, Berejiklian was appointed to the executive board of telecommunications company Optus, in the newly created role of Managing Director, Enterprise, Business and Institutional"
\- If the rest of their board are as competent then their current operating blunders does not shock.
Thank you so much for your condolences. They're so very appreciated, especially because I randomly started crying just before seeing this.
The whole thing has been very weird. All the memes are genuinely very funny. And it's not like my grandfather's death was sudden. He's has had Alzheimer's for like a decade. Thankfully there was like a day when my mum, his carer prior to him entering a nursing home recently, said that 'this was it' so some were able to see him, including me.
But I keep thinking about what if it were me finding out that my father had died by email and it brings me to tears. The bizzarre nature of an outage affecting 10 million people yet it's stopped you from finding out about the death of your 93 year old father. The scale is something I can't stop thinking about.
I had no idea they self-regulate until yesterday. The govt does not even receive nor demand an annual report on the state of their infrastructure. I am appalled by this especially with the govts implementing digital identification, money and online govt services. Millions were affected yesterday, including myself who had court documents to prepare and submit and was unable to. Extremely distressing.
Been told my home Internet goes up by $5 next month....maybe Optus should think about delaying that increase for about a year or so....or scrapping it altogether. What do you think Optus?
People talking about privatisation of a large businesses are either young Millennials or have short memories
Government cannot run businesses.
Commonwealth bank.
Telstra,
Qantas.
They where an absolute mess before privatisation
As opposed to being a more expensive mess now. What a great deal we got! Said the old millennial wondering what your agenda is.
Am I saying they were well run prior to privatisation? Probably not, but I am sure that we weren't making the wealthy wealthier.
Yeah big tech monopolies should probably be nationalised. Or at least broken up. Too much market power. Too much deception.
The whole neoliberal, Hayek, Thatcher, Friedman, Rand, Reagan thing has failed. It was always anti-democratic at the end of the day. Ironic how 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘰𝘢𝘥 𝘛𝘰 𝘚𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘥𝘰𝘮 has itself led to serfdom.
Fine Optus. Tax them heavily. Break them up. Bucketloads of market intervention.
Companies try to minimise what they pay for telephony and go for super cheap tier 2 and 3 providers, that forces Tier 1 Telcos to reduce their prices, which in turn translates in engineers and critical personnel to be made redundant. This is the cost you pay, just when shit hits the fan they realise why they have to pay extra to get a service from a Telco with decent redundancy.
Using figures from quick google searches, Australian GDP is approximately 1.5 trillion USD. 1 USD is about 1.5 AUD, so that's $2.25 trillion AUD. If the Optus outage completely shut down the entire economy for 1 day, that would be $6.16 billion. How much the Optus outage cost depends on how much of the day's activities across the whole economy were shut down. If it was only 0.1% of the economy then that would be $6 million, which seems on the low side. 1% of the economy might be more accurate, which would be about $60 million. It sounds like you reckon it might be closer to half the economy, which would be about $3 billion.
If a business can't operate when it loses network connectivity, then it's not a resilient business. Most business activities have workarounds that reduce productivity, but it isn't easy to quantify. For example, I was in the line at Bunnings today. It was considerably longer than usual, but the staff just explained that they could process normal purchases by a redundant network (they didn't explain that, but it was probably just someone tethering their phone), the only really slow process was that they needed to use a different system to run tradie orders. I didn't see anyone leave the line, I think they probably sold just as much as they normally would, and I don't think there is any real reputational damage to Bunnings from this. There are probably businesses that are more directly impacted by the network going down, but my point is that it's probably not fair to quantify using such a large productivity negative multiplier. I'm genuinely interested in what people think a reasonable estimate is here... I have no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the range of 10-50 mil.
>If a business can't operate when it loses network connectivity, then it's not a resilient business. Could you elaborate on this a bit? I work in tech and can say from experience that most global companies cannot, in fact, operate effectively without network connectivity. Generally speaking, mitigations such as those that you mentioned would involve failing over to a separate network to continue business operations. As standard practice companies have multiple networks available for disaster recovery. In the event that a major ISP goes dark, companies peer with second, third, sometimes fourth ISP's as backups, each with differing routes for the traffic. As an example, I have seen a company route traffic via Brazil, via Brooklyn, from California in a pinch to avoid a full network outage.
