HANNA SLOAN
CAIRNS locals have been affected by an Optus mobile network outage today that has reportedly impacted areas from Cardwell up to Cooktown.
Mobile phones on the Optus network have been showing no signal or SOS only, meaning customers have been unable to use internet, send texts, or make calls – except to emergency services.
While those with access to other network wifi have been able to remain connected, the outage has caused issues across the region.
Several businesses have been unreachable due to their phones being down, and others have had to resort to cash-only measures with EFTPOS machines having gone offline.
The Cairns Central Optus store closed its doors when the outage began, placing a hastily-written sign at the shopfront to alert customers to the outage.
The Optus website says there has been a cable break in the area, causing a number of towers to be down, and that the network team is working to resolve it.
Thus far there is no estimate on when all cellular services will be back up and running – some commenters in the Cairns Notice Board Facebook group say their mobiles are back in working order, while others are still waiting for good news.
Keep up with the latest news in Cairns and the Far North, and check out some of our top stories this week: Indigenous artwork on show at Warrina Lakes and Compassionate laws give more choice to Queenslanders.