Three dead during phone network failure that affected emergency calls in Australia

The incident comes less than a year after Optus was fined for failing to provide emergency call services to thousands during a nationwide outage in 2023 - (Getty/iStock)

Three people have died in Australia following a technical failure at Optus, the country's second-largest telecommunications provider, which disrupted vital emergency call services.

Optus CEO Stephen Rue stated the malfunction occurred during a network upgrade on Thursday, potentially impacting 600 customers across South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory.