Optus, Australia’s second-largest telecom operator, said on Sunday that a failure to follow established procedures during a firewall upgrade triggered the 13-hour outage of emergency call services last week, an incident now linked to the deaths of four people.
The outage, which ran from 12:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Thursday, potentially affected 600 customers across South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory. Optus CEO Stephen Rue acknowledged the company’s initial investigation found staff departed from standard processes during the upgrade.
Five customers contacted Optus’ call centre during the outage, but their concerns were never escalated. “That is clearly not good enough,” Rue said, adding: “I want to reiterate how sorry I am about the very sad loss of the lives of four people, who could not reach emergency services in their time of need.”
The fatalities include an eight-week-old boy, a 68-year-old woman, and two men aged 74 and 49, police confirmed.
The Australian government has already launched an investigation, calling the failure “unacceptable.” Optus, owned by Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel), said it would cooperate fully and publish the results of its internal review.
The outage is the latest in a series of crises for Optus. In 2022, it suffered a cyberattack that exposed data from 9.5 million Australians. In 2023, it was fined A$12 million ($7.9 million) for failing to provide emergency call services during another nationwide outage. The repeated failures led to the resignation of then-CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, with Rue taking over in late 2024.
The incident has intensified pressure on Optus and regulators to strengthen oversight of critical telecom infrastructure, as public confidence in the carrier continues to erode.