- Emergency calls failed during a 13-hour network outage tied to firewall upgrade
- At least four deaths reported; government orders independent review
What happened: Australia reels after major telco outage incapacitates Triple-0 services
Australia’s Optus experienced a serious network outage on 18 September that disrupted access to its Triple-Zero (000) emergency call line for approximately 13 hours. The disruption stemmed from a routine firewall upgrade that inadvertently blocked emergency services traffic. Up to 624 emergency calls reportedly failed to connect during the outage across South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and parts of New South Wales. Early reports confirm at least four fatalities linked to the inability to reach emergency services. Singtel, Optus’s parent company, issued a public apology and pledged full cooperation with ongoing investigations by regulatory authorities. CEO Stephen Rue acknowledged that “established processes were not followed” during the upgrade, and he announced an independent review led by Kerry Schott, non-executive director at AGL Energy, to examine causes and procedural failures. The Australian government labelled the outage “completely unacceptable” and regulatory bodies including the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) have opened formal probes.
Also read: Optus partners with Nokia to deploy cloud-native 5G voice services
Also read: Optus-led LEO project takes aim at Australia’s satellite autonomy
Why it’s important
The outage has triggered national debate over telecom resilience, oversight and the safety net responsibilities of providers. Infrastructure failures that impact life-and-death services like emergency calls strike at public confidence. For a company like Optus, which handles millions of customer connections, the ability to maintain uninterrupted access to critical services is a core duty. The fact that normal calls remained intact while emergency systems failed suggests a design or escalation flaw in network management. Furthermore, regulators now face pressure to impose stronger mandates on telcos for emergency service continuity, audit trail requirements and escalation protocols for system upgrades. The scale and consequences of this outage also raise questions about whether existing regulatory frameworks are robust enough to hold operators accountable. In future, governments may consider more stringent penalties, oversight or even structural changes in how critical service obligations are enforced in telecommunications.
