An act of vandalism has caused the latest significant Optus outage, affecting emergency service calls for more than 14,000 people, the telco has said.
Optus said the issue has been caused by vandals who damaged an aerial fibre line, affecting users in the Frankston and Mornington Peninsula areas, south-east of Melbourne.
Optus spokesperson Jane McNamara said crews were working to restore coverage, with five of the six impacted sites back online.
She said the remaining customers would be reconnected in the coming hours.
The failure is the fourth time in months that a major Optus outage has prevented people from accessing emergency services.
McNamara said the incident was frustrating, adding that alleged criminals had cut the fibre that provides vital connectivity to customers.
"Our technicians have been on site since early this morning. We do have that photo evidence and it's clear that there had been a cut made," she told ABC Radio Melbourne.
"We know copper has been removed from the pit and we have contacted police."
The embattled telco's website still lists 14,322 services that have been impacted.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said she was seeking urgent advice on the situation.
"There are too many people out in the community experiencing an outage that may be impacting their ability to contact emergency services," she told reporters on Tuesday.
"I can understand why there is a great concern in the community, particularly given some of the more recent incidents that have involved Optus."
A scheduled firewall upgrade in South Australia triggered a communications outage on 18 September linked to the deaths of three Australians. That outage is the subject of a Senate inquiry.
Optus chief executive Stephen Rue blamed human error for that fault.
Normal calls were largely unaffected, but the outage blocked about 600 triple-zero calls from connecting to emergency services.
— With additional reporting from the Australian Associated Press
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