Australian officials have promised telecommunications giant Optus will face significant consequences over a systems outage linked to multiple deaths.
The incident last week left hundreds of people across more than half of the country unable to call emergency services for 13 hours.
Optus - one of the country's two major providers - says at least three people died as a result, and its chief executive has apologized to their families and the public for the completely unacceptable failure.
The company is under fire for its delayed handling of the incident - the second such outage for the firm in two years - and the nation's communications regulator is investigating.
More than 600 calls to emergency services failed last Thursday, primarily coming from South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory. At least two calls to triple-0 made from south-western New South Wales also did not connect.
However, Optus waited 40 hours to inform the public about the incident and also did not notify regulators until the issue was resolved - counter to standard practice, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) says.
In a press conference on Friday afternoon, Optus boss Stephen Rue blamed the outage on a technical fault identified during a network upgrade.
He stated that welfare checks conducted after services were restored confirmed three people had died, including a baby boy, although police have since suggested that the network failure was unlikely to be a direct cause in that case. Authorities in WA also believe a fourth person died after their call to triple-0 failed.
In a series of updates over the weekend, Mr. Rue mentioned that the company was unaware of the incident for 13 hours. Multiple customers had attempted to inform the company that its network was down, but the complaints weren't escalated or handled as would be expected, he said.
I would like 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, Mr. Rue stated on Sunday.
In a statement, an Acma spokesperson expressed deep concern over the situation and its handling.
Australians must be able to contact emergency services whenever they need help. This is the most fundamental responsibility every telco provider has to the public.
The regulator has previously found Optus failed to provide access to emergency call services for 2,145 people during an outage in 2023, leading to over A$12 million ($8 million; £6 million) in penalties.
Communications Minister Anika Wells stated that telecommunications providers had no excuse for triple-0 call failures, indicating she'd spoken to Mr. Rue, who the Prime Minister suggested should consider resigning.
The company had perpetuated an enormous failure on the Australian people and would face significant consequences, she asserted.
Investigations are still underway, but Mr. Rue pledged to provide public updates daily as more information becomes known.
