Investigation into Optus triple-0 outage underway as minister warns there will be consequences

Australia’s communications regulator has begun its investigation into an Optus triple-0 outage that has been linked to three deaths, with Communications Minister Anika Wells warning there will be consequences for the telecommunications sector.

Last week’s outage primarily impacted South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory and resulted in the failure of more than 600 emergency calls over 13 hours.

Optus chief executive Stephen Rue revealed on Friday that three people had died as a result, which he said was “completely unacceptable”.

Ms Wells, speaking to journalists in Brisbane, said the company would be “held accountable” for the outage.

“We will be considered about our response but there will be consequences,” Ms Wells said. 

Regulator not notified till after the fact

Australian Media and Communications Authority (ACMA) chair Nerida O’Loughlin said her agency was not notified of the outage until after it was resolved, which is counter to the usual processes.

For significant outages, she said, the regulator would typically receive multiple emails a day “as soon as the telco is aware that something has gone wrong”.

“In this case, we didn’t know that something had gone wrong until the matter had been resolved more than 10 hours later,” she said.

“The emails we received on Thursday were perfunctory and some were inaccurate. It wasn’t until the Friday, and very late in the day before the press conference, when we were informed by the CEO that there was 624 calls in play and of the deaths.”

Communications Minister Anika Wells told reporters she was first informed that there was an outage affecting 10 calls on Thursday afternoon and then did not hear anything further until Friday, when she was notified that it had grown to 100 calls.

Twenty minutes later, she said, she was then told that 600 calls had been impacted and shortly after, her department informed her that three deaths had occurred.

“Optus has failed the Australian people in what has happened here. They can expect to suffer significant consequences as a result,” she said.

Ms Wells said she had spoken with the Optus chief executive over the weekend and expressed “my unbelievable disappointment that we were here again so quickly”.

Second Optus triple-0 outage in two years

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters in New York on Monday that he would “be surprised” if Mr Rue had not considered his resignation over the outage, but that an investigation needed to take place.

“Quite clearly, Optus’s behaviour is completely unacceptable, we have made that very clear,” he said.

“There’ll be a proper investigation by the authorities and the government has action at its disposal, but the immediate concern will be that investigation.

“Find out the facts, exactly how this happened.”

It is the second time in recent years that an Optus outage has impacted triple-0 calls.

ACMA found Optus failed to provide access to the emergency call service for 2,145 people during an outage in 2023.

Optus then failed to conduct 369 welfare checks on people who had tried to make an emergency call during the outage.

The telecommunications company was subsequently hit with more than $12 million in penalties.

“We didn’t expect to be here again so soon, less than two years after that breach,” Ms O’Loughlin said.

“As the minister said, we will, as the regulator, be holding Optus to account for this second outage over the last couple of years.”

Loading