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Singtel Optus Pty Limited is an Australian telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, a suburb in the Northern Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of telecommunications company Singtel.
Optus is the second-largest telecommunications company in Australia, with over 11 million customers as of 2023. Its mobile network covers 98.5% of the Australian population, with plans to cover all of Australia by 2025 through its partnership with SpaceX.
With Aussat operating at a loss and with moves to Deregulation telecommunications in Australia, the government decided to sell Aussat, coupled with a telecommunications licence. The licence was sold to Optus Communications – a consortium including: (1994). 9780644354684, The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia – Joint Committee of Public Accounts. ISBN 9780644354684
The new telecommunications company was designed to provide competition to then government owned telecommunications company Telecom Australia, now known as Telstra.
After privatisation, AUSSAT became Optus and its first offering to the general public was to offer long-distance calls at cheaper rates than that of its competitor Telstra. The long-distance calling rates on offer were initially available by consumers dialing 1 before the area code and phone number. Following this, a ballot process was conducted by then regulator AUSTEL, with customers choosing their default long-distance carrier. Customers who made no choice or did not respond to the mailout campaign automatically remained as a Telstra long-distance customer. Customers who remained with Telstra could dial the override code of 1456 before the area code and phone number to manually select Optus as the carrier for that single call. Since 1 July 1998, consumers have the choice of preselecting their preferred long-distance carrier or dialling the override code before dialling a telephone number.
The group began by building an interstate fibre optic cable and a series of exchanges between Optus' interstate network and Telstra's local network. It also laid fibre optics into major office buildings and industrial areas, and focused on high bandwidth local, (interstate) long distance, and interstate calls for business. In its early years, Optus was only able to offer local and long-distance calls to residential customers through Telstra's local phone network. Telstra would carry residential to residential calls to Optus' exchanges, and then the calls would be switched to Optus' long-distance fibre optic network.
In 1993 Optus, along with Telstra and Vodafone were licenced by the regulator Austel (now ACMA) to provide 2G GSM mobile telephony. Optus's mobile service launched in May of that year.
In 2024, Singtel held advanced talks with Brookfield to sell a 20% stake in Optus. Brookfield and Singtel were unable to agree on terms, with Singtel claiming afterwards it remained committed to Optus and the Australian market.
Optus' Customer Solutions and Services (CS&S) organisation is responsible for providing support to Optus Business customers. CS&S works with Optus' subsidiary Alphawest to support information technology services across Optus' large business, corporate and government client base.
Until 20 January 2013, Optus sold mobile services under the brand name Boost Mobile.
Optus also has a 50% stake in the now defunct OPEL Networks.
Other wholly owned subsidiaries of note no longer have a significant active role as individual entities. These are as follows:
Reef Networks was formed in 1999 to provide an Optical fiber link between Brisbane and Cairns in Queensland. Optus gained exclusive access to this link in 2001, ahead of acquiring the organisation in 2005.
XYZed was established by Optus in 2000 to provide wholesale business-grade DSL services under an individual brand, but today provides a collection of products only as part of the Optus Wholesale & Satellite division. XYZed established a network of DSLAMs inside Telstra telephone exchanges, utilising Unconditioned Local Loop services to reach end users.
Telstra's local phone network did not have the capability to deliver Foxtel pay television to consumers in the early 1990s, so Telstra identified a need to create a broadband network to support this new product.
As Telstra and Optus could not agree on terms for a joint broadband cable roll out, they laid two competing cable networks, in addition to Telstra's existing copper network, at a combined cost estimated of over A$6bn.
Whilst Telstra focused on creating a broadband network specifically for broadcast, Optus designed their cable network to provide telephony services in addition to broadcast television.
Optus is no longer a customer of Telstra's after deciding to move the funding used to lease Telstra's copper network into constructing their hybrid fibre-coaxial network, the first in Australia.
During 2001, Singtel launched a takeover bid for Cable and Wireless Optus which was ultimately successful and the company became known as Singtel Optus.
