Optus outage mystery cause has left millions in the dark

Millions of Optus customers could be without phone or internet for hours, as the reasons for the widespread blackout become more clear. Here’s what we know.

While Optus has issued an official update on its social media platforms to let customers know that services are gradually being restored, it could still be a long wait.

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

Millions of Optus customers have been without internet and been unable to make phone calls since early Wednesday morning - including calling 000 from a landline as a national outage cripples the beleaguered telco.

What has caused the Optus outage?

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

If it was the result of a hack, it will have been the second time in just over 12 months that Optus was hit with a cyber assault.
Optus chief executive officer Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, calling into ABC Radio Sydney via Whatsapp - not regular mobile reception - on Wednesday, said the telco is still working to determine the cause for the widespread outage.

“There is no indication that there’s anything to do with cyber at this stage,” she said.

Could this be a cyberattack?

So if it’s not hackers, what else could it be?

Telco insiders say given the outage has affected Optus’s entire customer base, the most likely cause is a core network issue, potentially from a systems upgrade that has gone wrong.

While outages are not unknown - with Telstra suffering one in May - what makes the Optus outage unique is that it is affecting both mobiles and fixed lines. “I’ve not seen that in my time,” said a telco veteran.

In Telstra’s May outage customers unable to make mobile phone calls. It took Telstra about 11 hours to resolve that issue.

This means Optus customers — from office workers to Uber drivers — face being not able to make calls, use the internet and perform essential business for a day, possibly longer.

When will the Optus outage be fixed?

Optus is so far revealing few details about the outage. Bayer Rosmarin said it was hoping to know more by mid morning.

“We may have some additional updates in the next hour that would enable all customers to do that,” she said about 10am.

“Obviously we have a 24/7 operating centre so as soon as we realised there was an issue ... the team started working on it (at around 4:05am in the morning)”

As it struggles to regain faith with its customers after last year’s breach, the telco needs to go into communication overdrive, revealing details about each step in the unfolding crisis.

This is exactly what Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is demanding of Optus. “Connectivity is essential for Australian consumers and businesses, and the impacts of this outage are concerning,” she said.

What is affected by the Optus outage?

People can’t call triple-0 on an Optus landline but mobile calls to triple-0 will work if another carrier is available, Optus said.

“The mobile network and the fixed network is down although there are some customers who are still able to get their Optus wifi and connect that way,” Bayer Rosmarin said.

“I also want to make sure that customers know that triple zero is still working on the mobile network ... But landlines aren’t working.”

Commonwealth Bank has warned customers may not be able to access online banking services as did ING Australia.

Westpac said it was unable to take some calls, with the bank a user of Optus’ phone services.

ANZ and NAB said they were not impacted.

More concerning is Melbourne hospital provider Northern Health saying the outage has shut down their phone lines, underscoring the seriousness of Optus’s blackout.

It comes after cyber criminals hacked into Optus’s customer database in September last year, stealing and publishing the personal and identity information of customers, including passport, drivers licence and Medicare numbers, dates of birth and residential addresses.

Why is my phone on “SOS”

Unlike many previous telco outages, Optus’s is affecting its entire network. That means unless you can access wifi from another provider, your phone is as good as a paperweight.

The outage means that people are not able to receive or make calls, or use the internet using their regular Optus plan - hence the SOS sign in the top corner of your screen.

But that hasn’t stopped some Optus customers getting creative. One Sydneysider was planning to make full use of the Telstra payphone near their home. Not only has Telstra made calls free from payphones, many of them offer free wifi hotspots.

Telstra shares - why are they rising?

Telstra shares have jumped almost 2 per cent to $3.94 - a two month high. Meanwhile, TPG Telecom has firmed 0.7 per cent to $5.48 as investors bet on rival telcos taking market share from Optus.

While telecommunications is a complex business, wrestling legacy systems and new technology, competition in the sector fundamentally falls to three things. Pricing - can I afford it or get a better deal elsewhere? Functionality - will I gets the coverage they need? And finally service - how quickly can I get in touch with someone when something goes wrong?

Optus has some good offers in market, but that means nothing if you can’t use the service, potentially have your data hacked, or get somebody to fix your service quickly, hence why investors believe Telstra and TPG will be the big winners from Optus’s latest crisis.

To put Telstra and TPG’s gains into context, the broader sharemarket was 0.2 per cent higher in midday trade on Wednesday.

What about the Optus share price?

Optus isn’t listed on the ASX. In 2001 is became part of Singtel - short for Singapore Telecommunications limited.

Singtel shares are traded on the Singapore Exchange, and at noon on Wednesday had fallen 3.6 per cent to $S2.39 ($2.74).

Originally published as Optus outage mystery cause has left millions in the dark