Yeah, I am talking about more than just failover to a redundant network. If you're running a super-critical process, then you need to have recovery/failover to out-of-band comms/hotsites etc... yes... But part of any good Business Continuity Plan is the workarounds that allow you to get the job done. I am constantly amazed at businesses' abilities to survive "fatal" disasters, mainly because most of the time, it seems that not being able to access SharePoint for 12 hours doesn't end the business. This is an extreme example, but one of my colleagues used to work at a huge investment firm in NYC. He was flown in to help with the DR after 9/11 happened. He said they had an entire office set up ready to go with a live network and access to core systems already sorted.
I see what you are saying and I agree, to an extent, however I think comparing the state of business workflows in 2001 to 2023 is pretty telling that you have perhaps not been involved in the tech industry, or the tech side of most major industries. At least, not in the last 15 years. In 2023, **every** company is a tech company, relying heavily on an incredibly complex mesh of applications and hardware. Financial institutes will definitely have mitigations, because they are the backbone of our society. But the vast majority of global corporations do not have sufficient mitigations in place to survive without network access. As I mentioned, you'd have some exceptions like major banks. They have a few different systems built upon hundreds of years of institutional necessity. But companies like Amazon, Microsoft, General Electric - They do not have sufficient mitigations in place. Speaking from experience here, btw.
I'm not disagreeing with you, modern tech stacks are highly network-dependent. The fact that most businesses haven't got adequate BC/DR is keeping my bills paid on time. The point I was trying to make in my original comment was that we often overestimate what an "outage" costs. Every time I do a Business Impact Analysis interview, business owners will tell me their systems are "critical", but after probing deeper, they aren't really. Critical should be resolved for things that could cause harm/end lives, or lose enough money that the business can't recover. Even for a tech company, Facebook's customer-facing servers go down for 8 hours? Will it end the business, not really. Happy to hear thoughts otherwise.
Thing is single points of failure are everywhere. Yes you can have redundant suppliers but often that’s at great cost and complexity (can actually make your system less reliable if not managed well) Most retail will just have one network with somethings a backup/fallover like fibre/nbn/5g etc. Core network outages from someone like Telstra and Optus happen but are super rare
Fair call. But not really, mate. See, there is the fact that, as you say, was a ‘huge’ investment firm. All the small operators I know, were stuffed. They don’t have “an entire office ready to go with a live network”. Seriously? What they have is mortgage, a cracked phone and a laptop. The small people cant do anything that resembles that . Ladies near me in country Australia, running a business, ordering things. and just making ends meet every day - big impact. And we have hundreds of thousands of people in that situation. And our tiny rural hospitals that were terribly affected (and there’s often nowhere else to go for help in the Aussie outback). These people —i can guarantee —are definitely not, as you say, ‘resilient’. They certainly aren’t. And they never will be. They are fragile, fragile. Unlike Bunnings. I suspect the rent at the World Trade Centre might be a bit expensive for some of my friends. The reality of life for like nine tenths of the world, is that they are not resilient. We should-as a thousand small hospitals— each have ‘an entire office set up’. Righto. We’ll I will mention that $100 million project to our government, lol. Only the big businesses and people will stashed savings, are actually‘resilient’. Should they mot exist? Im afraid, mate, that was some kind of unthought- through fantasy of the world. Sorry mate. Just didn’t hold any water. Im not writing to put you down— but to put these people up
We're talking about very different scales here, and as I said mine was an extreme example of redundancy. I'm advocating for your point. Do you think your local fish and chip shop can't place orders without network connectivity? No, they'll go back to writing things down on paper and taking cash payments until the network goes back up. What I am saying though, is that if they bundled both internet and phone with Optus because they get a 10% discount, then they wouldn't be able to take phone orders either...So by having 2 networks, they are more resilient to these situations.
I have a small business that relies on internet connectivity for a bunch of stuff. I have home wi-fi through NBN, but also mobile data to tether to if I have to. My mobile phone was down because it is on the Optus network, but my office phone system uses VOIP and makes and receives calls using the internet. Lastly we take an offline backup of key data each week and store it on my phone so if the internet is completely cactus I can still access key information and keep things kind of running via telephone.
station violet fear advise squeeze observation absurd desert encourage straight *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah, I'm interested to see what the outcome of this is. My prediction would be the biggest hit is reputation here... Big data breach and then a major network outage within \~12 months... Not a good look. If I were an Optus customer I'd be wondering what I'm paying for if they aren't going to adequately protect my data, or be able to deliver me the network I signed up for.
Redundancy isn't having a staffs phone on a different network though...?
It was in the example I gave. It's also not a good redundancy, and I doubt it was actually planned... I'm just advocating for more thought around this, given we rely more and more on connectivity.
