Optus has faced criticism following a triple-zero outage linked to three fatalities across Australia, raising serious concerns about the reliability of the emergency call system. According to Communications Minister Anika Wells, public confidence in emergency services has been significantly undermined after over 600 calls failed to connect during a 13-hour period on Thursday due to a significant fault that Optus was unaware of.
Optus CEO Stephen Rue described the situation as “completely unacceptable” and confirmed the deaths of two men, aged 49 and 74, in Western Australia, and a 68-year-old woman in South Australia, as a result of the outage. In response, both the Australian Media and Communications Authority (ACMA) and Optus have initiated independent investigations to uncover the underlying cause.
When a user calls triple-zero (000), they are connected to emergency services through a network overseen by Telstra, which handles the calls and relays essential information to the appropriate authorities. However, the outage stemmed from a faulty firewall upgrade, preventing connection to emergency services between 12:30 AM and 1:30 PM on Thursday, unbeknownst to Optus until it was too late. The company did not alert regulators or stakeholders promptly, which goes against standard protocols for reporting such failures.
ACMA Chair Nerida O’Loughlin expressed dissatisfaction with Optus’ handling of the crisis, highlighting that the communications agency only received vague and inaccurate information throughout the incident. Minister Wells affirmed that Optus must face “significant consequences” for its actions, particularly as this marks its second major incident affecting triple-zero calls in two years. Previously, Optus faced a $12 million penalty for a technical issue that left over 2,000 people unable to contact triple-zero in 2023.
Moving ahead, the telco has announced the implementation of a compulsory escalation procedure for issues reported to its customer service regarding triple-zero, as part of its internal review. ACMA is also conducting a broader investigation that may lead to regulatory reforms to enhance the reliability of emergency services across the telecommunications industry.
Overall, Minister Wells stated a thorough evaluation is necessary to restore public trust in the system, reinforcing the importance of a reliable emergency service network for the Australian public.