Optus outage leaves NSW town cut off, impacting critical services

Lorraine Withers has been nervously waiting for the phone to ring with the results of some recent medical tests.

But because she's an Optus customer living in Coleambally in southern NSW, that's unlikely to happen any time soon.

On Monday, service to around 250 residents in the town of just over 1,000 people was cut without warning.

"I'm stressing about whether the doctors are going to be able to get in touch with me or I'm going to be able to get in touch with them," Ms Withers said.

"I'm just disappointed in them not letting us know what was happening and not letting us know that it was going to take 10 days before we could have our phones back, have our data back on our phone because … that's our lifeline out here."

Ms Withers said the only communication she got from the telco was a text a few months ago stating there could be some disruptions this week.

She said there was nothing to suggest a total outage lasting more than a week.

"There was no, 'It's going to take 10 days'. So I automatically said, 'It'll take a day like it normally does.'"

Optus has apologised to the Coleambally community for failing to notify residents about the outage, which is now expected to last 13 days.

Impact on critical services

The town's medical centre also uses Optus, and a staff member, Sam Harris, said they had no idea about the outage.

"It was phone and internet that were impacted, so on the doctor's computer, we couldn't do scripts," she said.

"Ringing patients with results is my job.

The medical centre has now purchased a satellite internet service to reconnect their phone to wi-fi, but many patients are still unable to call them.

Ms Harris said she was especially concerned for some of the elderly residents in town.

"We've got a lot of elderly people at home panicking because they can't make a phone call," she said.

"Yes, they can ring Triple Zero, but they can't ring family, they can't ring for help.

"Mail ladies having to travel to Narrandera, they can't ring if they break down and their option is to ring Triple Zero, and that's just not good enough."

An Optus spokesperson said Triple Zero calls could still be made.

"Calls to emergency services will connect via other mobile networks where coverage is available, noting there may be a delay while the connection transfers," the spokesperson said.

It comes after the telco faced backlash over outages in remote areas, which led to problems with contacting Triple Zero.

The local service station told ABC it was the only business in town that stocked SIM cards.

It said the few Telstra prepaid SIMs in stock when the outage hit sold out that same day.

The Murrumbidgee Shire Council also said it was not notified.

An Optus spokesperson has apologised for the lack of communication and said planned customer notifications were not issued due to a technical issue ahead of the work.

The provider said it was rebuilding the service tower to improve "network performance and reliability" and that completion was expected by May 30.

However, following community concerns, an Optus spokesperson said they are working to bring the completion date forward and were deploying temporary mobile infrastructure for interim coverage, which is expected to be operational by Saturday.

Optus has said that for affected customers, they are waiving monthly mobile access fees for three months.

It comes at the same time that Optus' owner, Singtel, announced on Thursday that it's looking to sell a minority stake in the telco.

Ms Withers said the situation had affected her trust in the service for future use.

"It's sad that we're being forgotten," she said.

"That's what it feels like, it feels like they don't care."