Optus phone, mobile, Internet downed by QLD hoe

Optus has confirmed its major fibre cables in Queensland have been severed in a construction mishap, cutting Internet connections, PSTN and mobile phone services to more than one million customers.

The outage occurred at around 8.00AM this morning and also severed Internet links for Primus customers. A spokesperson for Primus said the cables were accidentally cut by a farmer.

"We were told by Optus this morning that a farmer had cut the cables digging around with a backhoe," he said.

The incident followed a separate unconfirmed failure in Optus' Stanthorpe Point of Presence (POP) which affected coastal and inland transmission links.

Fixed line voice calls to and from Queensland have been cut for Optus customers, along with celluar services and Internet connections to interstate and international servers.

An Optus spokesperson said technicians are on site assessing the problem and are expected resolve the outage by midday.

"We cannot confirm the cause of the break, and we apologise for the inconvenience to our customers," he said.

A spokesperson at Highway 1 said the outage was not part of schedule maintenance for later this month to repair existing cable damages.

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