Optus’ brand has taken another major blow this morning, with a huge network outage leaving millions of consumers without mobile data and affecting businesses and services including hospitals and public transport.
The issue also affects telcos using the Optus network such as Amaysim, Vaya, Aussie Broadband, Moose Mobile, Coles Mobile, Spintel, Southern Phone, Gomo and Dodo Mobile.
Optus has around 10.2 million customers and was hit with a major data breach last year, which led to it pausing all marketing spend and put a major dent in its brand value. It has since gone on to become the country’s least-trusted brand.
“Optus is aware of an issue that may be impacting some of our mobile and internet customers,” the telco said in a statement.
“We are currently working to identify the cause and apologise for any inconvenience.
“In case of an emergency, customers can still call 000.”
The issue also extends to eftpos terminals, hospitals and Uber drivers on the Optus network who have been unable to operate the app. The Melbourne train network even ground to a halt for half an hour.
Uber said that it was experiencing impacts to its service and was “proactively encouraging driver partners who are able to go online to help keep Australia moving where possible”.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland told ABC Radio that she was in touch with Optus and the telco was using its “full resources” to solve the problem. She said the telco did not believe the outage was the result of a hack.
“I think it’s been a very anxious morning for many Australians so far,” she added.
“There’s limited information at this stage, but Optus is trying to get to the bottom of it.”
