Optus apologises after outage disrupts emergency calls

Optus, Australia's No. 2 telecom carrier, on Saturday ​apologised a day after an outage on its ‌network impacted users across three states and disrupted some emergency services calls.

The 76-minute technical glitch on Friday affected Optus voice calling services ​in parts of Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania states and ​the Northern Territory, with some customers experiencing "intermittent call ⁠dropouts", Optus said in a statement.

"We sincerely apologise to customers ​for the disruption," the statement said.

The outage follows an Optus network ​issue last year that left hundreds of people unable to contact police, fire and ambulance services and resulted in two deaths.

Chris Bowen, a ​senior minister in the country's centre-left government, said it ​was "deeply concerning" that another outage had hit Optus customers.

"All the necessary investigations ‌have ⁠begun," Bowen said in televised remarks. "It's an obligation on our telecommunications companies to keep all their technology for triple-0 calls in the best possible working order."

Police in Victoria said ​they completed around ​40 welfare ⁠checks on callers hit by Friday's outage.

"There were no adverse outcomes or issues of note," ​a police spokesperson said in a statement.

In ​2024, Optus, ⁠owned by Singapore Telecommunications (STEL.SI), opens new tab, was fined A$12 million by regulators for failing to provide emergency call services to thousands during ⁠a ​nationwide outage in 2023. Optus also ​suffered a cyberattack in 2022 that affected the data of around 9.5 million ​Australians.

-Reuters