Optus network failure impacted triple-0 calls in several states where patients died after 'totally unacceptable' lapse

Three people, including an eight-week-old baby, have died after a technical failure impacted hundreds of triple-0 calls on the Optus network.

Optus CEO Stephen Rue confirmed late on Friday afternoon that a technical problem resulted in the failure of triple-0 emergency calls in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

The calls were impacted by a network update on Thursday, the CEO said.

Two of the deaths were from South Australia and one was from Western Australia.

In South Australia, police confirmed the two deaths involved an eight-week-old boy and, a 68-year-old woman.

"The circumstances of each death, including any impact of the outage, are being investigated and a report will be prepared for the State Coroner in each case," SA Police said.

"Our investigation is ongoing but at this stage I can confirm that approximately 600 customers were potentially impacted, of which a proportion of their calls did not go through," Mr Rue said.

"During the process of conducting welfare checks, three of the triple-0 calls involved households where a person tragically passed away."

He confirmed the technical failure has now been rectified.

Minister slams 'tragic' failure

Communications Minister Anika Wells said "this is incredibly serious and completely unacceptable".

"The impact of this failure has had tragic consequences and my personal thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one," she said.

"While details are still emerging, no triple-0 outage is acceptable. This outage will be thoroughly investigated."

South Australia's Premier Peter Malinauskas said Optus did not tell the SA government about the deaths before its press conference.

"I have not witnessed such incompetence from an Australian corporation in respect to communications worse than this," Mr Malinauskas said.

"I cannot believe that anyone in the senior levels of Optus thought they should craft a media statement and conduct a press conference before advising the South Australian government that they had ascertained two deaths had occurred.

"I think quite frankly that is reprehensible conduct on behalf of Optus."

Western Australia's Premier Roger Cook gave his "deepest sympathies go to families of those impacted".

"What has occurred is completely unacceptable and we are urgently seeking further detail from Optus," he said.

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

Mr Rue confirmed that normal calls were going through in those regions and it was just the triple-0 service that was affected.

"You have my assurance that we are conducting a thorough investigation and once concluded, we will share the facts of the incident publicly," he said.

"We will cooperate fully and transparently with all relevant government agencies and regulatory bodies while we investigate this matter further."

In Western Australia, St John Ambulance service said Optus did not advise them of a network outage.

"St John WA was not made aware of any issues involving Optus customers' inability to contact triple-0, and has had no briefing from Optus about any outage issues in recent days," they said in a statement.

Prior service failure

This is not the first time an Optus service failure has disrupted triple-0 calls.

Optus experienced a nationwide network outage on 8 November 2023 which caused significant disruption across Australia for individuals and businesses.

The ACMA found Optus failed to provide access to the emergency call service for 2,145 people during the course of that outage. 

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.

"The Australian Government accepted all recommendations from the previous Optus Outage Review and has fully implemented 12 of the 18 recommendations, with the remaining six underway," Ms Wells said after the recent outage.