Optus suffers mass national outage leaving thousands of customers unable to make calls or text

• e-mail

Optus customers across Australia are experiencing service outages as the company races to get its network back up and running.

Hundreds of customers have posted on social media, saying they haven't been able to send texts, make calls or use internet services as of 10.30am.

Around 8000 Optus users have reported outages across Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. 

Optus has responded to the complaints with a tweet:  

Customers of are frantically contacting the provider, asking when their phone and internet will be back up and running.

Customers who try to check their network status on the Optus website are receiving this message: 

'Sorry, a number of OPTUS mobile towers in this area are not working.

'Our network team is working to resolve a transmission issue on the OPTUS mobile network in this area. We'll update any progress here. Your mobile service may be interrupted during this time. We'll let you know when everything is back in working order.' 

Many Optus customers haven't been able to access internet and mobile services since 10:30am

Optus customers are taking to twitter with their frustrations at the nation-wide outages.

A spokesperson for Optus told Daily Mail Australia: 

'Some Optus mobile and internet services may have been affected by an outage that commenced at approximately 10.30am.

'Keeping customers connected is our priority and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.

'While services look to be restoring, Optus is working to identify the cause of the outage.'