Three people died after an Optus network upgrade prevented triple zero calls in three states and territories on Thursday, the telco’s chief executive officer has confirmed.
Two of the deceased were in South Australia and one was in Western Australia, Stephen Rue said, but added that welfare checks after the upgrade were “ongoing”.
“The upgrade impact … resulted in the failure of a number of triple zero calls in South Australia, Northern Territory and Western Australia,” Rue said in a press conference on Friday afternoon.
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“I have been advised that during the process of conducting welfare checks, three of the triple zero calls involved households where a person tragically passed away.”
The CEO said approximately 600 customers were affected by the network upgrade, and that Optus was conducting a thorough investigation.
He said normal calls were going through at that time buttriple zero calls were affected. The exact duration of the outage was also being investigated.
“We will cooperate fully and transparently with all relevant government agencies and regulatory bodies while we investigate this matter further,” he said.
Rue repeatedly apologised, describing the “technical failure” as “not acceptable” and something that “should not have happened”.
“I offer my most sincere and heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the people who passed away.
“I am so sorry for your loss. What has happened is completely unacceptable. We have let you down.”
He said the facts of the outage would be shared when they were established.