Optus parent company SingTel denies that a software upgrade is the main cause of the outage
Nov 16 (Reuters) – Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (STEL.SI), the parent company of Australian telecom provider Optus, said on Thursday its planned software update was not the cause of an outage last week, contradicting claims made by Optus earlier this week .
More than 10 million Australians were affected by the 12-hour network outage at telecoms company Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) on November 8, which frustrated customers and raised wider concerns about telecommunications infrastructure.
Optus had said earlier this week that an initial investigation found the company’s network was affected by “changes to the routing information of an international peering network” following a “routine software upgrade”.
While SingTel confirmed that Singtel Internet Exchange (STiX) is one of Optus’ international networks that connects to the global internet, it denied the routine software upgrade was the cause.
“We are aware that Optus experienced a network outage following the upgrade, when a significant increase in the number of addresses passed through their network triggered pre-set failsafes,” SingTel said.
SingTel’s statement comes a day before Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin faces an Australian Senate investigation into the massive outage.
Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil
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