Optus reveals three people died after a tech failure affected triple-0 calls

Three people have died following an Optus network upgrade that resulted in a technical failure impacting triple-0 calls in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Optus chief executive Stephen Rue told reporters on Friday evening that two people died in SA and one in WA.

“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.”

Mr Rue said the welfare checks were ongoing.

“I want to offer a sincere apology to all customers who could not connect to emergency services when they needed them most,” he said.

He also offered condolences to people who lost loved ones.

“I am so sorry for your loss,” he said.

“What has happened is completely unacceptable. We have let you down.

“You have my assurance that we are conducting a thorough investigation and once concluded, we will share the facts of the incident publicly.

“We will co-operate fully and transparently with all relevant government agencies and regulatory bodies while we investigate this matter further.”

But there were still many unanswered questions, including the duration of the outage and why it was only triple-0 calls rather than all calls that were affected.

“That will be part of the investigation,” he said.

Asked why the announcement was coming late on a Friday, Mr Rue said they had been conducting welfare checks during the day.

Last year, the telecommunications company was fined $12m after thousands of people were unable to access emergency services during a national outage.

Following an investigation launched by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, it found the November 8, 2023 triple-0 outage was not only “preventable” but had the potential for “devastating” consequences.

A total of 2145 customers could not access triple-0, while Optus then failed to conduct 369 welfare checks on people who had attempted to access emergency services during the 12-hour outage.

At the time, Optus said it would never happen again.

“I share your frustration,” Mr Rue said when asked on Friday how something similar had happened again.

“This should not have happened. We’re doing a thorough investigation.

“The facts are still being established ... once they once they are established, we will make them public.”