Optus CEO Stephen Rue has come under fire at a parliamentary inquiry into the triple-zero outage. Photo: Dave Hunt/AAP PHOTOS

Optus executives insist they weren't obliged to urgently notify officials multiple deaths were linked to a major triple-zero outage, defending a near-18-hour delay in providing key details.

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Staff at the embattled telco learned before 9pm on September 18 multiple fatalities had been tied to the catastrophic outage, but they waited until the following afternoon to let the industry regulator and minister know.

Under-fire executives from Optus copped a parliamen

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