Another major telco outage has raised the question: What happens when you call triple zero and can’t get through?

This week, Telstra blamed a software defect for a national outage that disrupted phones, payments and transport – and left more than 300 triple-zero calls failing to connect.

The communications watchdog is investigating.

It follows last year’s catastrophic Optus failure, when a 13-hour outage blocked hundreds of emergency calls across South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and was linked to deaths.

ACMA opened an investigation into Optus, but still hasn’t published final findings.

Today, journalist and Crikey contributor Michael Sainsbury on what went wrong at Optus and how the government’s choices led us here.

This episode was originally published in September 2025.

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