Timeline: What happened in the 32 hours after a customer told Optus Triple Zero wasn’t working

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It took Optus more than 32 hours to notify the public after it was first warned of a catastrophic failure of its network that dropped at least 600 Triple Zero calls, during which four people died.

The company’s chief executive officer Stephen Rue provided more details about the timing of the company’s crisis at a press conference on Saturday afternoon. Here’s how the crisis unfolded.

Optus chief executive Stephen Rue fronts the media on Saturday.

Thursday, 12.30am

Optus conducts a routine network upgrade of a firewall, which is a network security system. Initial testing and monitoring do not indicate any problems with calls connecting. There are no “red flags” in terms of call levels “at a national level”, Rue said, but the company does not have any alarms to alert that emergency calls are not connecting.

But virtually immediately after the upgrade begins, a “technical failure” cuts calls to emergency services in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Thursday, 9am

The first member of the public contacts Optus via its contact centre and complains “that the Triple Zero service [is] not working”.

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman later receives complaints about two calls made to the contact centre at this time, and passes them onto Optus.

“This information was not serviced with the relevant escalation at that time,” Rue said of Optus’ failure to act that morning.

Thursday, 1.30pm

A customer contacts the company directly to complain that Triple Zero calls are not working. It is at this point that Optus becomes “aware of the severity of the incident”, Rue said.

Early reviews suggest Optus “had not handled these calls as would be expected”, and the information is not escalated quickly enough.

Rue finds out about the problem “shortly after” this call.

Thursday, 1.50pm

South Australia Police contact the company and report Triple Zero calls are not working. It is at this point that Optus stops the upgrade and works to restore Triple Zero services.

It begins “to confirm with relevant stakeholders such as police and other regulatory and government agencies and departments that we had experienced an outage”, Rue said.

Thursday evening

Optus commences welfare checks on callers who attempted to contact emergency services during the outage. The gap between the calls occurring and the welfare checks is “due to the complexity of pulling records from the network”, Rue said.

Welfare checks see Optus contact everyone who attempted to call the line. If they can’t contact them, Optus refers the information to “relevant police in the state”. During the welfare checks, Optus is informed of deaths in three households, either the people who had attempted to call Triple Zero or someone in their acquaintance.

Optus begins to notify “government agencies and departments” – but only about the outage, not about any fatalities. Checks continue into Friday morning.

Friday, time unclear

At an unknown time, Optus informs its board, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the federal government and “other bodies” about the fatalities.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas calls Rue to ask about the incident. In a statement on Saturday, the premier said Optus provided the government only with suburbs, not contact details.

Friday, 5.30pm

Optus calls a press conference with short notice and apologises for the deaths – 28 hours after its management found out about the problem, more than 32 hours after its contact centre received its first call about the problem and about 41 hours after the firewall upgrade began.

Some government agencies, including senior South Australian government officials, hear about problems with the network for the first time via the press conference. Rue said the “late notification” to the South Australian and Western Australian premiers and the Northern Territory chief minister occurred “at roughly the same time” as the conference.

Rue defended the delay on Saturday by saying the company “spent the day confirming the facts, and I wanted to make sure the facts [were accurate] before we informed relevant agencies”.

Saturday, 1pm

Federal Communications Minister Annika Wells says Optus “cannot get these basics right”.

“Optus have let Australians down when they needed them most,” she says. “Australians have every right to be livid that Optus cannot get these basics right.”

Saturday, 3.20pm

At a second press conference, Rue says he will provide daily updates on the saga. In response to a question, he says he does not believe there are any further deaths.

Saturday, 4pm

Western Australia Premier Roger Cook says a fourth person has died as a result of the call failures: a 49-year-old from Perth. The death is discovered following welfare checks conducted by WA Police. Optus does not immediately respond to questions about the fourth death.

He says he feels “cynical” about the timeline provided by Optus. “I hope that timeline is the subject of further investigation by ACMA.”