Optus users across the Shoalhaven and Southern Highlands checked to see whether they have service bars this morning after Wednesday’s nation-wide outage.
A number of businesses were forced to close doors because they couldn’t complete transactions.
Shoalhaven Business Chamber President Jemma Tribe said, ‘For many businesses it was a day without business.”
Many shoppers were forced to leave groceries in trolleys at supermarket checkouts when they couldn’t complete electronic transfers from Optus devices.
Illawarra Business Chamber President Adam Zarth said the outage was a major inconvenience for tradies who rely on mobile phones to order supplies and communicate with their workers on site.
Optus Nowra positioned a staff member on a chair outside the office to answer questions from local customers who were among the ten million nationwide who were affected by the outage.
A Nowra Taxi driver spoke of one customer who had to borrow a Telstra telephone from a friend and purchase a rival telco’s sim-card to confirm and arrange transport to an important medical appointment.
Optus services were restored, more than 13 hours after the nationwide network outage began.
The Greens have called for a federal parliamentary inquiry to examine what led to the Optus outage.
