Millions of Australians were left unable to make calls, send texts or access the internet after a major Vodafone outage caused chaos across the country.
The disruption struck about 8am, leaving customers reporting widespread mobile and data issues and sparking thousands of complaints online.
Vodafone confirmed that the fault was caused by an outage at one of its network hubs and said technicians had worked to isolate and resolve the problem.
“We are aware that some customers are experiencing intermittent issues with the Vodafone network this morning,” the company said.
“The issue has been isolated and resolved, and services are now being progressively restored.”
While most services are back online, Vodafone warned some customers may continue to experience intermittent issues as devices reconnect to the network.
The telco urged users to restart their phones to help restore service.
Outage-tracking website Downdetector received thousands of reports from frustrated customers as the outage unfolded, while Vodafone’s own network status checker also struggled under the weight of demand.
The outage affected not only Vodafone customers but also users of providers that operate on the Vodafone network including TPG, iiNet, Internode and Lebara.
Vodafone said customers who were unable to connect to its network should still have been able to call triple-0 by automatically connecting to another available mobile network.
The company apologised for the disruption and said services were continuing to stabilise.
Vodafone is Australia’s third-largest mobile network operator and provides services to about 5.4 million customers nationwide.
Get the latest news from thewest.com.au in your inbox.
Sign up for our emails