Internet, phone outage cuts off 10 million Australians

Australia suffered a major power telecom outage on Wednesday affecting over 10 million people after a “mystery glitch” struck one of the country’s largest communications companies. Optus, Australia’s second-biggest telecom provider, was hit by a glitch that caused transport delays, cut hospital lines and crashed electronic payment systems across the country. Some services had been restored on Wednesday afternoon – but it was unable to pinpoint what had caused the fault, the company said. “Our team is still pursuing every possible avenue. We had a number of hypotheses and each one so far that we’ve tested and put in place new actions for has not resolved the fundamental issue,” company chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin told national broadcaster ABC. “When we have identified a root cause and a time for restoration, we’ll be updating everybody as soon as we can,” she said adding that there is no indication that the outage was a result of a hack. Just over a year ago, more than nine million Optus customers had their personal data stolen in a cyberattack. A host of organisations and businesses confirmed Wednesday evening that issues had been resolved, including the federal Department of Education, the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and Australia’s Commonwealth Bank. With inputs from agencies