Australia's telecommunications sector is facing increased scrutiny following another outage of emergency services. Optus reported a disruption on Monday in Dapto, New South Wales, caused by a technical failure in a mobile phone tower. This incident left customers unable to make emergency calls, including one individual who needed an ambulance but was able to reach help using a different phone.

Carol Bennett from the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network raised concerns about the failure of the camp-on feature, which allows calls to be rerouted to another provider when one service is down. "The question here is — why did the camp-on feature not kick in?" she asked. "So, you know, there's questions about why this happened again."

The outage affected approximately 4,500 people and lasted from 3 a.m. to 12:20 p.m., resulting in nine failed calls to triple-0, Australia's emergency number. This marks the second outage in just ten days for Optus, following a previous incident linked to a major network upgrade that has been associated with multiple fatalities. The recent disruptions come on the heels of a nationwide outage in November 2023 that impacted thousands of emergency calls.

Corporate governance experts are calling for significant changes at Optus. Thomas Clarke, a corporate governance expert, stated, "Three strikes and you're out. There needs to be something seriously done at this point." He noted that there are currently three inquiries underway, including an internal investigation led by Kerry Schott and two external inquiries by regulators.

Politicians from various parties have expressed their outrage over the outages. Treasurer Jim Chalmers described the situation as an "absolutely shocking failure from Optus" and called for a thorough investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). However, the Opposition's communications spokesperson, Melissa McIntosh, argued against ACMA's involvement, stating, "ACMA cannot be the investigators when they were part of the downfall of this triple-0 network last week."

Local Labor MP Carol Berry emphasized the need for transparency, saying, "I think the community expects answers and will be demanding answers around what's happened and how we're going to make sure this doesn't happen again."

The ACMA has expressed alarm over the recurrence of outages so soon after the previous incident. Meanwhile, Optus is in damage control, with CEO Stephen Rue remaining out of the public eye. Experts suggest that his position may be in jeopardy, with Clarke stating, "The best thing he could do is to leave quietly."

In addition to Optus, Telstra also faced issues, confirming a power outage at a mobile site south of Perth that affected triple-0 calls early Monday. A Telstra spokesperson stated that mobile connectivity was restored and apologized for any concern caused. They noted that customers should have been able to reach triple-0 through other mobile providers or landlines.

Last week, an NBN outage in the Goldfields Esperance region of Western Australia also raised concerns. A hardware fault disrupted services for approximately 700 premises, although it did not affect local mobile services.

Bennett stressed the need for urgent oversight of telecommunications companies, stating, "We need to be sure that that system is working and that there is some oversight, some urgent oversight, that will prevent these ongoing failures from occurring."

Communications Minister Anika Wells is scheduled to meet with executives from Singtel and Optus to discuss the recent outages and their implications for the telecommunications industry.