An Optus network outage in the New South Wales Hunter region, potentially linked to vandalism of a telecommunications tower, left about 34,000 customers without service and disrupted triple-0 calls. The outage affected mobile voice and data services in the Port Stephens and Maitland areas.
NSW Police received a report on Wednesday afternoon that a tower on Maitland Road in Hexham had been maliciously damaged, believed to have occurred around 9:30am. Optus confirmed services were restored to all impacted sites and the network continues to be monitored.
An Optus spokesperson said the outage may have impacted customers attempting to connect to triple-0. Welfare checks are underway regarding failed emergency calls. The federal Communications Minister's office, the department, and ACMA have been notified.
Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh criticized Optus for lacking transparency, calling on CEO Stephen Rue to address Australians directly. She urged the government to establish an independent website documenting all telecommunication outages and called for a thorough investigation into infrastructure resilience.
