Australian telco Optus says its staff may not have followed established processes when a firewall upgrade they conducted resulted in customers not being able to call emergency emergency services for fourteen hours – a period during which it is thought three of the carrier’s customers died after trying to seek help, according to the company's CEO.

CEO Stephen Rue said the company upgraded the firewall at around 12:30AM on September 18.

“Initial testing and monitoring did not indicate there were any issues with calls connecting – normal calls were connecting as they should and call volumes at a national level did not raise any red flags,” he said.

Australia’s equivalent of the USA’s 911 and the UK’s 999 and 112 emergency contact number is 000 – Triple Zero – and local law requires all tel

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