Overview

• Optus says a technical failure during a Thursday network upgrade blocked some Triple Zero calls in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, while normal voice calls continued.
• The company reports the fault has been rectified and an internal investigation is underway, with a commitment to publish findings and cooperate fully with regulators.
• Welfare checks of affected numbers are ongoing, and Optus confirmed three households where a person had died, with two deaths in South Australia and one in Western Australia.
• Communications Minister Anika Wells called the incident incredibly serious and said it will be thoroughly investigated by government and relevant agencies.
• The lapse follows earlier Optus crises including a 2023 outage and a 2022 data breach, after which ACMA fined the telco more than $12 million for emergency-call failures.