More than 10 million Australians found themselves disconnected from internet and phone services as unexplained outages disrupted one of the nation’s largest telecommunications companies on Wednesday.
The mysterious glitch wreaked havoc by crashing electronic payment systems, disrupting crucial phone lines used by emergency services, and even briefly halting rush-hour train services in Melbourne.
Optus, a subsidiary of the Singapore-based telecommunications giant Singtel, managed to restore services later that Wednesday evening, but the root cause of the fault remained elusive. According to Optus’ Chief Executive, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, a “technical network outage” was detected around 4:05 am Sydney time, leaving their customers in the dark.
Bayer Rosmarin expressed her regrets over the incident, stating, “We are very sorry that this occurred, and I am happy to say that services are now restored again.” However, she emphasized that more detailed information regarding the cause of the outage would only be available after a thorough root cause analysis.
The outage, described as a “very rare occurrence,” reportedly had no indications of being the result of a hacking incident, though it followed a cyber attack from just over a year ago when more than nine million Optus customers had their personal data stolen.
Numerous organizations and businesses reported their connections being reestablished, including the federal department of education, the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and Australia’s Commonwealth Bank.
As Australia’s second-largest telecommunications provider with more than 10 million customers, Optus encountered substantial challenges in bringing its systems back online throughout the day. Hospitals struggled to receive phone calls during the outage, and landline phones connected to the Optus network were unable to dial emergency services.
Transportation was also disrupted during the morning rush hour in Melbourne due to what officials described as a “communications outage.”
Australian Communications Minister Michelle Rowland pointed to a “deep fault” in a “fundamental” part of Optus’s network as the root cause of the issue. She noted that the impact was extensive, affecting mobile, fixed, and broadband services for Optus customers. Rowland added that customer frustration was warranted, and Optus should address it accordingly.
The Australian Communication Workers Union labeled the outage as an “absolute disgrace,” linking it to recent job losses within the company.
Mark Gregory, a researcher at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, highlighted that these disruptions expose fundamental problems within Australia’s communication networks, emphasizing the need for the government to enforce redundancy measures within the industry to prevent single point of failure-related outages from recurring.
Ramsay Health Care reported on Facebook that the outage affected phones at its 73 private hospitals and day surgery units, while Sydney’s Westmead Private Hospital also confirmed that its phone lines were impacted. Frustrated citizens, unable to call for emergency assistance, were forced to borrow phones from passersby, emphasizing the critical nature of this outage.
