Optus network services starting to be restored as Premier says SA Health was hardest hit by outage

The Premier says he’s open to severing the contract the state government has with Optus after its nationwide outage plunged the state into chaos.

Optus services are starting to be restored after the country’s second-largest telecommunications network went down across the nation, causing chaos for millions of customers and businesses including SAPOL, SA Health and a range of small businesses across the state.

Just before 1pm, Premier Peter Malinauskas told a press conference services were slowly starting to return after they went down overnight.

The state government is a major customer of Optus and SA Health had been the worst affected of all departments.

The Premier said while phone lines had been down, no clinical services had been affected.

Optus customers across Australia are unable to make calls, text or use the internet including connecting to NBN networks.

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An Optus spokesperson said some services across fixed and mobile were being restored from about 12.30pm

“This may take a few hours for all services to recover and different services may restore at different sites over that time.”

Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said crews still can’t confirm the cause of the outage.

“There is no indication that it has anything to do with a hack or cyber attack,” she said on 2GB.

“We’re still investigating the root cause … this is a very unusual occurrence and as soon as we understand exactly what happened we will be forthcoming with details.”

Biggest outage in Australian history

Mr Malinauskas said it was now officially the biggest single telecommunications outage ever in Australia.

He said the South Australian government is a customer of Optus and many government agencies had been affected by the outage.

“The government department most affected by the outage has been SA Health,” he said.

“Critically we have not seen any clinical implications as a result of the outage – all clinical services within SA Health remain ongoing and are able to be performed.”

He said emergency services are “all operating” as is the triple 0 service.

“Notwithstanding the fact that landline customers of Optus do have a challenge using the triple-0 service,” he said.

He said unlike outages in the past, this is affecting mobile and landline “and when it comes to state government we are no different”.

“In SA Health we are most concerned about the mental health triage service … where people are looking to contact the mental health triage service, that outbound call coming in is a challenge.”

He said the outage was a “substantial inconvenience” but has not had clinical implications, however, people may have delays in receiving test results.

“Other agencies of concern at Service SA and SA Water. Customers can still go into a Service SA centre or online but calls to Service SA are currently down.”

SA Water is operating but again the phones are down. Transport services are all operating as using despite some internal communications being affected.

Premier: This is a “very unfortunate failing” by Optus

Mr Malinauskas hit out at Optus, saying it had let down its customers.

“We are disappointed with Optus. They have let their customers down throughout the state including the government,” he said.

“Optus need to respond swiftly and communicate effectively with everybody about what’s going on here.

“There hasn’t been a great degree of communication coming out of Optus up until this point but not any more disappointing than the service not operating.

“If Optus want to seek government as a customer then they need to be able to be a reliable service in this modern age and this is a very unfortunate failing on their part.

“Telecommunications is critical to the function of government.

“We have a contract with Optus, as do other governments around the country. That is something we will turn our mind to.”

However, he said it was “too soon” to do immediately.

He said Optus had not communicated to anyone how long the outage would last for, and added it was too early to say how this would affect the contract the government has with Optus.

“I’d characterise it as very little communication … with I think is consistent with what the experience has been for the broader public.”

He did not know how many businesses were impacted and how much money is being lost except to say it would be “substantial”.

“I do feel for thousands of small businesses who are affected … Optus needs to get its skates on.”

Alert SA app affected

Acting police commissioner Linda Williams said the state emergency committee had met twice already on Wednesday to co-ordinate a response to the outage, which has affected the Alert SA system.

“Alert SA, which is our system that notifies people of emergencies has been impacted by this outage and that particularly important as we head towards the end of the week when we can see some elevated fire danger ratings,” she said.

She asked people to seek “alternate services”.

Health Minister Chris Picton reiterated triple 0 was working and that SA Health were working to connect to other providers and systems to work around the outage.

“We’re trying to transition to another provider.”

He asked people not to call triple 0 unless in was an emergency.

Ms Williams said there had been an increase in calls to triple 0 but “we are still in capacity”.

She said those with an Optus landline cannot call triple 0 and urged people to check on people in that situation.

She said they had not been given any indication of how long the outage would last: “we have no end date”.

The federal government is now demanding answers from Optus, with the outage not believed to be the work of hackers.

The Optus spokesman said that customers can make SOS calls from their mobile devices only, but landline telephones will not connect.

