Australian authorities have pledged to take severe actions against telecommunications provider Optus following a service disruption that resulted in multiple fatalities. The recent outage, which lasted for 13 hours, impacted the ability of hundreds of individuals across more than half of the country to reach emergency services.
Optus, one of the nation’s leading telecommunications companies, has acknowledged that at least three deaths were caused due to the incident, and its CEO has publicly apologized to the affected families and the public for this “completely unacceptable” failure.
Criticisms have arisen over Optus’s slow response to the incident, which marks the second major outage for the company within two years, prompting an investigation by Australia’s communications regulator. During the 40-hour delay in notifying the public about the issue, Optus also failed to inform regulators until after the problem was resolved, deviating from standard protocols according to the Australian Media and Communications Authority (Acma).
In a press briefing, Optus CEO Stephen Rue attributed the outage to a technical glitch that was identified during a network upgrade. The CEO stated that after services were restored, three deaths were confirmed through welfare checks, including a baby boy, though authorities in Western Australia suspect a fourth death due to a failed emergency call.
In a series of updates, Mr. Rue revealed that the company was unaware of the incident for 13 hours, despite multiple customer complaints indicating network malfunctions. He expressed deep sorrow over the loss of lives and pledged for steps to prevent such incidents in the future.
An Acma spokesperson expressed profound concern over the situation and Optus’s handling of it, emphasizing the utmost importance of providing reliable access to emergency services.
The regulatory body has previously penalized Optus over a similar outage in 2023, after the provider failed to ensure access to emergency services for more than 2,145 people and did not follow up with 369 affected individuals, resulting in fines totaling over AUD 12 million.
Communications Minister Anika Wells stated that telecommunications providers have no excuse for failures in emergency calling and has discussed potential resignation of Mr. Rue with the Prime Minister. She emphasized that Optus has failed the Australian people and will face significant repercussions.
Investigations are currently ongoing, and Mr. Rue has committed to providing daily updates as more information becomes available.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98ddzrgjnyo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss
