Three people died during an Optus triple zero failure across South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory that was the result of a network update issue.

Optus chief executive Stephen Rue said a technical failure affected about 600 triple zero calls on the Optus network.

Rue said welfare checks were then conducted at all affected households after the issue was fixed.

From those welfare checks it was established that three of the calls came from households where people passed away.

Two of the deaths took place in SA and another in WA.

"Our investigation is ongoing but at this stage I can confirm that approximately 600 customers were potentially impacted, of which a portion of calls did not go through," he said.

He apologised to the families of those who passed away

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