Optus was warned at least five times of a triple-zero call outage, as the telco giant’s boss shuts down questions about whether he will resign over the scandal.
A botched firewall update blocked hundreds of triple-zero calls from Optus customers in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Early investigations appeared to show established processes were “not followed”, Optus chief executive Stephen Rue said.
“We are speaking with the individuals involved as to the full technical detail of the network failure,” he told reporters in Sydney on Sunday.
“We will leave that for the investigation.”
Two customers contacted Optus call centres early on Thursday morning before the outage was fixed after more than 13 hours.
A review has uncovered another three calls over the issue but “red flags” were not raised because call volumes were normal, Mr Rue said.
An eight-week-old boy from Gawler West, north of Adelaide, was among four deaths linked to the fault.
But SA Police said the outage was “unlikely to have contributed” to the boy’s death because his grandmother immediately used another phone to contact triple zero after her initial call failed.
“The preliminary investigations indicate the child’s death is not due to any delay in (SA Ambulance Service) attending the Mulga St house, despite the failure of the first attempt to call 000,” it said.
Its investigation into the death of a 68-year-old Queenstown woman was “more complex”, with work continuing to determine the outage’s impact.
The deaths of two Perth men, a 74-year-old from Willetton and a 49-year-old from Kensington, have also been connected to the fault.
Two callers from NSW were unable to get through to emergency services because they were close to SA and connected to towers across the border, Mr Rue said.
Optus was not aware of further issues with those calls following welfare checks with NSW Police.
The telco had paused all network system changes as it reviewed processes and was monitoring triple-zero call volumes and failure rates state-by-state 24 hours a day, Mr Rue said.
Optus has been slammed for keeping governments and the public in the dark over the fault until Friday afternoon, as well as failing to heed the recommendations of a review into a November 2023 outage.
Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain said the latest outage was “absolutely disgraceful” and labelled the company’s failure to advise state and federal governments “beyond reprehensible”.
“Optus clearly needs to review its protocols,” she told ABC TV.
The federal coalition is calling for a broader independent investigation into the triple-zero network, on top of reviews orchestrated by Optus and the Australian Communications Media Authority.
Nationals leader David Littleproud said the behaviour of Optus, as a universal service provider, was “abhorrent” and “beyond belief”.
“They do need to face penalties for this, the government needs to crack down,” he told Nine’s Today.
With political pressure mounting, Mr Rue deflected when asked if he had considered resigning over the scandal.
“I am absolutely determined and focused to work through these processes that we’re doing here and to implement recommendations,” he said.
About a third of the 18 review recommendations stemming from the 2023 outage, which resulted in fines totalling more than $12 million, are yet to be implemented.
The peak national consumer advocacy group for communications has called for the federal government to fast-track legislation and appoint an independent technical expert to oversee Optus’ triple-zero systems.
“The current form of telco self-regulation has yet again proven to be a failure,” Australian Communications Consumer Action Network CEO Carol Bennett said.
“It needs to change.”
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