Australia’s Optus hit again by emergency call outage

Australian telco Optus said yesterday it had suffered another emergency call outage in an area south of Sydney, 10 days after a broader disruption that it said had probably caused four deaths when customers were unable to get timely aid.

- RENJU JOSE CHRISTINE CHEN

People pass a store of Australian telecommunications giant Optus in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran yesterday.AFP

(AFP)

The Australian government called the outage an “absolutely shocking failure” and has said it will seek answers from Singapore Telecommunications, which owns the country’s No.2 carrier.

Singtel Group CEO Yuen Kuan Moon plans to meet Australia’s Communications Minister Anika Wells this week, a spokesperson for the minister's office said. Optus Chairman John Arthur and CEO Stephen Rue will join Yuen in the meeting with Wells, Singtel said.

“Singtel takes this matter seriously and will extend full cooperation to the Australian government and authorities to address the Optus issue,” a spokesperson said.