A network failure at Australian telecommunications network provider Optus has been linked to at least three confirmed deaths after hundreds of emergency calls in South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory failed to connect. The disruption, caused by a botched firewall update during a network upgrade, blocked more than 600 emergency calls.
The outage, triggered by a botched firewall update at 12:30 a.m. on Thursday 18 September, lasted about 13 hours before service was restored. The company admitted that established escalation processes were not followed, with at least five warning calls mishandled by an offshore centre before the fault was detected. Optus also waited 40 hours before publicly disclosing the incident and failed to notify regulators until after the issue was resolved.
This marks the second major Optus outage in two years affecting access to emergency services. Regulators, ministers, and state premiers have condemned the failure, calling it unacceptable. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has launched an investigation, with officials promising “significant consequences.”