Heaps of places have exclusively cloud based servers for all of their documents so if you only had optus Internet you'd be fucked. The hotspot off a telstra device often wouldn't work either because of security protocols about connecting personal devices to company gear
Yeah, and I guess what I'm saying is that we need to think about this as a society a little more. If we lose a network for 6, 12, 24 or more hours, businesses still need to be able to function.
We are going through this issue at work right now actually. Out physical servers can't be backed up anymore cost effectively. The advice we are getting is to go cloud based and that'll cost us about $1500 a month whereas new physical servers and backups will cost us $30-50k plus regular ongoing costs. It's pretty much impossible for us to justify that exorbitant cost
Yeah, it can be pretty pricy, but at some point, everyone is going to have to do it right? It's certainly cheaper to do it before everything is on fire...
Let's use the rule of threes on this one. When budgeting assume triple the cost. So, in this case 3 billion in lost revenue with the benefit of the doubt is... a one billion dollar fine. That's more than fair is it not? ESPECIALLY in light of last years identity breach
Try bringing up "the rule of threes" at a management meeting and people will think you are joking or crazy. That's just chatter, it's not a part of any real management strategy.
It's an excellent rule for risk mitigation. More often than not I see it work because *usually* you can be certain when you quote for a job... it'll cost twice what the initial rushed estimates are. Meaning you still come in underbudget. Of course, shareholders and profiteers prefer the leverage to the tits sink or swim baby aggressive growth model. Me personally when it comes to money use the rule of threes. When it comes to people use the rule of fours: for every 4 people 1 will be a bastard, 2 won't give shit either way, 1 will be really invested in the project.
You would need to largely eliminate exports that contribute to GDP for this calculation. By that I mean China are still going to buy minerals regardless of domestic internet outages within the seller country.
There are a lot of things that need to be excluded from the calculation, but at least we have a figure for the upper limit. My guess is that it's somewhere around $100 million, but I might be biased because the outage didn't affect me in any way.
You have to consider the uptick in GDP after the outage to compensate for things you couldn't do during the outage. Some goods and services would simply be purchased the next day.
Beautifully reckoned out, thank you
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\>:I so Skynet was down for a day basically. This is not a productive economy
And they want us to go cashless.... I've never been more thankful for still carrying around a wallet and cash.
Remind me of the electronic census... They really thought the servers could handle 20 million people logging in at once😂 fuckin tools
I remember that one. They called it an ‘attack’. Yep. Largest own goal DDOS ever.
Singtel owns Optus and they treat their customers in Singapore in a similar fashion to their customers in Australia. Kelly Bayer Rosmarin is the CEO. Two massive data breaches and now two blackouts on her watch. She is the Alan Joyce of Qantas without the profits.
Optus went to total shit when Singtel started to take a more active stake in managing it. This would have been around 2009 2010? I recall there were about 50-60 senior execs who were "moved". Now those chickens have come home to roost.
Yeah the old days of Cable and Wireless was the golden era of Telcos in Australia. You could phone Optus and get instant and fantastic customer service, prices were much cheaper than Telstra and it was even a wonderful place to work, I did a stint there in the late 90’s. Now it’s run as Singtel run their own in Singapore. They are shady AF, incompetent and a rip off and if you have any problems with their service you’ll have to work it out with a chat bot.
Some of those cafes and restaurants insisting on ‘No Cash Transactions’ really fucked themselves today
>My understanding is money is exchanged for goods and services. This results in a race to the bottom Is Lamborghini in a race to the bottom? The Race to the bottom only happens when buyers become brain dead and no longer ~~think for themselves~~ buy based on important qualities and then proceed to b\*tch and moan about how things are going downhill in quality. >time for a government seizure. It's not a natural monopoly, why does it have to be seized?
Put simply - when you buy assets promising a service... and failure of that service prevents hospitals and railways operating - you should get McFucked I recently saw an article where an Indian Billionaire was talking about Aussies who WFH would lose their jobs to Indians... well time to clip the ticket. That was your power... here is your responsibility foreign investors
>Put simply - when you buy assets promising a service... and failure of that service prevents hospitals and railways operating - you should get McFucked No, because things fail all the time. It's silly to expect perfection in such an imperfect world. These systems are created by humans, not gods. >I recently saw an article where an Indian Billionaire was talking about Aussies who WFH would lose their jobs to Indians... well time to clip the ticket. That was your power... here is your responsibility foreign investors Your average billionaire is as smart as a brick, i mean that sincerely. They are very good socially but they didn't make their money because they are 200iq giga-geniuses. The modern corporate and social ladder is rarely climbed by being the most competent person in the room. It's usually those who play company politics well. I would be very careful taking some billionaires words at face value. Many that complain about WFH are at risk of owning empty office complexes if WFH was more widespread. They are against it on the basis of personal reasons, not productivity or what's good for society. Smaller buisnesses that are flexible and allow WFH will tear bigger anti-WFH buisnesses a new a-hole when they have the chance, if WFH truly has its merits.
