Optus outage hits banks, hospitals, enterprise users

A massive Optus outage that hit mobile and fixed services on Wednesday has impacted many major services, including banking and the health care sector.

Banking and financial services

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia faced issues across its telecommunications network following the outage.

On its CommBank service updates page, it said that “due to the Optus telecommunications outage, some customers may encounter difficulties with some of our services right now", though it added that its branches, ATMs, NetBank, CommBank app, CommBiz and merchant terminals "are fully available.”

Customers were instructed to message through its banking app as its “call centres are unable to receive calls”.

Some SMS communications including NetCode are also impacted as a result of the outage, however customers should still receive NetCode push notifications.

Westpac also faces issues as “some merchant systems are degraded” following the outage.

“We're experiencing an issue impacting calls to our team and are working hard to get everything back up and running as soon as possible," it said.

ANZ Banking Group posted on X (formerly Twitter) that it was aware of the Optus issue and “this may be affecting customers trying to contact us”.

“We apologise for any inconvenience. The ANZ App, ANZ Plus app, ANZ Internet Banking, Message Us and ATMs continue to be available during this time,” ANZ said.

iTnews understand that no NAB services are currently impacted by the current outage.

ING Australia also recommended its users try to contact its contact centre via a different number due to the Optus outage.

Beyond Bank stated it would keep customers updated via its social media page, posting “the Optus outage may impact some customers contacting us or receiving SMS codes.”

“Service levels through our Customer Relationship Centre may also be impacted," it said.

Telecommunications

Aussie Broadband reported issues stemming from the Optus outage, posting “we are currently experiencing issues with our upstream mobile network, hosted by Optus.

“This means Aussie mobile customers may not be able to make or receive calls or SMS, or use mobile data.”

Other MVNOs that use the Optus network were similarly affected.

Other services

Workforce Australia also faced impacts from the major outage posting it was “currently experiencing a IT network outage related to the Optus network, which may impact your ability to connect to some of our services”.

“We apologise for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this matter.”

NSW Health also stated its “NSW Poisons Information Centre hotline is currently impacted by the nationwide Optus outage” and to call “temporary hotline number on 1300 392 539”.

Eastern Health posted on X (formerly Twitter) it was “aware of a major Optus nationwide outage” that was “impacting inbound and outbound phone calls.

The organisation noted its “services are continuing as normal.”

Bupa Australia also informed its customers of “interruptions to our digital and phone systems” on its social media page.

“We'll be back up and running as soon as possible, but we'd encourage our members to use myBupa if they can in the meantime”.

The ACT Human Rights Commission posted its phone services had been impacted as well as not-for-profit organisation Uniting, which said the outage meant its “call centre is currently not operating". It directed people to fill out an online form.

Despite the outage heavily impacting numerous phone line and mobile service, the NSW Police said “that there are no issues affecting Triple Zero (‘000’) phone calls”.

However, on the Triple Zero home page is noted that “if there is no mobile coverage on any network, you will not be able to reach the Emergency Call Service via a mobile telephone.”

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland told a media conference that federal and state governments are monitoring which of their services are affected.

Rowland called on Optus to “step up” its customer communications.

“I think Optus needs to make sure they step up and communicate with people. This started in the early hours of this morning. We’re now at 11 o’clock – and for a lot of people who are trying to get on their day and their businesses, it’s absolutely vital that they get back to normality,” Rowland said.

“I would urge Optus to use every channel available, including the broadcast media, to make sure these messages get across.

“Customers expect this, customers are clearly frustrated about it, and Optus should respond to that accordingly.”

At the time of writing, Optus had not made any announcement about service restoration.

However, internet route-watcher Doug Madory posted a message on X  that he was seeing the first signs of recovery.