Optus Faces Federal Court Lawsuit Over Fatal Triple Zero Outage
The Australian Communications and Media Authority alleges the telco breached legal obligations on over 1,000 occasions during a 14-hour outage last year, which was linked to two deaths.
Telco giant Optus is being sued in Federal Court by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) following a significant Triple Zero outage last year that blocked hundreds of emergency calls and has been linked to two deaths.
The ACMA announced Thursday that it has commenced proceedings against Optus Mobile Pty Limited, alleging the company breached two separate legal obligations on 1,005 occasions during the September 18 outage. The incident lasted for nearly 14 hours and affected emergency call access in four Australian states and territories.
According to the authority, Optus failed to provide end-users with access to the emergency call service when they attempted to make calls using the company's supply. Additionally, the ACMA claims Optus did not ensure that these emergency calls were successfully carried to the relevant termination points.
The outage led to a critical failure in emergency communication, with the blocked calls being directly linked to two fatalities. Optus has been contacted for comment.