A nationwide outage suffered by Australia’s second-largest telecommunications provider, Optus, has left thousands of businesses and local government authorities unable to process money payments.
Coffee shops, councils, bowling alleys, and hotels were among those impacted by the nationwide Optus blackout in Australia, which is estimated to have impacted 10 million customers and 40,000 businesses.
Optus mobile, data, and internet services went down for hours on Nov. 8, impacting mobile, NBN services, and EFTPOS (electronic funds transfer at point of sale) machines.
Smartphones were rendered nearly useless as the lack of mobile services meant calls could not be made, and apps could not be accessed unless connected to a local Wi-Fi hotspot (not provided by Optus).
The MidCoast Council in regional New South Wales (NSW) was unable to process payments or take calls in the morning due to the outage.
“The outage is unplanned and Optus is working to restore services.”
In South Australia, the Berri Hotel advised it had no EFTPOS available and customers would need to use cash.
A bowling alley in Orange, NSW was also impacted.
“Times like this you realise that a cashless world is not the best thing.”
Advocates Say Cash Really Is King
Cash Welcome, a grassroots campaign working to protect the right to use and access cash, posted on Facebook, “Optus outage stops Australia.”The group said trains, businesses, and consumers were stranded because of the outage that impacted the Singtel-owned network.
“Only people with notes and coins can buy stuff. Cash—don’t leave home without it,” the group said.
Liberal National Party Senator for Queensland Gerard Rennick pushed for physical bank branches to remain open with access to cash.
One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts echoed this sentiment and warned going cashless had national security implications.
“In the event of future conflict with a hostile nation like China, our telecommunications network would be the first target,” he wrote on Twitter.
“With no cash redundancy to an internet world, a hostile nation could immediately grind our entire commerce and country to a halt.”
The Douglas Shire Council in Queensland also advised that EFPTOS was down at the Killaloe Transfer Station in the morning, due to the Optus Network outage. However, services have now been restored.
EFTPOS machines were also down at the Hans Factory Shop in Queensland, Break Away Cafe in Esperance Western Australia, and Veggie Mama in Mount Lawley, WA due to the outage.
Some businesses said they were still able to take payments because they were not using Optus.
Just Gluten Free in Adelaide said, “Yes, you can use your card in our stores. We don’t use Optus for payment.”
The Response from Optus and the Minister
The telco said it understood connectivity was important and apologised for any inconvenience caused. Optus later said some services across fixed and mobile were now gradually being restored.“This may take a few hours for all services to recover, and different services may restore at different sites over that time,” Optus said.
“[We are] very, very sorry that this occurred, we know how important it is for all our customers to be connected, and we have been working tirelessly since the outage started to restore services for our customers,” she told ABC radio.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said she had been in touch with Optus and revealed the problem lay in the network.
“Optus has said that they are doing everything they can at this stage to identify the faults and to rectify it. But I do appreciate that for your listeners and for consumers right around Australia, this is very frustrating at the moment, and there is a strong desire to have some timeframes about when this might be rectified.”
The minister said she was reluctant to speculate on the precise technical details, but said it seemed to be part of the “core network.”
“So, basically, the brains of the network have been impacted here. So that is significant,” she said.
“Most governments are affected in some way or form and the South Australian government is no exception.”
As a customer of Optus, government departments including SA Health were impacted. However, clinical services were able to continue.
