Home / Disasters and Accidents / Optus Outage Hinders Emergency Calls
Optus Outage Hinders Emergency Calls
11 Sep
Summary
- 39 emergency calls failed to connect due to an Optus outage.
- Victoria Police will conduct welfare checks on affected callers.
- This follows a major Optus Triple Zero outage in September last year.
On Friday, an Optus network outage prevented 39 Triple Zero calls from connecting to the national emergency line. Triple Zero Victoria reported the issue, noting that Victoria Police will conduct welfare checks on individuals who experienced connection difficulties. The outage occurred shortly before 7 PM AEST.
Earlier on Friday, Optus acknowledged awareness of an outage starting around 1:30 PM AEST and stated their technical teams worked to restore services promptly. Some customers reported losing service or being unable to make or receive calls. Optus notified customers in Victoria, South Australia, the Northern Territory, and Tasmania about the coverage loss.
This incident recalls a significant outage on September 18 last year, where a firewall upgrade issue blocked Triple Zero calls for approximately 13 hours across several Australian states and territories. That event was linked to two deaths, and Australia's communications regulator has since filed civil penalty proceedings against Optus.
