Australian gov’t concerned about major telecommunications outage: acting PM

CANBERRA: The Australian government has expressed concerns over the impact of a major telecommunications outage on critical services.

Millions of Australians were on Wednesday morning left without mobile and internet service after Optus, Australia’s second-largest telecommunications company with over 10 million customers, was hit by a major outage.

The loss of service has caused public transport delays across the country, downed payment systems and cut hospital telephone lines.

Speaking at a press conference, acting Prime Minister Richard Marles said the government was concerned about the outage.

“We are first and foremost focused on those immediate emergency services and keeping people safe and we have been very focused on those triple-0 services and we are looking at the impact across government services,” he told reporters.

As of midday Australian Eastern Daylight Time on Wednesday, Optus had not identified the cause of the outage.

Michelle Rowland, the minister for communications, said it was likely the result of a “deep fault.” She called on Optus to utilize all forms of media to continually update its customers.

All major hospitals in Melbourne, one of the biggest cities in the country, were affected by the outage on Wednesday morning, as were hospitals in Brisbane and private healthcare providers across Australia.

Australia’s biggest bank, the Commonwealth Bank, warned customers they could have difficulties accessing online services as a result.

The premier of South Australia, Peter Malinauskas, said it was the single biggest telecommunications outage in Australian history.

“They have let their customers down throughout the state, including the government,” he said.

Malinauskas said his government was actively communicating with another telecommunications company to move critical services.

-Xinhua