Optus is progressively restoring services after a nationwide outage left millions of Australian customers without mobile or internet for about eight hours. The fault, which began at 4am AEDT, affected emergency calls, with the company urging customers to use alternative devices to contact triple zero.
Chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin told 2GB that services were starting to recover but the root cause remained unclear, though a hack was deemed unlikely. She apologised for the disruption and said compensation was being considered to thank customers for their patience.
The outage impacted hospitals, Melbourne's entire train network, and other providers using Optus's network, including Aussie Broadband, Amaysim, and Coles Mobile. Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland described it as a fault deep in the core, while opposition spokesperson David Coleman called it catastrophic.
Melbourne's Metro Trains cancelled about 500 services due to a communicators error linked to the outage. Hospital phone lines were also down, affecting Ramsay Health Care and public hospitals in Victoria and New South Wales.
