Three individuals have died following a technical failure that disrupted triple-0 emergency calls on the Optus network. The company's CEO, Stephen Rue, confirmed the incident during a press conference on Friday. The failure affected emergency calls in South Australia, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia, impacting hundreds of customers.

Rue explained that the issue arose during a network upgrade conducted on Thursday. "This resulted in the failure of a number of triple-zero calls in South Australia, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia," he said. He noted that approximately 600 customers were potentially affected, with some calls not going through.

During welfare checks related to the outage, Rue reported that three households were involved where individuals tragically passed away. He expressed his condolences, stating, "I want to offer a sincere apology to all customers who could not connect to emergency services when they needed them most. I am so sorry for your loss. What has happened is completely unacceptable. We have let you down."

Rue confirmed that the technical failure has since been resolved. He assured the public that normal calls were still being processed in the affected regions, with only the triple-0 service experiencing issues.

The Communications Minister, Anika Wells, described the situation as "incredibly serious and completely unacceptable." She emphasized the tragic consequences of the outage and stated, "No triple-0 outage is acceptable. Optus and all telecommunication providers have obligations to ensure they carry emergency services calls. This outage will be thoroughly investigated."

Rue stated that Optus is conducting a thorough investigation into the incident and will cooperate fully with government agencies and regulatory bodies. He also mentioned that the company would share the findings of the investigation publicly once it is completed.

This incident follows a previous outage in November, where Optus faced over $12 million in penalties after more than 2,100 customers were unable to reach triple-0. An investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority found that the company failed to conduct over 300 welfare checks during that incident.