Massive technical failure at Optus blocks triple-0 calls; three dead, including 8-week-old baby
An eight-week-old baby and a 68-year-old woman are two of the three people who died after an Optus network upgrade left hundreds unable to call triple-0 on Thursday.
Three people are dead – including an eight-week-old baby and a 68-year-old woman, both from South Australia – after a botched network upgrade at Optus sparked a massive “technical failure”, leaving hundreds unable to dial triple-0.
The federal government has slammed the incident as “completely unacceptable”.
Following one of the biggest telecommunications disasters in Australian history, Optus chief executive Stephen Rue held a snap press conference late on Friday afternoon revealing two people died in South Australia and one died in Western Australia during the outage.
“Yesterday, Optus conducted a network upgrade and within this process, a technical failure impacted triple-0 calls,” he said.
“This resulted in the failure of a number of triple-0 calls ... our investigation is ongoing, but at this stage I can confirm that approximately 600 customers were potentially impacted, of which a proportion of their calls did not go through.
“I can confirm that this technical failure has now been rectified. I have been advised that during the process of conducting welfare checks, three of the triple-0 calls involved households where a person tragically passed away.
“I want to offer a sincere apology to all customers who could not connect to emergency services when they needed them most.
“I am so sorry for your loss.”
“I want to offer a sincere apology to all customers who could not connect to emergency services when they needed them most.”
South Australia police said in a brief statement issued at 10.20pm Friday that “the circumstances of each death, including any impact of the outage” would be reported to the state coroner.
In a shocking revelation, an enraged South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas claimed he “was only made aware of these deaths after Optus’s media conference had already begun.”.
“I have not witnessed such incompetence from an Australian corporation in respect to communications, worse than this,” Mr Malinauskas said.
He said his state’s police commissioner and ambulance boss were also unaware of the tragedy when he made contact with them, after being informed by Optus.
Mr Malinauskas also revealed to reporters on Friday evening that he still did not know the names of the two South Australians who had died, with Optus not yet sharing that information.
NSW agencies are demanding an investigation into the “deeply troubling” failure.
“There needs to be a full and independent investigation so every jurisdiction, including NSW, can have confidence that this won’t happen again,” a government spokesman said.
A NSW Police spokesman told The Saturday Telegraph no issues had been identified on Friday evening.
The outage comes less than a year after the Singapore-controlled telco was fined $12m when a similar failed upgrade resulted in more than 2000 people unable to call triple-0 during a 2023 outage.
Asked how a similar catastrophe could happen again so quickly, Mr Rue said, “I share your frustration ... it should not have happened”.
It is the latest in a series of missteps at Optus, after it was felled by a cyber attack in late-2022, which exposed personal and sensitive information of about 10 million Australians.
Communications Minister Anika Wells described the tragedy as “incredibly serious and completely unacceptable”.
“The impact of this failure has had tragic consequences, and my personal thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one,” she said on Friday.
The Communications Minister confirmed an investigation would be undertaken, with the telco staring down the barrel of a fine exceeding $10 million and legal penalties.
Canberra University adjunct associate professor, Dr Michael de Percy said it was “unacceptable” the telco had not prioritised addressing the issue in the wake of the 2023 outage.
“Given the deaths, there needs to be a review of the telco’s emergency response system, but individual companies should not be solely responsible for their backup emergency response systems; the federal government also need to play a part.”
The Optus boss told reporters the network upgrade started on Thursday, before the technical failure stopped calls being made to triple-0 in SA, WA and the Northern Territory.
Normally when calls cannot be made to triple-0 on one carrier, people are diverted to another network so they can still contact emergency services.
But, like the 2023 outage, that did not happen.
Mr Rue was not able to explain why, only saying ‘that’s part of the investigation”.
Sources indicate the telecom briefed government ministers before addressing the public.
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