The Australian communications watchdog has launched an investigation into Optus over an outage last week.
On Friday, the telco revealed a technical failure during a network upgrade had disrupted several Triple Zero calls, leading to at least three deaths.
Optus said it “apologises unreservedly” to the families and friends of those who have died, and is conducting welfare checks on callers.
Tech failure
On Thursday, Optus had a “technical failure” during a network upgrade.
The company said no “red flags” were raised during initial testing of the changes, but later received a direct complaint from a person who had been unable to make a Triple Zero call.
Calls in South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory were impacted.
In a statement on Friday, Optus said: “Three of the Triple Zero calls involved households where a person tragically passed away.”
On Sunday, Optus said it believed “established processes were not followed” during the upgrade, and that the cause of the technical failure remains under investigation.
CEO Stephen Rue said the company has taken “full accountability,” and has paused any future changes to its network until it has “a broader understanding of the events that have occurred.”
Optus said it will appoint an independent investigator to lead a full review.
Your contribution ensures The Daily Aus can continue doing the work you love.
I want to give $10 monthly to help TDA keep doing the news.
Your details:
Breaches
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has accused Optus of failing to uphold its “most fundamental responsibility” of ensuring Australians can make emergency calls.
ACMA launched an investigation into whether Optus breached legal obligations over the incident, including ensuring emergency calls can be made, and making welfare check calls to affected customers.
In 2023, Optus was penalised $12 million for similar breaches related to another network outage.
Government Response
At a press conference over the weekend, Federal Communications Minister Anika Wells said the outage was “completely unacceptable” and “had tragic consequences”.
“It would have been incredibly distressing for people to call Triple Zero in their time of need and not be able to get through… Australians have every right to be livid that Optus cannot get these basics right,” Wells said.
Deaths
SA Police is investigating the death of an eight-week-old baby, whose grandmother told officers she was initially unable to make a Triple Zero call when the baby stopped breathing.
However, police said the child’s death is “unlikely” to have been caused by the outage, as the grandmother was able to successfully make a call from another phone in the house.
SA Police is also investigating whether the death of a 68-year-old woman was linked to the outage.