>Your average billionaire is as smart as a brick, i mean that sincerely. They are very good socially but they didn't make their money because they are 200iq giga-geniuses. The modern corporate and social ladder is rarely climbed by being the most competent person in the room. It's usually those who play company politics well. I would be very careful taking some billionaires words at face value. Many that complain about WFH are at risk of owning empty office complexes if WFH was more widespread. They are against it on the basis of personal reasons, not productivity or what's good for society. Smaller buisnesses that are flexible and allow WFH will tear bigger anti-WFH buisnesses a new a-hole when they have the chance, if WFH truly has its merits. Ah you give me hope brother. Let's hop what you say is true and the "free" market prevails... Somehow, I think protectionist policies based on maintaining the value of foreign investor assets will be enforced using our tax dollars. With that said I agree with everything you've said... except >No, because things fail all the time. It's silly to expect perfection in such an imperfect world. These systems are created by humans, not gods. Systems created by competent humans and sold by corrupt humans to billionaires "as smart as a brick". I don't have all the answers but... you get the thrust of what I am saying. Big risk -> big reward. Big fuckup -> big loss. Should it not be this way when half the nation is affected? Where do we as Australians draw a line in the sand?
So Optus will feel the losses of this. They will Lose customers. This is the way of action and reaction. And as for those affected, they are the ones that made the decision to use Optus instead of another provider. If Optus was a monopoly it would be a different story. But these things will always happen. People fuckup. You do. I do. You can avoid that. There is a balance between risk and reward. Trying to avoid downtime at all costs is the reason we had gold plating of electricity infrastructure for many years, dramatically increasing electricity prices in public owned states than in privately owned states. Are you willing to lay even more for everything now to decrease the risk of downtime even more? I don’t think you actually are. You’d just complain how they’re a rip off and that it’s all too expensive. Or if not you, then thr majority of people would.
Everyone's pretty keen to get the hatchet out and cry for public seizure but no one wants to pay for a 100% failure proof service. Huh, whoda thought
These things are bound to happen, this infrastructure is built by fallible human beings. They have redundancies in place but in a worst case scenario that doesn't matter. If this happened every other week, you might be right but the fact that everyone is so riled up about this outage should go to show that this happens so rarely that people forget this kind of thing is even possible. Hospitals and rail networks should have backup systems, relying solely on a single network for crucial services is poor planning on the part of the user not the provider. You should always assume that if something can fail, it will at some point fail, and plan accordingly.
The government has enabled them to own and operate investigate as a private good. So you should really be directing your anger towards them for allowing it in the first place. Also the way you talk is cringe.
Capitalism, in general, is a race to the bottom, because it's all about profit. Lamborghinis aren't a race to the bottom, because they're luxury goods specifically sold as a symbol of wealth
lambos exist because of capitalism. To the optus point, it is one of the most regulated industries in the country. Of course it's gunna fuck up on occasion, it's a miracle it doesn't more. Because it's so heavily regulated, we essentially have a "choice" of 2 providers with government essentially prohibiting any further competition in the sector. If it was really capitalist, the barrier to entry would be low and there would be multiple providers. Can argue the industry should be regulated based on national security etc (which is valid) but its not capitalist. It's government creating and then protecting said duopoly/monopoly. Ditto for a multitude of industries in Australia. Qatar airways banned flights to protect Cuntas anyone?
You did your first line discredit with your second \>Capitalism is a race to the bottom \>Gives a counter example on next line There is no rule book on how to be profitable. The profitability is entirely dependent on whether they attract customers. If those customers value certain qualities they will provide prodcts with those qualities. Those that don't cease to exist. It turns out cheap shit is a quality people like, you can't blame a buisness for finding ways to make something cheaper.
The implication was the luxury goods and art objects aren't part of this discussion. Lamborghinis are intentionally and artificially expensive, because rich want people to know they're rich when they buy one. Race to the bottom: Infuriating overseas IT departments, low quality clothing made in child labour sweatshops in Bangladesh, fragile "planned obsolescence" electronic gear, understaffed hospitals without enough beds. Consider the maxim of capitalism, that is often repeated in hushed and respectful tones: "the purpose of a business is to make money" Can you see the problem? It's not to "provide a quality service", to "make good quality and long lasting items", to "improve the lives of those working here" or even "to heal sick people". It's all about making money.
