The boss of TPG Telecom has revealed to a Senate inquiry that a second person may have died after they failed to connect to triple zero using an older Samsung phone.

Inaki Berroeta expressed remorse for the death of a Sydney man in November, which occurred after his loved one couldn’t connect to triple zero.

The embattled telecom CEO then disclosed another death, which happened on September 24 in the New South Wales Blue Mountains. A TPG customer using a Samsung handset tried to call emergency services but was unable to – it took an extra five minutes for the alarm to be raised.

TPG says it was only informed of the incident on Monday, a claim challenged by Telstra, whose CEO Vicki Brady says Telstra knew of the death on the day it happened and notified the government, which notified TPG.

The emergency call issues stem from the national 3G shutdown, which exposed a flaw in older devices that still fall back to 3G for triple-zero calls even though they use 4G for normal calls.

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