Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) is under renewed scrutiny after its Australian arm, Optus, suffered a network outage that prevented emergency calls and reportedly resulted in three deaths.

Optus, which contributes about half of SingTel’s revenue, experienced the failure on September 18 during a network upgrade, affecting emergency call services in South Australia, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia.

Australian regulators have launched an investigation into whether Optus met emergency call obligations, with officials highlighting the essential nature of reliable emergency access.

Communications Minister Anika Wells said regulatory changes may follow the probe, and expressed disappointment at Optus’ repeated failures.

Optus was fined A$12 million in 2023 after a nationwide outage that also disrupted emergency calls.

CEO Stephen Rue said the company will appoint an external expert to review the incident and publicly share the findings.

Optus has halted network changes and started continuous monitoring of emergency call failures, while investigating why it took 13 hours to detect the latest outage.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg