Australia’s communications regulator has launched an investigation into an Optus outage that left hundreds of emergency calls unanswered and has been linked to multiple deaths.
The 13-hour outage last week, caused during a firewall upgrade, affected South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
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Optus has confirmed at least three people died in households unable to connect to triple-0.
More than 600 calls failed during the disruption.
Communications Minister Anika Wells said Optus had “failed the Australian people” and warned the telco would face “significant consequences”.
“We will be considered about our response but there will be consequences,” Wells said.
“They and all providers have no excuses here,” she said.
The Australian Media and Communications Authority (ACMA) said Optus did not notify the regulator until after the outage had been resolved.
Chair Nerida O’Loughlin described the reporting as “perfunctory and in some cases inaccurate”.
“In this case, we didn’t know that something had gone wrong until the matter had been resolved more than 10 hours later.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, speaking in New York, said it would be inappropriate to comment on whether Optus chief executive Stephen Rue should resign, but insisted the investigation must establish how the failure occurred.
“Optus has obligations, as do other communications companies, and quite clearly … they haven’t fulfilled the obligations that they have,” he said.
It is the second time in less than two years that Optus has failed to provide access to triple-0 services.
In 2023, the company was fined more than $12 million over a similar incident.
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