SA Police tweeted the public should only contact triple-0 (000) in an emergency, saying it was not known when the outage would be resolved.

Adelaide Metro said its infoline was unable to receive calls so customers should go to its website for timetable, ticketing and journey planning information.

SAPOL is aware of the Optus outage and remind the public to contact Triple Zero (000) in an emergency ONLY.
It is not known when the outage will be resolved. pic.twitter.com/7Gtr3nVXGv

— South Australia Police (@SAPoliceNews) November 7, 2023

Our InfoLine is unable to receive calls due to a communications outage this morning.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Timetable, ticketing and journey planning information can be found at https://t.co/5u2VqvI8hbpic.twitter.com/dGLZsRf1ax

— Adelaide Metro (@AdelaideMetroSA) November 7, 2023

SA Water tweeted out that the network outage has currently affected their Customer Care Centre.

The tweet notified anyone requiring support with urgent water or sewer network faults to email SA Water on [e-mail].

The RAA has asked customers to get on the app to contact it.

Commonwealth bank customers will be unable to contact call centres, but can still reach out via the CommBank App.

They also advised that some SMS communications, including NetCodes were impacted, but customers could still use the NetCode push notifications.

Smart terminal merchant customers have been advised that by activating the dual SIM functionality and switching telco providers, they will be able to continue operating.

EFTPOS terminals using the telco’s network are also affected and currently down.

Optus customers nationwide are experiencing a mass outage across the teclo’s network. Photo by: NCA Newswire /Gaye Gerard

The first reports of the outage came just after 2.30am on social media as customers took to Twitter to investigate the issue.

An Optus spokesman said that the telco was aware of the outage affecting their customers and extended a sincere apology.

The spokesman also said they were working to restore services as quickly as possible and would provide an update when possible.

Linked networks including Optus, Southern Phone, Moose mobile and Amaysim have also been affected.

However, a spokesman for SAPOL said that the triple-0 number should only be used in emergencies and should not be called for updates about the Optus outage.

“We have had quite a few calls through about the outage, so I would just like to remind people that while triple-0 does still work, it is best to call for emergencies only,” he said.

Adelaide businesses crippled by Optus outage

Small businesses in and around the city centre have been impacted by the nationwide outage to various degrees and operators are raising concerns that customers will be unable to place their orders.

Store owner Sunil Sharma of Jack Greens cafe noticed he was unable to receive customer orders from home, before coming into the store on Waymouth street and logging on to the store’s server.

“I’m an Optus user and can’t send emails, can’t receive orders via email,” Mr Sharma said.

Owner Sunil Sharma of Jack Greens is one of the small businesses unable to receive customer orders via email. Picture: Zayda Dollie

“I thought I would have by now – this morning at about 5:30ish I noticed we weren’t getting that regular orders for food, catering orders usually sent to me by email weren’t coming through.”

“Once I leave the store, I’ll be back on Optus so I won’t be able to receive anything.

“I do go out for shopping for the store, but I can only receive calls and emails while I’m in the store.”

Similarly, coffee shop Hello Sarnie has been affected with fewer customers able to order and pay via the shop’s order app and over Uber Eats.

Store leader Ruby Chen said several customers came in to order complaining about their payment not going through online.

Some businesses have not been affected by the current outage, but know how difficult connection issues can make regular business operations.

Small store owner Katherine Tamils Arguil of Booknook & Bean, said they were Vodafone users but last month their store suffered when the online payment system Square had an outage.

Booknook & Bean are Vodafone customers, but know how devastating a system outage can be for a small business. Picture: Zayda Dollie

While the outage had only lasted a day, for a small business this can be devastating.

“We lost a lot of money that day,” Ms Arguil said.

“We have regulars that we know and we would say, come back when it’s working again.

“If we didn’t know people, we would say, do you have cash and if they didn’t they would walk away, so we lost about 40 per cent that day.”

Optus last year undertook an independent review of its security systems after a cyber attack that left millions in the dark about their data.

Nearly ten million customers were caught up in the cyber attack and more than 37,000 customer’s Medicare numbers were exposed in the breach.

The telco was later slammed for its poor communication with customers and the government in the wake of the attack.

It is understood the widespread blackout is not the work of hackers – or what is known as a denial of service attack.

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