Yet another emergency call outage hits Singtel’s Optus as vandals cut fibre

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: Australian telco Optus has reported yet another emergency call outage on Wednesday morning (Nov 26), believed to have been caused by vandals attempting to steal copper.

According to Channel News Asia (CNA), Optus said an “aerial fibre break” could be responsible and that the matter was being investigated. The outage affected around 14,000 users near Melbourne.

The disruption comes just two months after Singapore’s Singtel-owned telco company suffered consecutive outages that hit Triple Zero, Australia’s emergency hotline, which were linked to four deaths.

On its website, the company said, “Customers will only be able to call emergency services if they are within coverage of another mobile network or are able to call via WiFi.”

Optus spokesperson Jane McNamara told ABC Radio Melbourne that the company believes no emergency calls were disrupted this time. She said that they have photo evidence showing a cut had been made, adding that the copper has been removed from the pit.

“We have contacted Victoria Police,” she said. /TISG

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