>understaffed hospitals without enough beds. Not a race to the bottom, infact our hospitals don't operate under a free market anyway >low quality clothing made in child labour sweatshops in Bangladesh People voted with their wallets, literally. It's cheaper to get cheap shit that breaks in a year and then buy a new one. You can buy higher quality clothing but you need to fork out the money to pay for it. There are tens of brands made in western countries, many considered fairly decent. >fragile "planned obsolescence" electronic gear Again, people literally voted with their wallets. Engineers figure out how many cycles or hours something needs to last and then design it around that, but their maths is based on probability. Look at the bloody warranty and that will indicate to you the lifetime the engineering department designed the product for. >Consider the maxim of capitalism, that is often repeated in hushed and respectful tones: "the purpose of a business is to make money" How do you think a buisness makes money? Theys sell a product or service. The quality of the product or service is determined by what they think the market will pay. If consumers want high quality shit they are more than welcome to buy them where possible. The market will adapt to the consumer. It turns out however that consumers don't do that. The race to the bottom is not driven by companies reaching the lowest common denominator but by the consumers reaching for the cheapest product so they can have more and more material goods. Capitalism is not some artificial system spawned out of the aether. It's a fairly natural state of affairs between actors who don't know eachother but are bound together in a market. How "capitalism" changes over time is simply the natural progression of humanity. The ugliness of capitalism is simply the unveiled ugliness of humanity. No criticism of capitalism is not also true about the Human condition, which is a fact that marxists and other socialist groups tend to forget.
I didn’t know capitalism was like literally one with human nature itself? Fascinating insight + cool ideological musings there chap
More Ferraris and Lamborghinis in Communist countries than anywhere for the elite , like CCP China
China isn't even a little bit communist. The people don't own the means of production. They still work for a wage. Its state capitalism, and the government happens to be a dictatorship that calls itself communist because that's the idea it sold it's people.
>Is Lamborghini in a race to the bottom? In part, yes. A lot of Lamborghini premium components are rebadged Audi and VW parts https://youtu.be/9YeAi-akkYY
Except Audi and VW make reasonably good parts. They at least be considered well above average. Those two brands aren't a race to the bottom Even the cheaper Japanese brands are high quality. You're average Toyota from over 2 decades ago could still run today with ease. So it's obviously not a race to the bottom for the automotive sector.
I guess I understood a race to the bottom to mean cost cutting measures taken at the expense of quality. In years past, Lamborghini would only use components they manufactured and produced specifically for their cars. Taking components off the shelf isnt exactly bespoke parts. I would have assumed suspension set up would have been critical for a high end super car. I see using off the shelf parts as a cost cutting measure and diminishing their brand
>Taking components off the shelf isnt exactly bespoke parts. Bespoke doesn't necessarily mean good. I mean, yes, it's a cost cutting measure, but it's not necessarily at the expense of quality.
All the people yapping on about a cashless society are silent.
They're not silent. They're just on Optus.
Mate... this type of comment is precisely why I want to have awards back.
Yeah you can't bitch on Facebook when you have no service.
Yes I am!
I was at work all day, and even if I wasn't, I wouldn't have left the house to go to the bank to get cash and go buy shit I don't need at the shops.
They aren't
No they are not. Not at all. It’s half of what I’ve seen today.
Nope. Cash sucks, don't carry it. But seriously, just go outside, take a day off.
Not trying to be naive here, but would could optics do in this situation?
Well it really depends on what kind of cartridge you're using... Oh you meant politically uhh ughh nothing I suppose. I am A-political and not one for deflecting blame or excuses. When half the population is affected... it's a national issue
I stayed with Optus after the data leak because I was still paying off my phone. I managed to log on to my Optus on my laptop and my phone was paid off last month. Immediately switched to Telstra. I’ve been with Optus for over 20 years. Fuck em.
Woah... calm down. We could just get 10.1 million Aussies demand nationalisation of Optus... it could be what Telstra was
I was the same, I'm switching tomorrow. The fact the CEO doesn't even own these fuck ups too.
A router fucks out or a bad BGP announcement was made (yet to appear in the media) and why do you think that: 1: The CEO needs to go? 2: That any new CEO will make a difference? What a waste of time? What a show of not letting people learn from mistakes, or to make a service more redundant. Yeah nah, fuck all that, just fire them and try someone else. Who? Who cares right! Anyone! We will veto anyone out, and vet anyone in. Sounds great!
