About 120,000 users affected by Singtel-owned Optus’ mobile service outage
The Australian telco says it has ‘noticed a significant decline in the number of customers impacted’
[SINGAPORE] Some 120,000 users of Optus experienced mobile service disruptions in Australia on Monday (Feb 9).
Optus, a subsidiary of telco giant Singtel , said that it is aware of the issue and advised customers to restart their phone to restore service if they see “No Service” or “SOS” on their devices, Australian news outlet Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported.
The telco added that customers are able to make emergency calls.
It also said that it is working with its partner Ericsson and has “noticed a significant decline in the number of customers impacted”.
ABC reported that 220,000 customers were initially affected by the outage; the number has fallen to 115,000. The news outlet reported that Optus is unsure about what caused the outage.
The Business Times has reached out to Singtel for comment.
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The latest Optus outage follows a technical failure in September 2025, which contributed to the deaths of three people.
The three had attempted to make emergency calls during the technical failure, which disrupted those calls. More than 600 people were unable to reach the police, the fire department and ambulance services.
In an interview with ABC released on Oct 6, 2025, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong expressed his condolences over the deaths.
“As far as Singapore is concerned, while we may be a shareholder through Temasek, we have always operated on a very clear cardinal principle that we do not get involved in commercial operations. We do not direct commercial matters,” he added in the same interview.
In a media briefing in November, Singtel’s group chief executive Yuen Kuan Moon acknowledged that Optus would need to rebuild trust with customers – particularly after the “triple-zero incident”.
Yuen had said then that the Optus board was “fully behind” management in accelerating the transformation, focusing on risk management and improving resiliency.
“This is something that we continue to do and emphasise, because we believe Optus continues to be a very important service provider in Australia,” he had said, noting that Optus supports 10 million mobile customers in the country.
Shares of Singtel ended Monday 1.3 per cent or S$0.06 higher at S$4.78.
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