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Telstra says it is unaware of any failed triple-zero calls during an outage in Western Australia’s South West region earlier today.
Telstra confirmed a power outage at a mobile site at Abbey Beach Resort impacted services in Broadwater, a coastal suburb about 230km south of Perth, since it was first reported at 12am (2am AEST).
Power was restored shortly after, but the site took some time to fully recover, leaving customers with call issues.
WA Police alerted the public about 8.45am (10.45am AEST) that the issue was also affecting emergency calls from Telstra services.
Affected customers were advised to make arrangements with neighbours or loved ones to have access to a working phone in the event of an emergency.
“If you have a vulnerable family member, friend, neighbour or co-worker, you may consider offering them support until the outage has been resolved,” WA Police said.
Telstra said customers in the area should have been able to reach triple-zero through other providers.
“Telstra mobile customers in the area should still be able to reach Triple Zero through coverage from other providers, as well as via landlines,” a spokesperson said.
The issue was resolved at 11.30am, almost 12 hours later.
Telstra said it was unaware of any failed attempts to reach triple-zero during the outage.
“We’re sorry for any concern this created,” a spokesperson said.
Telstra is the nominated telco for emergency services, whose operators answer triple-zero calls and transfer them to the required organisation.
It comes after Communications Minister Anika Wells admitted Australia’s confidence in the triple-zero network must have “no doubt been shaken” after an Optus outage affected more than 600 calls to triple zero and was linked to three deaths, including one in Western Australia, on September 18.
Today, Optus announced about 4500 people were affected by yet another outage that affected calls, including nine to triple zero, yesterday.