Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Millions of Australians couldn’t be online for 9 hours. The impacts vary, from cats that eat late to prescriptions that cannot be filled.
Don’t be one of Australia’s largest internet service providers (ISP), Optus was completely down for 9 hours in Australia. Optus, a company owned by Singtel, a telecommunications giant from Singapore, has not published the reason for the mass internet disconnection from morning to evening.
The total internet shutdown has overwhelmed Sydney residents. Reuters reported, a special needs retiree named Chris Rogers, could not buy medicine for his knees because his electronic prescription could not be filled.
“Because [internet] it went out, couldn’t load,” said Rogers. “The drug exchange place wasn’t working. Crazy, I’ve never seen chaos like this.”
Millions of Australians cannot transact to buy goods, order taxis online, receive medical services, or make telephone calls. Optus’ service outage has a big impact, as they are the provider of 40 percent of internet services across Australia.
According to Reuters, events in Australia show the risks of the economy moving completely online.
Throughout 2019-2022, according to Australian central bank data, cash transactions in Australia were cut by half. Today, only 16 percent of transactions in Australia are made using cash. In addition, a quarter of doctor’s appointments in neighboring Indonesia are carried out online.
“We are now relying heavily on telehealth and electronic messaging systems,” said Michael Clements, chairman of one of Australia’s doctors’ associations. “The reality is, many people cannot receive health care.”
A security officer, Angela Ican, even got lost. “I looked for a bank, and because my phone and Google didn’t work, I didn’t know where to go.”
An office worker in Sydney cannot enter the office because the door to the building where he works uses a smart lock that can only be opened with a mobile application.
Reuters also spoke to an MSME owner who was forced to rely on promises from his regular customers to pay after the internet was restored because the electronic payment system could not be used.
“Our daily turnover is usually up to A$ 3,200 (Rp. 50.23 million) and we lost A$ 1,000 (Rp. 15.7 million) in sales this morning,” said Roderick Geddes, owner of a kiosk in Sydney.
A Sydney resident on the radio said that he noticed that the internet was completely dead when he woke up. His electronic cat feeding device connected to WiFi didn’t work. Supposedly, the electronic device provides automatic feeding at 6 am.
Her hungry cat jumped on the bed to wake her up.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
(dem/dem)
Originally posted 2023-11-08 14:00:00.