Four triple-0 calls fail to connect in 20-minute nationwide Optus outage

Four triple-0 calls to emergency services failed during a new nationwide Optus outage – just months after a similar bungle turned deadly when hundreds of emergency calls could not be made on the network.

Optus confirmed the outage affected customers nationwide about 8am on Monday, but was resolved within 20 minutes.

The Singapore-owned telco conducted three welfare checks and a fourth was referred to NSW Police when customers could not phone triple-0 from their mobile phone during the outage.

NSW Police confirmed they conducted a welfare check on a resident who attempted to contact triple-0 but could not connect.

“No further police action or emergency service response was required,” a spokesman said.

An Optus spokesman said some customers may have experienced intermittent issues with their mobile service.

“This has now been resolved, and services are operating as expected,” a spokesman said.

“We thank customers for their patience and apologise for any disruption caused.”

Several customers posted on social media they were unable to receive or make calls during the outage but could use data and send text messages.

Newswire understands the outage affected about 145,000 services across Australia.

Downdetector showed some customers were still reporting problems on Monday evening.

In September last year, two people died when hundreds of calls to emergency services failed during a 14-hour outage across the Optus network.

Investigations into the deadly outage revealed “systemic and widespread issues” at the telco led to the deadly failure.

It was also found some older model mobile phones no longer defaulted to other networks when users tried to call emergency services during outages.

The incident follows other failures at Optus that saw a cyberattack expose data belonging to 9.5 million Australians in 2022.

The following year, a nationwide outage disrupted services for individuals and businesses, leaving 2,145 people unable to access triple-0.

An ACCC investigation into sales practices found Optus targeted hundreds of vulnerable customers between 2019 and 2023, that resulted in a $100m fine for the telco.