The regulator calls access to Triple Zero the most important public safety responsibility a telco has. Optus failed it twice in 22 months. After the November 2023 outage, which ACMA found left 2,145 emergency calls unsuccessful and 369 required welfare checks undone, three Optus companies paid infringement notices totalling just over $12 million, and payment was not an admission. On a separate public-safety matter in the same period, emails obtained by the ABC under FOI show ACMA told Optus its notice would sit at the lower end of a $1.5 million to $3 million range if it offered an enforceable undertaking on terms acceptable to ACMA, and sent it the draft announcement to check for accuracy. ACMA says procedural fairness requires this and that it does not negotiate release content; Optus made no comments. After the second major outage, on 18 September 2025, ACMA went to the Federal Court, alleging 1,005 contraventions. Those allegations are untested.
ATTENDED 25 September 2026 (case: THE TRIPLE ZERO RORT, article 1 of four).
FINDING. The Australian Communications and Media Authority found that Optus's 8 November 2023 outage produced 2,145 unsuccessful emergency calls and 369 welfare checks that were required and not carried out. Three Optus companies paid infringement notices totalling $12,000,420, and the notice for Optus Mobile states that payment is not an admission of liability. This article sets out that record, the same duty enforced against Telstra, a separate penalty over the database Triple Zero uses for caller location, and the recurrence twenty-two months later that has now put Optus Mobile before the Federal Court.
ARTICLE CHANGES. Article 1, "The calls that did not connect", published, covering the 2023 outage, ACMA's findings, the infringement notices, the Telstra and IPND penalties in the same period, and the handoff to the 2025 outage. Article 3 of this case, "One thousand and five", publishes alongside it; two more articles are held pending right of reply.
STILL OPEN. Right-of-reply questions to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (case plan questions 1 and 2) and to Optus (question 12) have not been sent. Any answers, or their absence, will be added here as dated updates.
NEXT DATE: not yet set. No hearing date for ACMA's Federal Court case against Optus Mobile has been located; this desk will watch for one once it is listed.
ATTENDED 25 September 2026 (case: THE TRIPLE ZERO RORT, article 3 of four).
FINDING. Optus says a firewall upgrade went wrong on 18 September 2025 and Triple Zero calls failed for over 14 hours, from 00:17 to 14:34 AEST, across South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and far west New South Wales. By Optus's own count, 605 service numbers tried to reach Triple Zero and 150 got through. The second major outage came twenty-two months after the first. This time ACMA did not issue an infringement notice. On 30 July 2026 it began Federal Court proceedings against Optus Mobile, alleging 1,005 contraventions of two emergency call obligations, and said the recurrence was one of its reasons.
ARTICLE CHANGES. Article 3, "One thousand and five", published, covering the outage as Optus told the Senate, the smaller Dapto failure ten days later, ACMA's move to the Federal Court, the responses from the minister and Optus, and what remains unsettled.
STILL OPEN. Right of reply to ACMA and Optus will be sought; any response, or its absence, will be added when it comes in. The Federal Court's first listing for ACMA v Optus Mobile Pty Limited, and whether any coroner makes a finding on a death reported in connection with the outage, remain unresolved.