Comms dept staffers with Optus unable to call Triple Zero during outage

Two out of three federal communications department staff with Optus mobiles could not access Triple Zero on the morning of the Optus outage.

The department said in a submission [pdf] to the Optus outage inquiry that it ran its own informal tests after concerns were raised by Telstra that calls from Optus mobiles may not be getting through.

“Departmental staff with Optus phones conducted test calls; two could not access Triple Zero, while one was successfully carried,” the department said.

Several independent investigations into the Optus outage on November 8 will attempt to determine why 228 calls to Triple Zero from Optus mobiles did not work.

During an outage, calls to emergency services should still work, and be carried over another telco’s network.

The department’s submission does not say what alerted Telstra to potential issues with Optus and Triple Zero.

However, the submission infers this may have been a comparison of call volumes with a prior day.

Not all emergency calls from Optus mobiles failed; “a large number … were being successfully received”, Telstra advised.

According to the department, Telstra also sought advice “from each of the state-based emergency service organisations on their ability to deal with calls for assistance” but noted that “this process was somewhat hampered by the Optus outage itself.”

Optus’ now-ousted CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin did not know why some calls had failed when she fronted the inquiry.

She said Optus had conducted welfare checks with all customers whose calls had failed.