Tasmania has been hit by a major statewide internet outage, with a handful of service providers impacted.
First reported by the ABC, the major outage is affecting internet and mobile phone services across the state.
It is believed the outage, impacting those just in Tasmania at this stage, is being felt by Telstra, Optus and Aussie Broadband.
Telstra took to Twitter to provide an update.
⚠️If you’re having an issue with your mobile or home broadband in TAS, our team are on to it. We know this isn’t news you want to hear on a Tuesday afternoon, but we’re working to get it fixed ASAP. We’ll keep you across updates here as we have them.
— Telstra (@Telstra) March 1, 2022
The telco gave a diagnosis, however, saying it believes the issue is a result of two separate cable cuts on the main routes to Tasmania.
It assured customers that Triple Zero calls are not impacted, and said that some voice calls would be getting through.
Aussie Broadband also shared a status update on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/Aussie_BB/status/1498490421542268930
Aussie said technicians are investigating the outage across Tasmania, but didn’t give out false hope, telling customers it doesn’t have an ETA of when services will be resumed.
Optus, meanwhile, was pointing customers to its service status page. A quick search for ‘Tasmania’ confirmed an outage was affecting Optus customers, too. The note from Optus reads: “Sorry, the Optus network in this area is currently impacted. Our network team is working to resolve a transmission issue impacting the Optus network in this area. We’ll update any progress here. Your service may be interrupted during this time. We’ll let you know when everything is back in working order.”
Tasmania’s Public utility agency TasNetworks said via Facebook that the statewide internet outage was caused by “upstream provider issues”. It confirmed the TasNetworks website has been impacted and was currently unavailable as a result (hence the updates on Facebook).
It shortly after reported that services were being progressively restored across the state.
“Some connectivity is back, but some ISPs are still down, so some customers will still not be able to access our external website,” they wrote.
Reports indicate that some banking and retail payments terminals are also being affected by the Tasmania-wide outage.
We’ll update this article as we learn more.