UPDATE: A catastrophic outage of Optus’ network has resulted in three tragic deaths, including that of an eight-week-old boy, prompting potential multi-million dollar fines for the telecommunications giant. The outage, which occurred on Thursday, left up to 600 households in South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory unable to make triple-zero calls, Australia’s emergency number.
Authorities have confirmed that among the deceased are an infant from Gawler, South Australia, and a 68-year-old woman from the Queenstown suburb of Adelaide. Optus CEO Stephen Rue has admitted that at least three customers—two in South Australia and one in Western Australia—could not reach emergency services during this critical time.
Communications Minister Anika Wells expressed her outrage, labeling the incident as “incredibly serious and completely unacceptable.” She stated, “The impact of this failure has had tragic consequences, and my personal thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one.” Wells emphasized that all telecommunications providers must guarantee emergency service call functionality and that a thorough investigation into this incident will take place.
In response to the crisis, Optus is conducting “welfare checks” to assess any further customer impact, Rue confirmed during a press conference. He stated, “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.” The network issue has since been resolved, but the exact duration of the outage remains unclear as the investigation progresses.
Rue’s apology comes nearly two years after another significant outage in November 2023, which left over 10 million customers disconnected for more than 16 hours. This previous failure resulted in Optus being penalized with over $12 million for breaching emergency call rules, where they failed to provide access to 2,145 individuals trying to call triple-zero.
WA Police are also conducting welfare checks in light of this recent incident. Opposition communications spokeswoman Melissa McIntosh has raised alarms over the failure of triple-zero call diversions to other carriers, which should have mitigated the impact of the outage.
This developing story highlights the urgent need for accountability and improvements in emergency telecommunications as the nation grapples with the devastating human impact of this failure. As the investigation unfolds, the public eagerly awaits answers and reassurances that such an incident will not occur again.
Stay tuned for more updates on this urgent situation as we continue to monitor the developments surrounding this tragic event.
