Millions of customers of Australia’s second-largest telecommunications company, Optus, have been hit by an outage of mobile phone and internet services.
The outage has also impacted hundreds of thousands of businesses, and has impacted some government services, public health systems and public transport systems.
Here’s what we know about the outage so far.
When did the Optus outage start?
Many Optus customers woke up to see their phones had lost connectivity this morning, but the outage was first reported as early as 4am AEDT.
Customers managed to vent their frustrations on social media using other means, before Optus confirmed the outage.
“Optus is aware of an issue that may be impacting some of our mobile and internet customers. We are currently working to identify the cause and apologise for any inconvenience,” the company said in a statement.
On social media platform X, Optus’ support team said: “Our teams are working urgently to restore services. We will provide updates as soon as possible. We apologise sincerely to our customers.”
It appears Optus customers have not been contacted directly by Optus via email at the time of writing.
Who is affected?
More than 10 million Optus customers are believed to be impacted, as well as around 400,000 businesses and some government, health and transport systems.
Many businesses are unable to allow customers to make EFTPOS payments.
People who are customers of mobile providers which use the Optus network are also impacted.
The Australian Department of Home Affairs says the outage has impacted “phone lines, mobiles and some web services for the Department of Home Affairs and Australian Border Force”.
“The department is investigating options to restore client services as a priority. At this time, the restoration time is unknown,” it says.
All major hospitals in Melbourne have also been impacted, including Victoria’s Virtual Emergency Department.
Northern Health, which manages hospitals in the city’s outer north, reported phone lines into its campuses were down and apologised for the inconvenience.
All of Melbourne’s train services stopped temporarily due to a communications outage on Wednesday morning, and Metro Trains said it was unable to rely on its back-up system which uses the Optus mobile network.
Services have now resumed, but passengers have been warned there will be delays and should reconsider their travel options.
Can Optus customers still call triple-0?
Emergency calls should work on mobile phones — if you’re an Optus customer you should see “SOS” on your phone where your signal strength usually is — however, there are issues with making triple-0 calls from Optus landlines.
In a statement, Optus said:
“We encourage any customers who need to contact emergency services to use a mobile line to call 000. Optus can confirm that triple zero (000) calls will not work from an Optus landline (fixed line telephone). Mobile calls to 000 will work if another carrier is available.”
Andrew Williams, the CEO of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, told ABC News that he had been assured by Optus that customers could ring triple-0 on mobile phones, as the call would be handled by one of the other phone networks.
He said Optus landlines, however, won’t be able to contact triple-0.
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A carer told ABC Radio Melbourne that they had difficulty calling an ambulance this morning.
“One of my patients had a cardiac arrest, I couldn’t call an ambulance,” he said. “I had to run out on the street and borrow a phone from someone walking his dog.”
What is the cause of the outage?
It isn’t clear yet.
Optus says it is working to identify the cause, but at this stage federal authorities do not believe it is the result of a cyber attack.
Mr Williams said a variety of things could cause outages.
“One of the major carriers had one a few years ago, where a fibre optic able got cut. Others have been software glitches and software problems which crashed networks.”
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the government was seeking further information from Optus, and when the company expects services to be restored.
“We urge Optus to utilise other mechanisms, including broadcasting, radio, and television to get these messages out,” she told ABC Radio National.
Optus suffered a major cyberattack in September 2022, which led to more than 2 million customers having their personal identification documents compromised by hackers.
