00:01We apologise for that deeply.
00:04Deeply sorry.
00:05I want to again apologise for the disruption.
00:07There have been many apologies but Telstra customers are still frustrated.
00:12Do you reckon Telstra should be paying customers compensation?
00:15I do, yes.
00:16There's been no information at all.
00:18To direct to clients there should have been some form of communication but we've got nothing.
00:23Telstra CEO Vicky Brady has made at least one personal apology.
00:27Late yesterday she spoke to the family of a South Australian who died in a regional hospital.
00:34Telstra has confirmed the outage prevented some loved ones from being by their side.
00:39A Telstra spokesperson says the company extends its sincere apologies to the family
00:44and the role it played in making a distressing day worse.
00:48The admission comes just hours after denials of the case.
00:51We've also confirmed there were no active outages affecting the local area at the time
00:56and our records show good mobile signal strength at that location.
01:00It's another slice of humble pie.
01:03Telstra executives have already faced a grilling in the media.
01:07Now they'll face questioning from politicians when they face a Senate inquiry on Friday.
01:12People could have lost their lives.
01:14That's why there's an investigation by ACMA.
01:17That's why we changed the law.
01:19They're liable to some very serious financial penalties for what's happened here.
01:26Experts say the inquiry shouldn't focus on recriminations.
01:30They warn that outages like this will happen again.
01:34And what's needed is a government-led plan to make Australia's communication systems more resilient.
01:39I hope that the inquiry, that the Senate, you know, take the higher level
01:44and not start looking at how can we best punish Telstra.
01:47No, it's the level of how can we make our country more resilient to things like that.
01:54A call to improve vulnerabilities in the networks that have become vital to our everyday lives.
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