Telstra has disclosed that more than 600 triple-zero emergency calls failed to connect during Wednesday's nationwide network outage, with the telecommunications giant's chief financial officer describing even a single missed emergency call as "unacceptable." The figures were revealed at a press conference on Thursday, days after the outage disrupted services for millions of customers across Australia.

The Scale of the Triple-Zero Failure

Telstra CFO Michael Ackland confirmed that while approximately 33,000 triple-zero calls successfully reached emergency services during the outage period, more than 600 failed to connect. In total, the company identified 639 cases requiring welfare checks.

Of those, 230 callers responded to an SMS advising they did not need assistance, while 402 cases required follow-up phone calls. Ackland said 170 cases were escalated and referred to police for further welfare checks or assistance, and seven callers confirmed they needed help — with their details passed on to the relevant emergency services.

"One missed call is unacceptable," Ackland said. "Which is why we have the welfare check process in place, so that we are as rapidly as possible following up with people whenever there is a failed call."

Federal Communications Minister Anika Wells confirmed that all welfare checks referred to authorities had since been completed, and said there were "no adverse outcomes associated with those referrals."

For a detailed breakdown of how the triple-zero failures unfolded, see our earlier coverage on the triple-zero crisis and welfare checks prompted by the network failure.

A Secondary Fault That Emerged During Repairs

Ackland explained that the triple-zero failures were not simply a direct result of Wednesday's original outage — they stemmed from a secondary fault that only became apparent as engineers worked to restore the network.

"Last night, we identified a subsequent issue that was impacting some calls, including triple-zero. And the nature of this only became apparent as we resolved the original issue," he said. "The issue is a consequence of the same software defect that I talked to you about yesterday. So while we addressed the original issue, that subsequent issue remained ongoing and needed to be addressed in a different way."

Engineers worked through the night to implement a fix, and Ackland said no further welfare checks had been required since the solution was deployed. "Customers can feel confident in calling triple-zero," he said, while acknowledging no system is entirely immune to disruption.

Our earlier reporting on the second triple-zero fault that emerged hours after the outage was declared fixed outlined how the compounding issue caught Telstra's teams off-guard.

South Australian Death Found Unrelated to Outage

Amid the crisis, a separate claim linking the outage to a woman's death in South Australia generated significant attention. However, South Australia Police confirmed on Friday that the suggestion she died following a failed triple-zero call was incorrect.

According to police, the woman's partner had found her unresponsive following a medical episode and called a neighbour with medical experience on his Telstra mobile. The neighbour then rang triple-zero on her own Telstra mobile to request an ambulance. The woman was taken to hospital, where she later died. Police said the woman's partner may have later struggled to contact relatives on his phone while at the hospital, and this appeared to have been misinterpreted, giving rise to the incorrect claim.

Telstra's own investigation found no records of Telstra mobile numbers associated with the address being connected to triple-zero platforms during the relevant period, and confirmed there was no active outage affecting the local area at that time, with good mobile signal strength recorded at the location. Ackland also confirmed a related triple-zero call had successfully connected from another number.

Liberal senator Kerrynne Liddle, who had originally raised the claim publicly, later posted a social media apology, saying her concerns were "based on information available at the time" and offering her "sincere apologies" to the family and the broader community for any confusion.

Government Pressure and the Road Ahead

Communications Minister Wells did not spare Telstra despite the resolution of the outage, saying the company "has a lot of questions to answer" and warning it would "take Telstra a lot of work and a lot of time to rebuild that trust with Australians." She added that the Albanese government would "hold them to account."

Telstra CEO Vicki Brady, who cut short an overseas family holiday following the crisis, confirmed she was notified about the outage at 7am on Wednesday — almost three hours after it first occurred. Ackland confirmed she boarded the first available flight home and was expected back "on deck" on Friday.

Ackland said a full root-cause investigation was already underway. "We will continue to investigate, continue to dig deeper, continue to go down all avenues to ensure that we're doing everything that we can to make sure that our system is as robust and reliable as possible," he said.

Telstra has since filed a formal notice with the triple-zero custodian confirming all outages have been resolved.