Optus outage comes just days after UOMO Bill passes House

Optus has apologised for a voice outage on its network on 11 September, which lasted for 76 minutes and impacted customers in parts of Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory.

According to an Optus spokesperson, 190,000 customers had two call attempts that did not connect to the intended recipient during the outage period. This included over 40 callers who experienced difficulty connecting to the Triple Zero emergency call operator — most located in Victoria, plus others in Tasmania and South Australia. Welfare checks by police in all three states are said to have uncovered no adverse outcomes.

Optus attributed the outage to a hardware issue at an exchange in Victoria. The affected hardware had since been replaced.

“Optus identified the issue within minutes through its network monitoring systems and immediately mobilised technical teams to restore services, while activating established escalation processes and engaging relevant stakeholders,” the Optus spokesperson said.

“We sincerely apologise to customers for the disruption.”

Just last month, Optus posted advice on Instagram telling customers to hang up and try again if a Triple Zero call fails during an outage, since phones will automatically attempt to ‘camp on’ to a rival network during emergency calls. It is not yet clear to what extent Triple Zero camp-on operated during this particular outage.

Ironically, the outage came just days after the passage of the Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation (UOMO) Bill through the House of Representatives on 9 September. The proposed UOMO framework would establish a new obligation for mobile network operators to provide baseline outdoor coverage across almost all of Australia, including through emerging technologies such as satellite-to-mobile connectivity. The default start date of the UOMO is specified in the Bill as 1 December 2027.

The government agreed to an amendment pushed by Victorian Independent Dr Helen Haines requiring the publication of reasons that would allow the Communications Minister to exempt telcos from complying with the obligation in certain areas. Further amendments proposed by Haines aimed at strengthening the framework — including provisions guaranteeing temporary disaster roaming in catastrophes — were deemed unnecessary, with Communications Minister Anika Wells arguing that the Bill either already addressed the issues or that they were dealt with under existing laws. She also said telcos were already on track to make temporary disaster roaming available this October ahead of the natural disaster season as a joint industry-led initiative.

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