Three dead in Australia after glitch at telco Optus disrupts emergency calls

SYDNEY – Three people in Australia have died after a technical failure at Optus, the country’s second-largest telecommunications provider, disrupted emergency call services.

Chief executive Stephen Rue said the failure occurred during a network upgrade on Sept 18, which potentially impacted 600 customers in the states of South Australia and Western Australia, and in the Northern Territory.

Welfare checks later found three people dead in households who had attempted to make emergency triple zero (“000”) calls, he told a press conference on Sept 19, adding that checks were still ongoing.

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

“I offer my sincere and heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the people who passed away. I am so sorry for your loss. What has happened is completely unacceptable. We have let you down.”

Asked how long the failure lasted, Mr Rue said that was still being investigated.

Optus had fixed the fault, was conducting a thorough investigation and would make the results public once completed, he said.

Optus is owned by Singapore’s Singtel.

The incident comes less than a year after Optus was fined A$12 million (S$10.2 million) by regulators for failing to provide emergency call services to thousands during a nationwide outage in 2023.

Optus also suffered a cyber attack in 2022 that affected the data of around 9.5 million Australians, and a network-wide outage in 2023, which prompted the resignation of then chief executive officer Kelly Bayer Rosmarin. Mr Rue took the reins in November 2024. REUTERS