Overview
- Optus says a planned network upgrade caused a technical fault that blocked triple‑zero calls for about 600 customers in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
- Authorities have linked four deaths to failed emergency calls, with investigations underway and South Australia Police saying the infant case is unlikely to have been caused by the outage.
- The interruption lasted roughly 10 hours, far longer than first indicated, and Optus acknowledges there were no alarms, delayed detection and missed escalation of early customer warnings.
- The company has rectified the fault, begun internal and independent reviews, and introduced a compulsory escalation rule when customers report triple‑zero failures to its contact centre.
- Federal and state regulators and police are investigating possible breaches of emergency‑call obligations, with potential multimillion‑dollar penalties and sharp criticism from government leaders.