A baby boy is among three people to have died after a botched Optus network upgrade blocked hundreds of people in several states from calling Triple-0.
Two of the deaths occurred in South Australia, where police identified an eight-week-old child from Gawler West and a 68-year-old woman from Queenstown. The third is from WA.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Three dead after Optus system failure blocks emergency services calls.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today 
Optus chief executive officer Stephen Rue said the technical failure was triggered during a network upgrade on Thursday.
It stopped about 600 customers in SA, the NT and WA from reaching emergency services.
“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,” Rue said on Friday afternoon, adding that the checks “remain ongoing”.
WA Police said it is in the process of “conducting a number of welfare checks”, and SA Police is working through about 150 matters connected to the disaster.
“The circumstances of each death, including any impact of the outage, are being investigated and a report will be prepared for the State Coroner in each case,” SA Police said.
Optus apology
Speaking at a press conference, Rue said the calamity was “completely unacceptable”.
“I want to offer a sincere apology to all customers who could not connect to emergency services when they needed them most,” he said.
“I offer my most sincere and heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the people who passed away.
“I am so sorry for your loss. What has happened is completely unacceptable. We have let you down.
“We are conducting a thorough investigation and once concluded we will share the facts of the incident publicly.
“We will cooperate fully and transparently with all relevant government agencies and regulatory bodies while we investigate this matter further.”
The technical issue — which only blocked Triple-0 calls, but did not stop normal calls from going through — has been rectified.
Communications Minister Anika Wells blasted the breakdown.
“The impact of this failure has had tragic consequences and my personal thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one,” Wells said.
“While details are still emerging, no Triple-0 outage is acceptable.
“Optus and all telecommunication providers have obligations to ensure they carry emergency services calls.
“This outage will be thoroughly investigated.”
SA Premier Peter Malinauskas said his government was only told of the tragic deaths after Optus’ press conference began about 5.45pm eastern time on Friday.
“This is completely unacceptable. South Australians expect and deserve to know that when they call Triple-0, help will be there,” he said.
“A failure of this scale is serious, and the consequences have been devastating.”
He said the state government will launch an investigation into the cause of the outage, the adequacy of the response, and the circumstances that led to the deaths.
What caused the Optus Triple-0 failure?
When pressed on what exactly unfolded, and how long calls were blocked, Rue said: “The facts are still being established.”
Flinders University associate professor Paul Gardner-Stephen, who has a background in disaster-zone telecommunications, explained that mobile networks are complex systems.
“The Triple-0 service in Australia leverages the dedicated emergency call facility in those networks and, when it works correctly, allows Triple-0 calls from any mobile phone using any network that’s available,” Gardner-Stephen said.
“If one network is down, the phone will automatically attempt to use another network.
“This tragic failure of Triple-0 services must have created a set of circumstances where that automatic fail-over to other networks was not possible.
“For example, the Optus network may have accepted the Triple-0 calls, but then not correctly routed them to the Triple-0 call centre, dropped calls after establishment, or failed to correctly carry the audio for the phone calls.”
He said the impending investigations will shed light on the “exact nature” of the system collapse.
Optus’ history of outages and data breaches
Australia’s second-biggest mobile operator was fined more than $12m just last November over a nationwide outage in 2023 that stopped 2100 customers from phoning emergency services.
“Triple-0 availability is the most fundamental service telcos must provide to the public. When an emergency call fails to connect there can be devastating consequences for public health and safety,” Australian Communications and Media Authority chair Nerida O’Loughlin said at the time.
“Our findings indicate that Optus failed in the management of its network in a number of areas and that the outage should have been preventable.
“Optus also failed to follow up on the safety and wellbeing of more than 360 of its customers once the outage was resolved.”
Rue said he was frustrated that Optus had experienced another shocking outage.
“This should not have happened. We’re doing a thorough investigation, I can assure you,” he said on Friday.
The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) said it is vital Australians have confidence they can reach emergency services.
“This failure from Optus must not happen again but frankly we are beyond tired of saying such things when it comes to this telco,” ACCAN chief executive Carol Bennett said
Graeme Hughes, a business retail and consumer expert from Griffith University, said “the lessons and penalties from the nationwide 2023 outage were clearly insufficient to prevent another disaster”.
“This raises questions about the effectiveness of current regulatory oversight and the readiness of telecommunications providers to protect public safety,” Hughes said.
“The public has a right to know why fail-safe systems, which should have routed emergency calls to other networks, either did not exist or failed to function.
“The time for lenient penalties and polite conversations is over. The government must now prioritise public safety over corporate profits.”
In June, Optus was fined $100 million after it pressured Aboriginal customers in remote regions into buying phone products they did not need or want.
“In many instances, the consumers did not want or need, could not use or could not afford what they were sold, and in some cases consumers were pursued for debts resulting from these sales,” the ACCC said.
And the Australian Information Commissioner launched legal action against the company in August over a data breach it said compromised the personal data of 9.5 million Australians across a near three-year period to September 2022.
“All organisations holding personal information need to ensure they have strong data governance and security practices,” Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind said.
“These need to be both thorough and embedded, to guard against vulnerabilities that threat actors will be ready to exploit.”
Stream free on
