Australiaβs communications regulator has sued Optus over last yearβs Triple Zero outage, alleging the telco failed to connect emergency calls on 1005 occasions and exposing it to penalties of more than $250 million.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority filed civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court on Thursday against Optus Mobile over the September 18 outage, when a bungled firewall upgrade blocked calls to Triple Zero across South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and far west NSW for about 13 hours. The outage was linked to two deaths.
The regulator alleges Optus Mobile broke the law twice over for each failed call: once by not giving callers access to the emergency call service, and again by not carrying those calls to the relevant termination point. The maximum penalty is $250,000 per contravention.
ACMA chair Nerida OβLoughlin said the obligation was fundamental. βAustralians rightly expect that when they call Triple Zero, their call will connect,β she said on Thursday. βGiving access to the emergency call service is not optional.β
Optus Mobile and other Singtel subsidiaries paid more than $12 million over similar failures in November 2023. OβLoughlin said the repeat so soon afterwards was a significant concern and a reason for going to court.
Optus was contacted for comment.
More to come
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David Swan is the technology editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor for The Australian newspaper.Connect via X or email.