Australia to press Singtel, Optus after outages linked to deaths

Communications Minister Anika Wells will meet this week with the chiefs of Singtel and Optus to press for answers after a series of failures that disrupted triple zero emergency calls and have been linked to multiple deaths. The meeting will include Singtel Group CEO Yuen Kuan Moon, Optus chairman John Arthur and Optus CEO Stephen Rue, officials said, and comes as investigators and regulators examine the causes and responses to the incidents.

Wells has sought direct engagement with Singtel, Optus’s Singapore-based parent, as part of a government review of how the carrier handled emergency-call routing and adherence to policies and legal obligations. An independent review into the outages has been launched and is expected to report before the end of the year, Wells said. She also stressed the need to restore public confidence in the triple zero system ahead of the Australian summer disaster season.

The outages unfolded in two separate events. A prolonged disruption about 10 days earlier was attributed to a botched firewall upgrade and left customers across South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia unable to reach emergency services for roughly 13 hours. That...