The Daily Aus Is the 000 network failing?
Sep 29, 2025
Australia's emergency call service faces scrutiny after multiple outages by Optus, including a recent incident affecting thousands. The hosts discuss the critical failures that led to a tragic loss of life, the role of Telstra in the system, and why fallback procedures failed. With investigations underway, they explore human error during upgrades and potential penalties from regulators. Political reactions highlight calls for a comprehensive inquiry into the entire emergency services system. Significant reforms may be on the horizon.
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Wollongong Tower Outage
- The Wollongong outage affected about 4,500 Optus users for over nine hours on a Dapto tower.
- Optus reviewed nine failed 000 calls and said affected users can now contact emergency services.
September 18 Upgrade Failure
- On September 18 Optus had a network upgrade failure that disrupted 000 across multiple states for about 13 hours.
- Optus identified ~600 failed calls and began welfare checks of people who couldn't reach 000.
Welfare Checks Found Fatalities
- Welfare checks after the outage found three deaths initially linked to failed 000 calls across SA and WA.
- SA police later said the infant's death was unlikely caused by the outage after family used another phone.