Australian officials have promised telecommunications giant Optus will face significant consequences over a systems outage linked to multiple deaths.
The incident last week left hundreds of people across more than half of the country unable to call emergency services for 13 hours.
Optus - one of the country's two major providers - says at least three people died as a result, and its chief executive has apologized to their families and the public for the completely unacceptable failure.
The company is under fire for its delayed handling of the incident - the second such outage for the firm in two years - and the nation's communications regulator is investigating.
More than 600 calls to emergency services failed last Thursday, primarily coming from South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. At least two calls to triple-0 made from south-western New South Wales also did not connect.
However, Optus waited 40 hours to inform the public about the incident, and did not tell regulators until the issue was resolved - counter to standard practice, according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma).
In a press conference on Friday afternoon, Optus boss Stephen Rue blamed the outage on a technical fault identified during a network upgrade.
He said welfare checks conducted after services were restored confirmed three people had died, including a baby boy, though police have since said the network failure was unlikely to be a cause in that case. Authorities in WA also say they believe a fourth person died after their call to triple-0 failed.
In a series of updates over the weekend, Mr. Rue said the company was unaware of the incident for 13 hours. Multiple customers had tried to advise the company its network wasn't working, but the complaints weren't escalated or handled as would be expected, he said.
I would like to reiterate how sorry I am about the very sad loss of the lives of four people who could not reach emergency services in their time of need, Mr. Rue said on Sunday.
What I can assure you is that actions are and will be taken to ensure this does not happen in future.
In a statement, an Acma spokesperson said the regulator was deeply concerned by the situation and its handling.
Australians must be able to contact emergency services whenever they need help. This is the most fundamental responsibility every telco provider has to the public.
The regulator has previously found Optus failed to provide access to emergency call services during an outage in 2023, resulting in substantial financial penalties.
Communications Minister Anika Wells on Monday stated telecommunications providers had no excuse for triple-0 call failures and expressed her disappointment that the issue had arisen again so soon. She emphasized that the company had perpetuated an enormous failure on the Australian people and would face significant consequences.
Investigation into the matter is still ongoing, but Mr. Rue has promised daily updates as more information becomes available.
