RESIDENTS relying on the Optus network have been left in the dark over the last couple of days, with low or no service since Thursday morning.
An Optus spokesman said an initial outage on Thursday was rectified at 6.20pm but the provider has since experienced further outages, which it is currently investigating.
"Some Optus customers in the Ararat region may be experiencing disruptions to their mobile voice and data services due to a power issue affecting the site," he said.
"We would like to assure our customers that this outage is a priority for us and we have engineers on site who are working to fix this issue as soon as possible."
The outage comes only a week after Telstra customers in Stawell were left in the lurch.
Some businesses have been impacted by the outages, like Ballarat Ararat Real Estate on Barkly Street.
Jessica Ward is a property manager who said she has had to use her personal phone to stay in touch with clients.
"It's not working and it's my work phone so I can't do anything," she said.
"Today I either have one bar (of service) or SOS."
Other residents rely on their phones for internet at home, like Chloe Bond, who said she understood outages happen but the lack of notice was a problem.
"They should at least tell us," she said.
"I wouldn't care (about the outage) if they did tell us and gave us an idea of when it would return."
Customers not receiving notice of outages has been an ongoing issue in the region.
"We sincerely apologise to customers for any inconvenience and thank them for their patience while affected services are restored," the spokesman said.
"We encourage customers who are experiencing disruptions to their service to contact our customer care team on 133 937 to discuss their specific circumstances. Compensation requests are considered on a case-by-case basis."
Customers can check Optus' network status here.
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