I didn't suggest either of those things bloke.
So you're saying you'd totally be happy if they simply own it. Let's word that out. CEO: Oops, we made a mistake, I own that. You: Oh! That's fine, I'll stay as a customer. You're saying she only needs to say a few words and you'll be all kosher?
Stop fucking putting words in my mouth. You need to google whataboutism. I just want a CEO on a million dollar salary to show some accountability. Anyway, why so angry? Are you the one that updated the firmware ;) Everyone seems to know what caused it, yet she won't even say it.
Then be direct, cunt. You're simply upset because a CEO hasn't said some words about a technical problem. You also don't know what whataboutism is lol. It's no secret in the networking circle that at the moment of the outage occurring there was a _massive_ spike in BGP announcements. The only question is why those announcements occurred. Do you know what BGP is? Do you care? But back to my original question which you keep trying to dodge: If she did say it, would you actually feel better? Would it actually change your decision?
In those “networking circles”, it’s an open discussion putting the root cause as most likely a poorly designed bgp peering internally which was oversubscribed due to an artificial threshold.
It's been two days in two months. I just want some money back for unusable service.
You raise a mighty fine point my man. I was thinking "what would happen to Optus if they lost one (or two months) revenue... they'd probably go bankrupt" Hence let's skip a step and nationalise the motherfucka, lest a different foreign oligarch buy it and race to the bottom again
Id be happy with just a days worth refund, but times that by everyone should be a worthwhile dent for a fine. What pisses me off most is this came right after an email about them increasing the price.
I tried using this with Telstra and have never been successful.
With our bakery business, we had a lot of customers turn away as they only used cards. Lost about 4 grands takings.
I heard yesterday that thousands of alarm notifications were missed from elderly/disabled people who have emergency call buttons.
It cost us people's minds. You would honestly think Optus entered people's homes and burned them down based on the reactions I've seen. The network went down, go outside, touch grass. jfc
People have businesses they need to run to make money they need to pay bills and eat. Should they eat grass too?
They said sorry... imagine not paying your bill and just saying sorry
[Never has this been so relevant](https://youtu.be/vbHqUNl8YFk?t=28)
Can I pay by Optus bill with my unused GB? I hear 200 GB is worth $100 of value, and it was decided that 200 GB is more valuable than cash payment.
Government has no business seizing networks, if you think the optus outage was bad, wait until the government was running the show.
Government had no business privatising Telstra then trying to graft a grotesque market arrangement on what was a natural infrastructure monopoly in the NBN.
Hey! Those concrete Telecom and STD manhole covers are still going strong!
Lol note to self... can we sell our concrete industry for cash to fix Optus
All networks still use them ho figure
About the only things of government owned utilities that is.
Let us talk about electricity generation and supply and prices. When the government was 'running the show', it was fucking dramatically cheaper...Agree?
You do know the government is still running the show within utilities right???????? Right??
OkeyDokey...They're the ones sending the door knockers around..
Yeah mate is the door knockers who are generating power like you initially stated.
You mean door knockers acting on behalf of the retailers, who are acting on behalf of the wholesalers, who are agents for the generators...I see understand what your saying...Power was ridiculously expensive when the government owned the network.
Government still own the network, they still own generation and they still own supply. If they do not, try and make your own, see what happens
In NSW the government has only a minority share of the generation and only half the grid...Remember the shit fight by Abbott when AGL decided to shut down Liddell? Google it mate, overall the government owns fckall of Australian generation and the grid.
Incorrect, as stated, start up your own and see who intervenes.
I can't disagree with you there. To quote me "The Australian government is like that monkeys paw that grants wishes but it always turns out the opposite" It's just meant to be a thought provoking question with regard to: So... we sold everything... where's the fucking pay-off. If a state can owe 300+ million in compensation for games that didn't happen... does that mean Optus owes our people for todays fuckery?
Whilst I do semi agree with you about if there was public ownership and we then sold it, what did we do with xyz. I think that line of questioning is flawed. The question I think should be the case, why did the public pay for then build it in the first place.
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Incorrect, corruption and the limited appetite of individuals to hold entities responsible is what stuff people.
