Downtime is often framed in terms of lost revenue or productivity, but the recent Optus 000 outage shows that the stakes can be far higher. Recently, a reported failed firewall upgrade at Optus disrupted access to Triple Zero (000) emergency calls across parts of Australia for around 13 hours.
Approximately 600 calls failed, and at least four people died after attempts to reach emergency services were unsuccessful. This is a truly devastating outcome for a process that, unfortunately, was let down in a big part due to human error.
This was not the first time that Optus have found themselves receiving negative media. The Optus Data Breach in 2022, as well as a similar issue in 2023, with a nationwide outage already occurring, with approximately 2100 people unable to access emergency call services that time.
For any business, no matter the size or industry, this is a cautionary tale you can’t afford to ignore. It illustrates not only how downtime is costly for every business, but how inefficient or negligent system upgrades, especially core components like firewalls, can amplify risks in unexpected and tragic ways.
What Happened with the Optus 000 Outage?
On 18 September 2025, Optus experienced an outage following a reported failed firewall upgrade.
- The incident lasted around 13 hours.
- More than 600 Triple Zero (000) calls failed.
- Tragically, at least four people died when they couldn’t reach emergency services.
The outage didn’t just inconvenience customers, it directly contributed to the loss of life.
Investigations revealed that crucial safety protocols were ignored, monitoring excluded emergency call traffic, and early warnings were not escalated.
For every business, this case is a harsh reminder of the danger of treating upgrades as “routine.” Even simple configuration changes, if mismanaged, can cause ripple effects across entire organisations.
The Optus 000 Outage Timeline
The timeline for this outage highlights a number of fatal flaws that ultimately caused the overall impact to be significantly more severe.
- Thursday 2:15am: Optus is running a “firewall update” which, according to Optus CEO Stephen Rue, “established processes” were not followed.
- Thursday 2:30am: Optus customers in Western Australia were unable to reach 000.
- Thursday 9:00am: The first two of the five calls are made to Optus’ overseas call centres to let them know they are unable to reach 000. However, these calls were unfortunately not escalated.
- Thursday 1:30pm: A customer contacted Optus “directly” to inform them about the outage. This is when Optus CEO Stephen Rue has said he became aware of the severity of the failure.
- Thursday 1:50pm: South Australia Police communicate to Optus that they have been alerted to connection issues. South Australia Ambulance also indicate that they have reports of a drop off in 000 calls. It was at this time that the firewall update was then stopped and restarted. Once the restart was complete, Optus say that the 000 service resumed as normal.
- Thursday 3:00pm: Optus email Communications Minister Anika Wells, reporting an outage that affected just 10 calls.
- Thursday 11:20pm: Optus contacts WA Police to advise that in fact 26 calls to 000 had failed, advising that it was a “minor outage”. WA Police then began immediate welfare checks.
- Friday 3:40pm: Optus informs Communications Minister Anika Wells that 100 calls made to 000 had failed.
- Friday 4:00pm: Just 20 minutes later, Optus updates Wells and the number of failed calls is now 600. As well as this, they provide the disastrous information that three deaths occurred that were linked to the outage.
- Friday 5:45pm: The press conference begins, where the Optus CEO confirms the deaths of an 8 week old in Adelaide, a 68 year old women in Adelaide, and a 74 year old man from Perth were linked to the Optus 000 outage.
This story is still ongoing, with further investigations to come, with Australian Communications Media Authority (AMCA) chair Nerida O’Loughlin confirming as much, stating that Optus will be “held accountable”.
The True Dangers of Downtime
When business leaders think about downtime, they usually picture lost revenue or frustrated staff and delayed operations. For instance, recent data shows the average cost of IT downtime in Australia is thousands of dollars per minute, with some industries reporting losses of over $349,000 per hour. Globally, Gartner estimates downtime costs $5,600 USD per minute.
Whilst downtime clearly has the power of impacting income to a business, there are also factors such as damaging customer trust and relationships, triggering compliance failures and contractual penalties, and as seen with the Optus 000 Outage, it can even put lives at risk.
The Optus 000 Outage might have made national headlines due to the severity of the dangers, and its outcomes, but the lesson applies to all businesses, of all sizes, and all industries. For example, across differing industries, the following dangers can be faced as a result of potential downtime:
- Healthcare: Outages delay patient care and access to records.
- Finance & retail: Lost transactions, failed EFTPOS, and customer frustration.
- Manufacturing & logistics: Production delays and costly supply chain breakdowns.
- Professional services: Missed client deadlines and reputational damage.
Every sector relies on IT continuity, and every outage carries unique risks.
How IT Support and Managed IT Services Help Prevent Downtime
Partnering with a Managed Service Provider, such as our team here at Adept IT Solutions, could be the difference maker for your business. Managed IT Services are all about proactive monitoring, ongoing support, and ensuring that not only are your systems online, but your sensitive and confidential data is safe.
Learn from the Optus 000 Outage, and ensure your business is not put in a similar position.
Get in touch with Adept IT Solutions today! You can contact us via phone at 1300 423 378 or simply email us at info@adept-it.com.au. We look forward to hearing from you, and helping reduce your downtime today!
