Optus outage; as CFO promoted

Optus customers in Sydney and Melbourne today had problems accessing their 3G wireless broadband services as another outage dogged the carrier.

"We are experiencing some problems with our 3G data services in Sydney and Melbourne," a spokesperson for the company said.

Melbourne's 3G data services went down first, with the spokesperson saying they had been out since earlier today, while Sydneysiders have been data free since 1:30pm this afternoon.

The spokesperson wasn't able to say what had caused the problem, with technicians still investigating. They said Melbourne should have now come back on line, although those accessing the services might still experience some congestion.

There was no timeline mentioned for Sydney's service to be restored.

Optus-owned Virgin Mobile also had an outage starting 2:40pm on Wednesday afternoon, affecting its broadband service. Technicians fixed the problem by midnight, which affected Sydney, Melbourne and Queensland.

This is the second outage for Optus, which lost Queensland earlier last month when a cable was cut affecting customers' voice calls, internet and mobile.

Optus CFO Jeann Low Ngiap Jong
(Credit: Optus)

The 3G data outage came as Optus-parent Singtel announced the resignation of CFO Francis Heng Hang Song, naming Optus CFO Jeann Low Ngiap Jong to step up into the role of group financial head.

Jong will not be leaving her role as Optus' CFO, but will instead handle both jobs from 1 September 2008, when Song's resignation takes effect.

Jong has been at Optus since 1998, in positions such as executive vice president strategic investments and group financial controller.

"We are pleased to appoint Jeann to the Group CFO role. She brings significant financial expertise, broad industry experience and a strong track record to her new appointment," Singtel CEO Chua Sock Koong said in a statement.