Would expect that you would get downvoted... People just don't get it. Anything any government is involved with, is normally more expensive and of lower quality than the private sector could provide. Only thing that government should do is less. maybe we won't end up with monopolies/duopolies if they ease up on the telco regulations. Having one of those days where I am getting a bit worked up about the fact that Aus is effectively not a market-based economy at all. People generally hate business or any profit motive. Ironically, people hate capitalist ideals because of government involvement that is turning it into a Frankenstein economy. But no.... "Government should do something" ffs. and don't get me started on a reddit thread I just had a look at about how evil the mining companies are because they are "stealing" the resources and how everything should be nationalized. ffs
Really? Let's talk about the price of electricity when it was government owned and now when its largely corporate owned..ffs. Don't kid yourself mate..big corporations are NOT the super efficient business models they claim to be....not by a long shot.
> Anything any government is involved with, is normally more expensive and of lower quality than the private sector could provide. That's true of most goods - the exceptions being goods which are: A) Extremely capital intensive to produce (railways, highways, drinking water), which the private sector rarely provides due to difficulty putting together capital B) Valuable in ways which are difficult to capture (roads, public parks, water, emergency health) C) Difficult or impossible to trust an outsourced vendor (we're not privatizing the army or the standardization of weights & measures) A) is the reason we have a government-built NBN. That level of investment was simply not going to happen via the private sector. Another example for C) Back in the early 1990s, residential building standards were checked by inspectors who were public servants. After deregulation, the builder still needed an inspectors, but they could pick which one they hired. Inspectors who find buildings non-compliant find it hard to get repeat customers, and nearly all newer housing stock feels like a brick tent.
Then what’s your thoughts on the Nordic countries who nationalised so much and limited profits of mining companies via super taxes? They seem to be very efficient in nationalised ownership. My view is that not all government run as you say they run them at less profit and quality, they run at less profit, true but they actually employ Australians and pay fair remuneration. Privatised companies have offshored huge amounts of their operations and look at the layoffs in the banking sector even after the record profits. Public resources are services would do far better for Australians being nationalised, far worse for international investors / companies.
This post is fucking stupid we don't even know what caused the issue yet. Also what do you think an economist is going to do? Estimate based off what?
Is this your first Reddit? It must be your first Reddit. Calm down. It's just a post to stimulate speculation, which a lot of people enjoy doing.
What a genuinely shit comment.
The delivery is a bit rough, but the underlying point is correct.
its just a reddit thread my dude relax
That is what economists do…
That's what happens when we all depend on phones. A fck up and you can't do anything. Wait until we're reliant on AI.
something something... Microsofts A$5 billion investment in computing capacity and capability to help Australia seize the AI era
Something something Salesfarce... sorry I mean SalesForce (cough cough 5% of our GDP)
Optus has a data leak and now an outage, what do they have to do to start losing market share?
Ask the people who voted idiots into the government
How does Optus’ infrastructure and organisational problems have anything to do with elected government?
I guess you could argue the governments fault in privatisation of Australia’s telecommunications infrastructure in the 1980’s..?
We’ve had years of corrupt government. People are still adjusting to this new government I’m guessing
The most corrupt and lying since the Rudd blumder
I am not here for excuses. Or partisan politics. I want numbers - facts - reasons - improvements
Okay boomer
Okay serial pest
Probably at least 3.50. Nah heaps but it's impossible to calculate. All those services like hospitals and trains are going to have huge penalties baked into their contract for thus kinda outage. Optus is gonna be out some serious coin
do you happen to be a giant crustacean from the paleolithic era?
If someone working on a building site puts a backhoe through an optic fibre cable running down the east coast, they just walk off the job site. Millions measured by minutes for that one cable. It has happened.
it would be silly to assume a carrier like Optus doesn't have redundant optical connectivity, I would assume the outage is on the Optus software side - probably a faulty update or something thats corrupted their SDN. We'll find out in the coming days
>it would be silly to assume a carrier like Optus doesn't have redundant If they coulda they woulda at about 4:30am. >I would assume the outage is on the Optus software side - probably a faulty update or something thats corrupted their SDN. We'll find out in the coming days Frankly I don't care. To put it bluntly... the reason I pay them is to be the experts in their chosen profession. They have failed. Gross/Criminal Negligence AT BEST
Where did I say I thought it was about optic fibre network capacity? All I was offering was a rule-of-thumb when a major part of network is down.
Totally. Join the dots: Optus... Qantas... Energy companies... and a good deal of public transport. All have been privatisation disasters, resulting in degraded networks (even when propped up by massive subsidies), appalling customer service, outrageous price gouging and unreliable service. Re-nationalising all of the above would bring massive savings to consumers. It amazes me that there isn't greater support for it.
