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A second person may have died after being unable to call Triple Zero on a Samsung mobile phone, TPG Telecom’s chief executive revealed Tuesday during a parliamentary hearing examining emergency call failures across Australia’s telecommunications sector.
TPG Telecom chief executive Iñaki Berroeta told the Senate inquiry that a customer attempted to call Triple Zero on September 24 at Wentworth Falls in New South Wales’ Blue Mountains, but the device failed to connect due to incompatible software. The customer reached emergency services five minutes later through an alternative number, but officials informed TPG on Monday that the call may have been connected to someone who has since died.
The disclosure follows the confirmed death of a TPG customer in Sydney in November after outdated software prevented a Samsung phone from making emergency calls using required 4G technology.
Berroeta confirmed that tens of thousands of TPG customers operate devices requiring software updates to access Triple Zero, while thousands of older models cannot be updated and must be replaced. The company has warned affected customers via text, email and phone calls that their devices will be blocked if they do not take action.
“We don’t blame the end user at all here,” Berroeta said when questioned about why software updates require customer acceptance rather than automatic installation.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young challenged the telecommunications giant’s response to the crisis. “You’re a big company, you make massive profits,” she said. “Making sure your customers have access to have a phone that can call Triple Zero should be a priority.”
Berroeta said emergency call access is a priority for the company, but acknowledged that only approximately 500 customers have accepted the company’s offer to replace incompatible phones.
The hearing includes testimony from executives from Nokia, Ericsson, Telstra, Samsung and consumer advocacy groups. The telecommunications sector has faced increased scrutiny following several deaths linked to a widespread Optus outage in September that exposed systemic failures across the industry.
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