By P.R. Venkat


Singapore Telecommunications has appointed Stephen Rue to lead its Australian telecom operations as part of efforts to rebuild the unit's reputation, which suffered because of a network outage that affected millions of its customers.

Rue, who is currently the Chief executive of Australian government-owned National Broadband Network will assume office from November this year, Singtel said Monday.

Late last year, an Optus outage left millions of landline customers, including hospitals and government departments, without services. The backlash saw its then-CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin resign, and a global search to replace her was launched.

The Nov. 8 outage stemmed from an Optus systems' response to a software upgrade at its parent company, Singtel.

"We expect Stephen's operational and financial background to lift service standards significantly for the benefit of our customers," Optus chairman Paul O'Sullivan said.

Optus, a leading telecommunication operator in Australia with over 10 million subscribers, is facing increased competition, higher expenses, and margin erosion, prompting the company to look for ways to improve its business.

Last week, the company signed a 1.17 billion Australian dollars (US$773.4 million) agreement with TPG Telecom under which the latter would pay, among other things, service fees for accessing Optus sites over the agreement's 11-year term.

"My job will be to take care of Optus' customers, people and business and to provide strong competition and choice," Rue said.

Shares of Singtel were last 0.4% higher at S$2.39 on the Singapore Stock Exchange.


Write to P.R. Venkat at venkat.pr@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-05-24 2215ET