An Analysis of the Optus National Outage and Recommendations for Enhanced Regulation
Main Article Content
Keywords
Telecommunications, Outage, Border Gateway Protocol, Internet Protocol Core Network, Resiliency
Abstract
On Wednesday, 8 November 2023 at about 4am, approximately 10 million Optus retail and 400,000 business customers lost network access as a result of the IP Core network shutdown. Optus stated that the cause of the network outage was a routine software upgrade that led to routing information updates from an international peering network causing key routers to disconnect from the network. This paper provides an analysis of the national outage, what information is needed to fully understand what occurred, and considers the lessons that might be learned.
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References
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Williams, T. (2023). Two weeks since the Optus outage, documents show backroom scrambling and urgent meetings occurred as the emergency played out. ABC News. 22 November 2023. Accessed online https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-22/optus-outage-documents-behind-the-scenes-two-weeks-since/103130998
ACCC. (2023). Regional mobile infrastructure inquiry 2022-23. Australian Communications and Consumer Commission. Australian Government. 23 October 2023. Accessed online https://www.accc.gov.au/inquiries-and-consultations/regional-mobile-infrastructure-inquiry-2022-23
Ainsworth, K. (2023). Optus offers customers 200GB of free data as compensation for nationwide outage. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 9 November 2023. Accessed online https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-09/optus-offers-customer-200gb-as-outage-compensation/103087168
Bolger, R. (2023). Optus outage prompts calls to force telcos to switch customers onto other networks when one fails. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 8 November 2023. Accessed online https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-08/optus-outage-roaming-customers-switch-to-networks-fail/103080582
Cisco. (2018). BGP Fundamentals. Cisco Press. 1 January 2018. Accessed online https://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=2756480&seqNum=5
Cisco. (2019). IP Routing: BGP Configuration Guide, Cisco IOS XE Gibraltar 16.11.x. Cisco. 25 September 2019. Accessed online https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios-xml/ios/iproute_bgp/configuration/xe-16-11/irg-xe-16-11-book.html
Cisco. (2023a). Cisco three-layer hierarchical model. Cisco. 17 November 2023. Accessed online https://study-ccna.com/cisco-three-layer-hierarchical-model/
Cisco. (2023b). Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Cisco. 6 December 2023. Accessed online https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/ios-nx-os-software/border-gateway-protocol-bgp/index.html
CloudFlare. (2023a). What is a DNS server? CloudFlare. 17 November 2023. Accessed online https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/what-is-a-dns-server/
CloudFlare. (2023b). Routing Information from AS4804. CloudFlare. 17 November 2023. Accessed online https://radar.cloudflare.com/routing/as4804?dateStart=2023-11-07&dateEnd=2023-11-08
Crozier, R. (2020). Telstra's edge compute network to comprise 650 repurposed exchanges. Itnews. 31 November 2020. Accessed online https://www.itnews.com.au/news/telstras-edge-compute-network-to-comprise-650-repurposed-exchanges-555827
Evans, D. (2023). Optus parent company SingTel denies responsibility for outage. News.com.au. News Corp Australia. Accessed online https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/optus-parent-company-singtel-denies-responsibility-for-outage/news-story/4f3afcb0155f05c50a3f00e9c1ec4827
Gregory, M. A. (2023a). Optus has revealed the cause of the major outage. Could it happen again? The Conversation. 14 November 2023. Accessed online https://theconversation.com/optus-has-revealed-the-cause-of-the-major-outage-could-it-happen-again-217564
Gregory, M. A. (2023b). Explainer: what is the ‘core network’ that was crucial to the Optus outage? The Conversation. 9 November 2023. Accessed online https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-core-network-that-was-crucial-to-the-optus-outage-217375
Haskell-Dowland, P., Gregory, M. A., & Ahmed, M. (2023). Optus blackout explained: what is a ‘deep network’ outage and what may have caused it? The Conversation. 8 November 2023. Accessed online https://theconversation.com/optus-blackout-explained-what-is-a-deep-network-outage-and-what-may-have-caused-it-217266
IBM. (2023). What is DNS? IBM. 6 December 2023. Accessed online https://www.ibm.com/topics/dns
Martinho, C., & Strickx, T. (2021). Understanding how Facebook disappeared from the Internet. CloudFlare. 5 October 2021. Accessed online https://blog.cloudflare.com/october-2021-facebook-outage/
Optus. (2023a). Submission to Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications. Optus. November 2023. Accessed online https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/OptusNetworkOutage/Submissions
Optus. (2023b). Media Alert: Update on Optus outage. Optus. 13 November 2023. (See Appendix)
Optus. (2023c). We’re very sorry for the outage. Optus. 9 November 2023. Accessed online https://www.optus.com.au/notices/outage-response
Rowland. M. (2023). Government to scope emergency mobile roaming capability during natural disasters. Australian Government. 23 October 2023. Accessed online https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/rowland/media-release/government-scope-emergency-mobile-roaming-capability-during-natural-disasters
Telstra. (2023a). Enhance your performance at the Edge. Telstra Corporation. 17 November 2023. Accessed online https://www.telstra.com.au/business-enterprise/products/cloud/solutions/telstra-edge
Telstra. (2023b). Submission to Senate Inquiry: Optus Network Outage. Telstra Corporation. 17 November 2023. Accessed online https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/OptusNetworkOutage/Submissions
Vidler, A. (2023). Hundreds of triple zero calls failed during Optus outage, CEO reveals while dodging questions over future. Nine.com.au. 17 November 2023. Accessed online https://www.9news.com.au/national/optus-ceo-kelly-bayer-rosmarin-to-face-senate-over-network-crash/d8786be0-7b81-420e-8b2c-3c87bd991670
Whelan, C. (2023). Optus outage compensation: Trick to turn 200GB data into cash. News.com.au. News Corp Australia. 15 November 2023. Accessed online https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/internet/optus-outage-compensation-trick-to-turn-200gb-data-into-cash/news-story/7a810d3972233a5b20cf051a8b8c96fb
Williams, T. (2023). Two weeks since the Optus outage, documents show backroom scrambling and urgent meetings occurred as the emergency played out. ABC News. 22 November 2023. Accessed online https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-22/optus-outage-documents-behind-the-scenes-two-weeks-since/103130998
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Published
Dec 26, 2023
Article Details
How to Cite
Gregory, M. A. (2023). An Analysis of the Optus National Outage and Recommendations for Enhanced Regulation. Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, 11(4), 185–198. https://doi.org/10.18080/jtde.v11n4.898
Issue
Section
Telecommunications
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright Telecommunications Association Inc.
Author Biography
Mark A Gregory, RMIT University
Dr Mark A Gregory is a telecommunication and network engineer in the School of Engineering at RMIT University. He is the General Chair of the International Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference.
