By David Taylor, ABC
Optus says the review will identify the causes of the outage. Photo: ABC News
The Singtel Group CEO Yuen Kuan Moon has issued a statement apologising for the Optus outage that has been linked to the deaths of three Australians.
Singapore telecommunications company, Singtel, wholly owns Australia's second largest telco Optus.
"We are deeply sorry to learn about the network incident at our Optus subsidiary that has impacted triple-0 calls, and to hear that customers could not connect to emergency services when they most needed them," Yuen Kuan Moon said.
"Our hearts go out to the families and friends of those who have passed away and we know that Optus will get to the bottom of this matter.
"We are working with the Optus board and management to ensure a thorough investigation of this incident to prevent any future recurrence," he said.
The Singtel Group said it has supported Optus by investing over $9.3 billion in the past five years with a large proportion of that put to building network infrastructure across Australia, and will continue to invest as needed for Optus to provide reliable communication services to all Australians.
This is the first statement from Optus's parent company since the news broke last Friday evening.
The Optus board has commissioned Dr Kerry Schott AO, who is an experienced executive and board director, with a deep understanding of public and private sector organisations, to lead an independent review into the technical failure on September 18, 2025 which impacted Optus customers calling triple-0.
Optus said the review will identify the causes, and canvass the applicable processes, protocols and operations, of the incident on September 18, 2025.
The review will also examine the operational management of triple-0 calls in the Optus network, including the monitoring and operational effectiveness in relation to this incident.
Actions taken by Optus in response to the incident, including adherence to policies, procedures and legislative requirements, will also be considered by the review.
- ABC
