Optus has confirmed a second network outage, which left at least nine people unable to call Triple Zero.
Issues with a mobile phone tower affected the Optus network in the Dapto area, south of Sydney, on Sunday.
Optus said the issue has since been resolved, and investigations are underway.
The incident comes amid an ongoing investigation into a separate Optus outage earlier this month, which resulted in the deaths of at least three people who couldn’t contact emergency services.
Outage
In a statement, Optus confirmed a service outage between 3am and 12pm on Sunday impacted 4,500 people in Dapto, a suburb of Wollongong, about 90 minutes south of Sydney.
One person who needed an ambulance was able to reach emergency services using another phone.
NSW Police conducted welfare checks on several people whose calls had failed.
Optus said no deaths have been reported, and confirmed that all the people who tried and failed to call are "OK”.
Triple Zero
Under Australian law, Triple Zero is operated and maintained by Telstra.
When you call 000, a Telstra operator is responsible for answering and transferring your call to the emergency service you require.
Telcos are legally required to ensure their customers can access emergency services.
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They are also required to maintain communication with Telstra, other providers, and customers in the event of an outage.
Political commentary
In an interview with ABC News Breakfast, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said multiple reviews are underway to identify “really serious deficiencies” in Optus’ systems.
“If the reviews come back and find faults, failures, or further things that need to be done to protect people’s ability to connect to Triple Zero, then they need to be implemented,” Gallagher said.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said the incident was “clearly unacceptable,” and said emergency services are continuing to conduct welfare checks.
“NSW deserves full and transparent information from Optus about what went wrong yesterday… it underlines just how critical reliable communications are,” Minns said.
Federal MP for the area Carol Berry echoed Minns’ comments, saying there was a need for “answers around what has happened here and how we can be assured that this won’t happen again.”
First outage
News of the second outage comes less than two weeks after a “technical failure” that disrupted emergency service calls in South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory.
During that outage, at least three people died after failing to reach Triple Zero.
Optus confirmed the incident was a result of ”human error”.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority and an independent investigator appointed by Optus are looking into the outage.
