Optus's parent company, Singtel Group, issued an apology and is collaborating with Optus to investigate the incident, with CEO Yuen Kuan Moon expressing deep regret and a commitment to thorough inquiry.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has launched an investigation and indicated that Optus could face more significant penalties, especially after a previous $100 million fine related to a similar outage in 2023.

Communications Minister Anika Wells has called for a meeting with Singtel to discuss the incident and emphasized the importance of maintaining confidence in the triple-0 system ahead of the summer disaster season.

Optus has appointed Dr. Kerry Schott to lead an independent review into the outage, focusing on the causes, management of triple-0 calls, compliance, and the company's response.

The outage's length was extended beyond initial reports, with calls between 12:17 am and 12:30 am also affected, including seven unanswered calls, four of which were from Western Australia.

The incident has raised concerns about Optus's history of outages, including a similar triple-0 failure in 2023 that impacted over 2,000 people and resulted in a $12 million fine, after which the company adopted 18 government recommendations.

Two men aged 74 and 49 in Perth died during the outage, with the older man reaching hospital but the younger one not, both suffering medical episodes during the failure.

A major Optus outage on September 18 caused a failure in connecting approximately 600 triple-0 emergency calls across South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and New South Wales, tragically resulting in three deaths.

The outage led to the deaths of three individuals, including a 68-year-old woman in Adelaide and two men in Perth aged 74 and 49, with some victims suffering medical episodes during the failure.

Despite some calls eventually being connected through switching carriers, about 480 customers remained unable to reach emergency services during the outage, which lasted longer than initially reported.

The outage was caused by human error during a scheduled firewall upgrade, with Optus CEO Stephen Rue admitting that established processes were not followed, leading to the failure to divert calls properly.

Police and coronial investigations are ongoing, as authorities scrutinize Optus's response and the impact of the outage on emergency services, with the Ambulance Employees Association of WA condemning the event as catastrophic.