SYDNEY, Sept 22 (V7N) – Optus, Australia’s second-largest telecom provider, confirmed that a deviation from standard procedures during a network upgrade caused a technical failure, disrupting emergency call services for approximately 13 hours and has been associated with four fatalities.
 
The incident occurred during a network firewall upgrade from 12:30 a.m. on Thursday (1430 GMT Wednesday) until about 1:30 p.m., potentially affecting around 600 customers.
 
The Australian government announced on Friday that it would investigate the incident, calling the disruption “unacceptable.” Optus stated it would fully cooperate with the investigation.
 
Optus CEO Stephen Rue explained that the company’s initial internal review revealed that established upgrade protocols were not properly followed. He noted that five customers reported the outage to the call centre, but their concerns were not escalated. Rue expressed regret over the four deaths, which occurred because emergency services were inaccessible during the outage.
 
South Australia police identified two of the victims: an eight-week-old boy and a 68-year-old woman. In Western Australia, authorities confirmed the other two deaths: men aged 74 and 49.
 
Rue confirmed that the network fault was resolved by Friday and pledged to make the full investigation results public.
 
This incident follows previous Optus service failures, including a nationwide outage in 2023, which resulted in a A$12 million ($7.9 million) fine for failing to provide emergency call services. The company also suffered a major cyberattack in 2022 affecting 9.5 million Australians. Former CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin resigned after these incidents, with Rue assuming leadership in November 2024.
 
Regulators are now reviewing the incident as part of ongoing oversight to ensure compliance with critical emergency service obligations.
 
Passengers and the public have expressed serious concerns over Optus’ handling of emergency call access, raising calls for accountability and stronger regulatory enforcement.
 
News source: Reuters 
 
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