The Australian government has vowed to sanction a major telecommunication company following a nationwide outage linked to multiple deaths.
The incident, which occurred last week, left hundreds of people across more than half of the country unable to contact emergency services for 13 hours.
Authorities have criticized the company for its delayed response, noting that it waited 40 hours before informing the public and only notified regulators after the issue had already been resolved.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said the handling of the incident violated standard practice, describing it as the second major outage by the firm in just two years.
The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Stephen Rue, has since apologized to victims’ families and the wider public, attributing the failure to a technical fault that occurred during a network upgrade.
The government says sanctions are imminent, stressing that reliable access to emergency services is non-negotiable.
Written by Gladys Haruna