Communications Minister Anika Wells warns Optus over triple-0 fail linked to three deaths

Optus and Singtel bosses have “assured” they will work to restore Australian consumer trust after two outages prevented hundreds of triple-0 calls across the country this month.

Communications Minister Anika Wells joined Singtel Group chief executive Yuen Kuan Moon, Optus board chairman John Arthur and Optus chief executive Stephen Rue on Tuesday for a meeting after a second outage impacted triple-0 calls in less than a fortnight, prompting a push for an independent review.

The outage impacted a mobile phone tower between 3am and 12.20pm on Sunday and affected users in the Wollongong suburb of Dapto, with a population coverage of about 4500.

It is one of the telco’s 9000 mobile phone towers across the country.

Nine triple-0 call failures have been identified, with one caller requiring an ambulance needing to use another phone connected to a different provider to contact emergency services.

On Tuesday, Ms Wells said the outages were “completely unacceptable” and Optus “cannot allow this to happen again”.

“I sought assurances from both Optus and Singtel that their upmost priority is restoring the confidence of Australians in their triple-0 system and that they are taking steps to make sure that these things do not continue to happen and impact Australians when it matters the most,” she said.

Ms Wells said she asked Singtel to provide external accountability to “make sure that Australians can take advice, not just from Optus themselves but from an independent and external party that the systems in place will serve Australians when they’re needed the most”.

“This is for Optus to take accountability for, they will take accountability for it and we will ensure the Australian government holds Optus to account and you will hear from them shortly,” she said.

Ms Wells recognised that the outages may have impacted consumer trust in Optus.

“As the minister with responsibility to Australians who elected us as the government, I have been giving thought to what we can do to restore public trust in one of our major telcos because it is a visceral fear, a worst nightmare, that when you need help the most and you call for it that the call does not go through,” she said.

“It is about what do Australians need, and I think they need confidence in their telco.

“What I have asked Optus to do is find a way to have an external account into their systems so that Australians can have confidence from the external investigation and advice rather than just hearing from Optus again that it will be fine.”

Speaking to reporters, Mr Yuen said an independent review would be commissioned by media magnate Kerry Stokes, and the board “agreed that funding will be shared openly with everyone in due time”.

Sunday’s outage came less than a fortnight after a suspected botched firewall update prevented hundreds of triple-0 calls from Optus users across South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and NSW.

Normal calls were largely unaffected; however, about 600 triple-0 calls were blocked from connecting to emergency services.

The outage, which lasted 13 hours, has been linked to three deaths: a 49-year-old Perth man, a 74-year-old Perth man and a 68-year-old Adelaide woman.

More to come...