Optus is struggling to assist customers who use their OptusNet email service after an outage which appears to be affecting hundreds of users, if not many more.

Along with multiple reports on social media, the website “down detector” has also logged over 500 reports. Given these and social media are self-generated it’s hard to know just how many people are affected by this outage.

Customers reaching out to Optus have been doing so for 15+ hours now:

With attempts to resolve the problem going unfixed.

One user Anna told EFTM that she’s been told it’s fixed on twitter, but it has not.

https://twitter.com/annamgirardi/status/1620192144681230337

With customer satisfaction already at an all-time low after the hacking of 9.8 million users data, Optus needs to work harder and faster to restore these kinds of outages.

https://twitter.com/annamgirardi/status/1620189949445435394

EFTM will reach out to Optus for comment, but given they see our audience as not representative of their customers and have been critical of our direct and opinionated reporting in the past, we don’t hold out much hope.

Optus did respond, without a formal statement saying the issue was resolved and apologising to customers. Unfortunately, some say it’s still not working.

We do recommend firstly that you never rely on an Internet Provider for email. This is for two simple reasons.

  1. Email is not their primary business, so it’s never going to be a priority
  2. It links you to that provider and makes you less likely to change ISP’s and reap the cost and possible speed benefits of switching telcos.

Time to give Optus the flick perhaps.