Optus outage: customers in regional Australia gather in shops and McDonald’s for wifi

Shopping centres, McDonald’s restaurants and public pay phones in regional Australia have attracted clusters of Optus customers trying to access the internet in the midst of a nationwide network outage.

The network went down at 4am on Wednesday, the Optus chief executive, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, said and the telco was “still pursuing every possible avenue” to get its 10 million customers back online.

In south-east Queensland, where fires have been burning for the past month, communities that rely on Optus for coverage are breathing a sign of relief that the outage came after a significant downpour of rain, which has temporarily reduced the fire risk. Had it happened last week, when several towns were under an emergency bushfire warning, it would have been more worrying.

“Things have quieted down here a bit so we haven’t had to rush crews out on to trucks, but a week ago it would have added some pressure,” Paul Mar, the first officer of the Wildash fire brigade in southern Queensland, told Guardian Australia.

Ben Usher, second officer of the brigade, said problems with radio communications meant phones were relied upon more than usual when fires swept through the area. Volunteer firefighters also get the call to respond to a fire on their mobile phones.

“During the fires last week mobile phones were an imperative,” he said. “If that [Optus blackout] happened a few days ago things could have been bad.”

One of the towns affected by fires last week was Warwick, two hours south-west of Brisbane.

The town’s shopping centre was one of only places in town with working public wifi on Wednesday.

“I had to come down here and get wifi, I had no other options,” said John Black, who braved the 80s dancefloor hits in the food court for a bit of free internet.

Around the corner from the food court, a line was growing by the Telstra shop. Kevin Skinner was second in queue. After waking up without wifi and phone reception, he has decided to change providers.

“It just upset my daily routine, having a coffee, checking the internet … it’s really impacted me,” Skinner said. “I have a few mental problems, it’s really important I have a stable internet connection.”

Back on the main drag, there was a queue for the ATM. The newsagent next door doesn’t have internet, customers need cash.

“That’s our only problem really. Seven out of ten people want to use eftpos,” newsagent owner Paul Hynes said. “We can’t do that any more.”

Down the road, cafe manager Rosie Favero was dealing with similar issues.

“I’ve just had three lots of customers come in that haven’t been able to pay for their coffee,” she said. “Luckily, I know them. One had some cash on them and the other two, I’ve just taken their name so they’ll come back and pay.”

Further south, in the central west region of New South Wales, Optus customers have been out of service for three days after a malfunctioning airconditioner caused transmission equipment in a service centre in Young to overheat.

At Cowra hospital, the landlines and switchboards are operational but staff on the Optus network can’t be contacted for out of hours emergencies. The local Westpac branch has the opposite problem; the landlines are down, leaving customers no choice but to drive into town, or wait until service resumes.

Bellevue Hill, the highest point in Cowra, had phone reception on Monday and Tuesday, offering an ad-hoc meeting point for residents needing to make a call. With a national outage now affecting more than 10 million customers, even the highest point in town cannot provide a signal.

The McDonald’s in Cowra still has wifi.

Isaac Andrew and his partner, Tahleah, drove 30km from Canowindra, to access the McDonald’s internet and check in with family and friends.

“Both myself and my partner got paid today, and we didn’t have the ability to transfer any of our funds across to our bank accounts,” Andrew said.

Andrew said he was concerned about the security risk of accessing banking apps on unsecured public wifi but they needed to transfer money to be able to do the grocery shopping.

“I have apps on my phone to help mitigate the issue but it’s not as safe as I’d like it to be,” he said. “There’s no other choice. You have to do what you have to do, especially with a little one.”