Optus outage, Melbourne: Telco service goes down, impacting 14,000 customers, triple-0 instructions issued

Max Corstorphan
The Nightly
Optus is experiencing a major outage in Melbourne.
Optus is experiencing a major outage in Melbourne. Credit: Erik Anderson/AAP

Around 14,000 Australians are unable to use their phones for calls, texts or internet access, as a major Optus outage hits Melbourne.

It is understood that the outage is impacting service in the Frankston and Mornington Peninsula area in the city’s south.

“Our team has identified an aerial fibre break as the cause, and it’s currently under investigation. Technicians are working to restore service as quickly as possible,” Optus said in a statement.

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The telco said triple-0 calls should be unaffected by the disruption, but only if a customer is in the service area of another provider.

“Optus customers will only be able to call Emergency Services if they are within coverage of another mobile network or are able to call via wi-fi,” the Optus website says.

“We appreciate your patience and understanding while we work on this.“

The failure is the fourth time in months that a major Optus outage has prevented people from accessing emergency services.

A scheduled firewall upgrade in South Australia triggered a communications outage on September 18 linked to the deaths of three Australians.

Optus chief executive Stephen Rue blamed human error for that fault.

Normal calls were largely unaffected, but the outage blocked about 600 triple-zero calls from connecting to emergency services.

More to come...

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