Canberra [Australia], November 9: Millions of Australians were left without a phone or internet connection on Wednesday after the country's second-largest telecommunications provider experienced an unexplained nationwide outage.
The outage crippled payment systems and online operations and led to morning peak-hour chaos as train networks and ride share services were down briefly in some cities. Some hospital and emergency services were also impacted.
Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin ruled out a cyber attack but in an interview on ABC Radio did not give a reason for the outage, already in its eighth hour.
"It is highly unlikely (that the problem started within software in Optus networks), our systems are actually very stable . This is a very, very rare occurrence," she said.
"We are working really hard to get it up and running as soon as we possibly can."
Optus is the Australian unit of telecoms firm Singapore Telecommunications (STEL.SI) and has more than 10 million customers, about 40% of Australia's population.
Some services across fixed and mobile were gradually being restored but it could take a few hours for all services to recover, Optus said later on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"Without my phone I pretty much can't do anything. I'm looking for a bank, and when you can't go onto your phone and Google pretty much you are lost," said Angela Ican outside the Optus store in Sydney's central business district
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation