Archive · 20 Sep 2025
Optus Cooperates with Probes After Outage Causes Deaths
Optus, an Australian telecom company, experienced a technical issue during a firewall upgrade.
This problem caused a disruption in emergency call services for 13 hours.
Sadly, three people died because they were unable to connect to emergency services.
CEO Stephen Rue has offered his condolences and promised full cooperation with investigations.
This incident follows a previous fine for a similar outage, a cyberattack, and a previous network outage.
Optus is working to prevent future issues.
Optus will cooperate with investigations following the outage.
Three deaths were reported as a result of the network failure.
The technical failure disrupted emergency call services.
The outage occurred during a firewall upgrade.
Around 600 customers were potentially affected by the outage.
- Who
- Optus customers, including three deceased individuals
- What
- Technical failure disrupting emergency call services
- When
- Thursday (12:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.)
- Where
- South Australia, Western Australia, and Northern Territory in Australia
- Why
- Firewall upgrade failure
Government/Public
Optus
Response to Outage
Government/Public
Failure to provide emergency services is unacceptable.
Optus
The company is cooperating with investigations and conducting its own review.
- Event
- Optus network failure disrupting emergency calls
- Location
- Australia (South Australia, Western Australia, Northern Territory)
- Casualties
- Three deaths reported
- Company Involved
- Optus
- Cause
- Firewall upgrade failure
- Duration
- 13 hours
- Affected Customers
- Approx. 600
- Previous Outage Fine
- A$12 million (2023)
