UPDATE:
As Optus services gradually restore, the telco says its full service may not be fully restored for at least another couple of hours.
More than 10 million Optus customers have been affected by today’s outage, which has been described as the biggest telecommunications outage in history.
#BREAKING: Optus is currently down across the country. #9News pic.twitter.com/PgkOVAuO61
— 9News Australia (@9NewsAUS) November 7, 2023
The first reports of the outage came in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Customers were unable to make calls, text or use the internet – only SOS calls were available, but those with Optus landline phones were unable to call triple-0.
We’re aware of an issue impacting Optus mobile and nbn services and are working to restore services as quickly as possible. We understand connectivity is important and apologise for any inconvenience caused.
— Optus Help (@optus_help) November 7, 2023
Everyone with #optus waking up this morning pic.twitter.com/R9S6twAfUg
— Adrian Murdoch (@adrianjmurdoch) November 7, 2023
Optus hasn’t said what caused the outage and were still looking for a root cause but news.com.au had reported Communications Minister Michelle Rowland saying it was triggered by a fault in the provider’s core network, which is considered the ‘brain’ of a service.
Optus CEO Ms Bayer Rosmarin said there was no indication the outage was caused by a cyber attack or hack.
