New Optus disaster hits Queensland as outage blocks emergency triple-0 calls

Optus customers across Queensland are unable to dial triple-000 from their home phones in another disaster for the embattled telco.

Optus has outages across Queensland. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Optus customers across Queensland were unable to dial triple-0 from their home phones in another disaster for the embattled telco.

The outage was first reported about 8.30am on Wednesday and lasted until 7.30pm.

It comes just a day after the company revealed approximately 470,000 Samsung phones on their network were potentially unable to dial triple-0 in an emergency.

A message on the Optus website said the company was aware of an outage impacting customers across Brisbane and certain parts of Queensland.

It’s understood the outage was impacting home phones and NBN connections.

“We sincerely apologise for the disruption and thank customers for their patience while our teams work as quickly as possible to restore services,” the notice read.

An Optus spokesman said the outage was the result of a network server failure in the Brisbane region, with efforts under way to restore services.

“The outage was the result of a network server failure at our Rochedale, Brisbane Exchange,” the spokesman said.

“Our technicians remain on site and are working as quickly as possible to fully restore connectivity for all Optus NBN customers.

“Up to 95,000 Optus customers in Brisbane and parts of Queensland are progressively regaining connection to their NBN services as restoration activities continue.

“We sincerely apologise for the disruption and thank customers for their patience.”

According to Optus, triple-0 and emergency services via the Optus mobile network were not impacted, while Voice Over Internet Protocol calls via a customer’s NBN broadband connection may have been affected if the customer has an older modem without 4G or 5G backup.

Impacted Optus customers were advised to power-cycle their modern by unplugging it from the power point for 30 seconds.

Earlier, a frustrated customer told The Courier-Mail the outage was affecting 93,000 homes.

“I believe they don’t know what the issue is, and they do not have an estimated time of repair,” they said.

“After one hour and 47 minutes on hold to the 13 Optus customer service number, they told me 93,000 customers were impacted. She was very upfront about it.”

Posts on social media revealed some people had been without access to the internet since 8.30am.

Businesses across the northside and southside have also shared they are unable to make phone calls, access the internet, or use EFTPOS.

It’s not known yet how many customers are impacted by the outage, however people as far north as Townsville and as far west as Toowoomba have reported outages.

Originally published as New Optus disaster hits Queensland as outage blocks emergency triple-0 calls