Outrage in Australia as Telecommunications Failures Linked to Multiple Deaths

Sun Dec 21 2025 01:07:24 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

The Australian public is expressing outrage as telecommunications provider Optus faces backlash over a major outage that allegedly prevented hundreds from reaching emergency services, resulting in several tragic fatalities.

Australian officials are now demanding accountability from Optus after a telecommunications outage left hundreds unable to access emergency services for 13 hours, reportedly leading to multiple deaths. The incident has prompted an investigation by the communications regulator, and the telecommunications giant has been criticized for its slow response and lack of transparency. Optus's CEO has publicly apologized, acknowledging the serious implications of the outage.

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 tell regulators until the issue was resolved - counter to standard practice, according to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma).

In a press conference, Optus boss Stephen Rue blamed the outage on a technical fault identified during a network upgrade.

He confirmed welfare checks conducted after services were restored indicated three people had died, including a baby boy, though police stated the network failure was unlikely to be a cause in that case. Authorities in WA also believe a fourth person died after their call to triple-0 failed.

After initially failing to acknowledge the issue for 13 hours, Optus stated multiple customers had tried to alert them to the network problem, but those complaints were not escalated or handled as expected.

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.

Acma has expressed deep concern about the situation and how it was handled. The regulator emphasized that Australians must be able to contact emergency services whenever they need help.

Investigations into the incident are ongoing, with Optus committing to provide daily updates as new information emerges.