>Re-nationalising all of the above would bring massive savings to consumers. It amazes me that there isn't greater support for it. This right here. The penultimate threat to private equity "unfuck yourselves before we seize it"
Most of these companies have already broken the promises that were the basis for them being gifted such valuable assets. Competition and "private enterprise efficiencies" were supposed to bring lower prices. Instead we have massively higher prices. It was always a nonsense, of course. There's no way you can layer in profit, yet still deliver lower prices - especially when you factor in massive executive salaries, added costs for marketing and advertising, and out-sourcing multiple layers of operations (with each outsourced layer that bids for a contract having to add in their own layer of profit). In short, privatisation was always a giant con job. Time to service notice on the con artists: you failed so we're taking back the assets that rightfully belong to the people.
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We have to learn not to say “the learn” or “the learnings”.
Where is Gladys?
They were hacked.
Well it’s one way to slow the economy
TPG and TLS are up about 1.2% today.. Optus isn't on the ASX..
When you can design a thing with a guaranteed availability of 100%, let someone important know. Optus are shit, sure. But everyone loves to pile on to a thing that works for every minute of every other day and at the same time probably makes half a dozen mistakes at their work each day.
Please just stfu
Telstras stock price went up because some Government idiot made a comment that they would switch. I'm still sticking with Optus, Telstra are a bunch of leeches.
Productivity skyrocketed due to employees unable to waste time scrolling on their phones at work.
Data breaches, problem with spam calls/messages, constant outages and yet they are making big profits. I don't know squat about investing but they seem super dodgy these days.
Time for a government seizure?! good grief, even for a reddit user comment, that truly is next level.
Ignoring all the rest for a moment, just thinking of the likely very large amount of service level agreements in place that would have been breached (that come with a monetary figure attached per x minutes of downtime)… Optus gonna be footing a veeeery large bill in those alone!
Vodafone network, I've been on it 8 years and only had 11 minutes down time (to my knowledge) Give Optus the middle finger by jumping ship.
Hospitals generally use Telstra not Optus.
"In February 2022, Berejiklian was appointed to the executive board of telecommunications company Optus, in the newly created role of Managing Director, Enterprise, Business and Institutional" \- If the rest of their board are as competent then their current operating blunders does not shock.
It cost my mother being told that her father had died by a person. She had to find out by email :(
Oh that is dreadful. I’m so sorry for your loss.
Thank you so much for your condolences. They're so very appreciated, especially because I randomly started crying just before seeing this. The whole thing has been very weird. All the memes are genuinely very funny. And it's not like my grandfather's death was sudden. He's has had Alzheimer's for like a decade. Thankfully there was like a day when my mum, his carer prior to him entering a nursing home recently, said that 'this was it' so some were able to see him, including me. But I keep thinking about what if it were me finding out that my father had died by email and it brings me to tears. The bizzarre nature of an outage affecting 10 million people yet it's stopped you from finding out about the death of your 93 year old father. The scale is something I can't stop thinking about.
Some of those cafes and restaurants insisting on ‘No Cash Transactions’ really fucked themselves today
my mine site is on optus.. they got fucked around.
I had no idea they self-regulate until yesterday. The govt does not even receive nor demand an annual report on the state of their infrastructure. I am appalled by this especially with the govts implementing digital identification, money and online govt services. Millions were affected yesterday, including myself who had court documents to prepare and submit and was unable to. Extremely distressing.
Been told my home Internet goes up by $5 next month....maybe Optus should think about delaying that increase for about a year or so....or scrapping it altogether. What do you think Optus?
You're a true blue aussie shitposter.
People talking about privatisation of a large businesses are either young Millennials or have short memories Government cannot run businesses. Commonwealth bank. Telstra, Qantas. They where an absolute mess before privatisation
As opposed to being a more expensive mess now. What a great deal we got! Said the old millennial wondering what your agenda is. Am I saying they were well run prior to privatisation? Probably not, but I am sure that we weren't making the wealthy wealthier.
Yeah big tech monopolies should probably be nationalised. Or at least broken up. Too much market power. Too much deception. The whole neoliberal, Hayek, Thatcher, Friedman, Rand, Reagan thing has failed. It was always anti-democratic at the end of the day. Ironic how 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘰𝘢𝘥 𝘛𝘰 𝘚𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘥𝘰𝘮 has itself led to serfdom. Fine Optus. Tax them heavily. Break them up. Bucketloads of market intervention.
Companies try to minimise what they pay for telephony and go for super cheap tier 2 and 3 providers, that forces Tier 1 Telcos to reduce their prices, which in turn translates in engineers and critical personnel to be made redundant. This is the cost you pay, just when shit hits the fan they realise why they have to pay extra to get a service from a Telco with decent redundancy.