The bungles continue

OPTUS appears to be suffering another network outage, as customers in Melbourne and Sydney report problems accessing the carrier's 3G mobile phone network. Customers in Melbourne said the 3G network had been down for several hours, while the GSM network appeared to be intact. There have been similar reports in Sydney.

Optus has about 1.5 million 3G users in Australia.

One customer said he was told by an Optus representative this morning that the 3G network in Melbourne would be fully functioning by midday. "I've been unable to make or receive calls on my mobile all morning," he said on the Whirlpool broadband website.

"After a 50 minute wait listening to the Optus telephone on-hold rubbish, I was told by someone... that service will be (affecting) quite a lot of Melbournians at least till (sic) midday."

Optus spokeswoman Elizabeth Greene confirmed that there were issues with the network in Sydney and Melbourne, but did not know what the cause of the issues was. She said it was believed the Victorian network was the first to "experience issues".

In May Optus announced a $315 million 3G rollout that would introduce 750 new base stations across the country, leading to 98 per cent network coverage by the end of 2009.

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