2018 World Cup in Russia: Optus denies streaming issues as fan fury continues

FOR the second consecutive day Optus Sport customers have vented their fury at being unable to watch games at The World Cup due to the live streaming regularly freezing and dropping out entirely.

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UPDATE: FOR the second consecutive day Optus Sport customers have vented their fury at being unable to watch games at The World Cup due to the live streaming regularly freezing and dropping out entirely.

Football fans and Optus customers bombarded the company on social media during the Iceland-Argentina game. Optus issued a statement on Twitter saying sorry but that didn’t placate its customers.

Fans were as angry as Egypt defender Ahmed Hegazi. Picture: AFP

“We apologise that some viewers may be experiencing technical difficulties,” Optus said before suggesting they log in through its separate FIFA World Cup app.

Davin tweeted after Optus tweeted the halftime score in the game saying: “Thanks for the score update as we are unable to watch it on your app.’’

Cheers @OptusSport pic.twitter.com/kuFfmd9XQe

— Tom Koutsantonis (@TKoutsantonisMP) June 15, 2018

I hear the streaming is going well ! Absolute disgrace ! Long month ahead ! If you going to have it deliver it !

— Robbie Slater (@RobbieSlater17) June 15, 2018

Has Optus changed their slogan to ‘No’ yet?

— Jon Tuxworth (@Tuxy81) June 15, 2018

Optus cant handle a #EGY v #URU stream. Four Round of 16 and two Quarter Finals are exclusive to them.....god help us! #Optus #WorldCup #EGYURU

— Adam Santarossa (@adamsantarossa) June 15, 2018

Optus Sport currently doing unfathomable damage to the sport of football in Australia.

— Rudi (@RudiEdsall) June 15, 2018

Fix the stream
Refund my fee
Give the rights to sbs

— Andy (@tweetinandy) June 15, 2018

Jose Gimenez scores Uruguay's opening goal. Picture: AP

Optus then seemed to backflip, issuing a statement saying there were “no major issues” and “incidences of buffering reduced significantly during the course of the game.”

Naman Mehra said: “I’ve tried your Android app, your website, your Xbox one app and casting from the other app. Everything freezes after a while. Do you expect us to watch the world cup on our phones?.’’

Some were using the hashtag #optusfail.

The disaster came 24 hours after Optus experienced similar problems during the Egypt v Uruguay game.

Maybe stop tweeting about the game and give your customers an answer to all these problems.....

— Alex Serre (@alexjserre) June 15, 2018

Optus has exclusive rights to 39 games at the World Cup and the marketing slogan is: “Watch every game of the 2018 FIFA World Cup live only on Optus Sport.’’ It charges $14.99 a month for access to the sports app.

It put out a statement which said: “Some Optus Sport customers experienced a disruption to their 2018 FIFA World Cup viewing experience on Friday night,” the statement read.

“This was due to an extremely high number of viewers logging into our platforms just before kick-off causing some systems to overload.