Australia vows to bolster resilience of telco networks after Singtel-owned Optus outage

SYDNEY: Australia's government pledged on Sunday (Sep 13) to bolster resilience in the nation's telecommunications networks after an outage at Optus, the country's No. 2 carrier, impacted users in three states and disrupted some emergency service calls.

The 76-minute technical glitch on Friday affected Optus voice calling services ​in parts of Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania states and ​the Northern Territory, with some customers experiencing "intermittent call ⁠dropouts", according to Optus.

It followed an Optus network ​issue last year that left hundreds of people unable to contact police, fire and ambulance services and resulted in two deaths.

Asked on Sunday about the latest outage, Communications Minister Anika Wells said "no piece of infrastructure, be it roads, bridges, poles, wires, is 100 per cent resilient".

"What we need to do is make sure these systems are as resilient as we can possibly make them," Wells said in televised remarks.

Optus, ⁠owned by Singapore Telecommunications, on Saturday apologised for the glitch, which the centre-left government described as "deeply concerning" and said was being investigated.

In ​2024, Optus was fined A$12 million by regulators for failing to provide emergency call services to thousands during ⁠a ​nationwide outage in 2023. Optus also ​suffered a cyberattack in 2022 that affected the data of around 9.5 million ​Australians.