Dr Kerry Schott will lead the review into the incident that is linked to three deaths
[SINGAPORE] The board of Australian telecommunications company Optus has appointed Dr Kerry Schott to lead an independent review of the emergency call failure incident on Sep 18.
Three people in Australia died after emergency calls were blocked due to an outage that occurred after a network upgrade. Optus said it apologised “unreservedly” for the incident and blamed a departure from “established processes”.
The review will identify the causes of the issue and determine the applicable processes, protocols and operations of the incident, said Optus in a bourse filing on Wednesday (Sep 24). It is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
It will also examine the operational management of triple-zero calls – the Australian emergency number – on the Optus network, including the monitoring and operational effectiveness in relation to the incident. Optus’ adherence to policies, procedures and legislative requirements will be under consideration as well.
Optus chairman John Arthur said: “Dr Schott’s extensive cross-industry experience at both the executive and board level, and in both the public and private sectors, particularly in infrastructure, energy and telecommunications ideally equips her to undertake this review.”
Previously, Dr Schott led a short review into incident management at Sydney Trains for the New South Wales Government Cabinet Office. She has also been a chair for a few rail-related panels and reviews.
Currently a director at Australian energy generator AGL, chair of the Carbon Market Institute and chair of the Competition Review Panel for the Australian government, she was previously a managing director at Deutsche Bank and executive vice-president at Bankers Trust Australia.
She was also chief executive officer of Sydney Water from 2005 to 2011 and has served on a number of advisory committees and policy reviews.
Optus accounts for about half of Singtel’s annual revenue. Singtel’s shares closed 1.6 per cent lower at S$4.27 on Tuesday and are 3.2 per cent down since the news of the incident.
