Optus Network Outage in Australia Causes Three Deaths, Affects 600 Customers

In Australia, a network outage caused by a planned upgrade at Optus, the country's second-largest telecom provider, prevented approximately 600 customers from accessing emergency services, resulting in three deaths across South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory. Optus CEO Stephen Rue apologized for the failure, describing it as "completely unacceptable" and announced that a full investigation is underway, with findings to be made public. The outage lasted about 13 hours and occurred during a firewall update, with no alarms triggered to alert the company about the emergency call failures. The Australian government criticized Optus for not informing authorities promptly and stated the company had "let Australians down" during a critical time. Optus, owned by Singapore Telecommunications, has faced previous penalties, including a A$12 million fine in 2023 for a similar emergency call outage. The company pledged full cooperation with regulatory bodies and is conducting welfare checks on affected customers, while the communications watchdog has launched an investigation into the incident.