Optus waited almost a day before it told the public that its triple-0 outage was linked to three death,  but in that time-frame, the telco held several crisis management meetings.

The timeline was outlined yesterday in a Senate inquiry hearing into the telco's handling of September's triple-zero outage.

Optus CEO Stephen Rue told the inquiry he was "deeply sorry" about the outage, but does not plan to leave his position. 

• Guest: Melissa McIntosh, Shadow Minister for Communications
• Producer: Isadora Bogle