In May 2004, Optus announced a $226.8 million bid for UEComm. The takeover was approved in July and completed in August.
In July 2005, Optus announced it would acquire Alphawest Ltd. for A$25.9 million. The buyout was completed in November 2005 and Alphawest is now an operating division of Optus Business.
On 12 January 2006, Optus acquired the remaining 74.15% of Virgin Mobile Australia for U$22.6 m, giving it 100% ownership.
In April 2008, after a change of the Federal Government from the Liberal Party of Australia coalition to the Australian Labor Party, the new government terminated the funding agreement and the project was halted, with its functions to be replaced by the National Broadband Network.
In October 2006, Optus announced that it would outsource 100 contracting jobs to another Singtel subsidiary, IT company NCS, in Singapore.
OptusNet also provides Cable internet. In August 2010, OptusNet released an upgrade of its HFC network to the DOCSIS 3.0 standard, which enabled customers to access a maximum theoretical downstream bandwidth of 100 Megabits. OptusNet is also one of the few ISPs in Australia to currently provide ADSL2+ via its own DSLAMs, which it also resells to other ISPs.
The Optus network operates on the following bandwidth frequencies across Australia:
The 2G GSM 900/1800 MHz network was terminated on 3 April 2017 in Western Australia and Northern Territory. 2G GSM was completely terminated on 1 August 2017 when 2G was disconnected in Victoria, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia. To remain connected, a device that is capable of running 3G at 900 MHz is now required after 2G was completely disconnected across Australia.
On 28 October 2024, the 3G UMTS service provided by Optus was shut down. This affects other providers reliant on their network, including Amaysim and Virgin Mobile Australia. To remain connected, customers are required to have a phone capable of connecting to their 4G LTE or 5G NR services. All phones incapable of using VoLTE will be prevented from accessing the Optus network due to legal requirements to ensure access to emergency 000 calls.
Optus was the main sponsor of the 1997 ARL season.
In 2016, Optus signed a 10-year partnership agreement with the Australian Olympic Committee to be the official partner of the Australian Olympic Team and the Australian Paralympic Team until 2026.
In 2017, Optus won naming rights to Perth Stadium where it would be known as Optus Stadium. Optus and the Government of Western Australia agreed to a 10-year naming right worth approximately A$50 million.
Optus also has a long-term partnership with the Adelaide Crows in the AFL. Optus has been a partner of the Collingwood Magpies in the AFL Women's since 2018.
Optus is the current major sponsor for the No. 25 Walkinshaw Andretti United Holden ZB Commodore driven by Chaz Mostertc
| 2014 | Canstar Blue Awards: Most Satisfied Customers 2014 Award in the small business mobile phone service providers category. |
| 2015 | Canstar Blue Awards: Most Satisfied Customers 2015 Award in the small business mobile phone service providers category. |
| 2016 | Global Carrier Award: Best Asian Wholesale Carrier Award |
| 2017 | Arcstar Carrier Forum: Operations and Maintenance Award Global Telcom Awards: AI Initiative of the year |
| 2018 | World Communication Awards: Best Wholesale Operator
Asia Communications Awards: Wholesale Operator of the Year
Annual MVNOs World Congress: Most Innovative Wholesaler & People's Choice |
On 24 September 2022, Australian news outlets The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Optus was investigating the authenticity of a ransom demand of US$1 million made on a hacking forum. The demand gave Optus one week to pay the ransom in cryptocurrency else the data will be sold for US$300,000 to whoever else wants it.
On 6 October, the Australian Federal Police announced the arrest of a 19-year-old man who had allegedly threatened 93 Optus customers by saying that he would use their information leaked in the attack to commit financial crimes, unless they paid AUD $2,000.
In response to the cyberattack, the Australian federal government announced emergency regulation on 6 October, in the form of a 12-month amendment to the Telecommunications Regulations 2021 to "enable telecommunications companies to temporarily share approved government identifier information with regulated financial services entities."
On 11 October, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner launched an investigation, the aim of which is to explore the company's handling of customers' data.
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