Optus customers in Cygnet are gradually regaining service after four days without mobile coverage, following a technical fault that crippled the telco’s network.
The extended outage ran from Thursday, September 25 to today and cut voice and data services across Cygnet and surrounding areas in the Huon Valley.
Optus estimated the size of the outage as impacting approximately 1,246 services.
The telecommunications company attributed the lengthy disruption to a “technical issue” at one of its 4G mobile sites that required complex repairs involving another carrier.
“The diagnostics and repairs required coordination with another carrier, which took time,” an Optus spokesperson told Pulse.
Optus said emergency services were still accessible during the blackout.
“Triple Zero calls were not impacted as a result of this issue,” the company said.
The Cygnet outage comes as Optus faces mounting scrutiny over separate Triple Zero failures that left customers unable to reach emergency services on the mainland.
On Sunday, nearly 5,000 customers in the Illawarra lost Triple Zero access for nine and a half hours, with at least nine calls failing to connect.
The latest disruption adds to growing pressure on the telco, which has been battling a string of failures affecting both everyday customers and access to emergency services.
Optus chief executive Stephen Rue is due to meet Federal Communications Minister Anika Wells tomorrow to address the recent spate of outages.
“Optus apologises to our customers in the Cygnet area who were impacted by a mobile service disruption,” the company said.
“We understand how frustrating this was for the community and thank our customers for their patience while we worked to restore services as quickly and safely as possible.”
