OPTUS B1 SATELLITE SERVICE RESTORED FOLLOWING OVERNIGHT OUTAGE

Optus confirms that it has restored services on the Optus B1 satellite this morning following an overnight outage which commenced at 5.52pm AEDT on Thursday 30 March 2006.

The outage was caused during a routine station keeping manoeuvre and services on the Optus B1 satellite failed due to loss of pointing control of the satellite. This meant transmission signals were lost to New Zealand and Australian customers.

Optus maintained contact with the satellite throughout the outage. Optus engineers worked through the night to fix the outage and the satellite's pointing was recovered early on Friday morning, with services progressively restored between 7.00am and 7.30am AEDT on Friday 31 March 2006.

Optus is investigating the cause of the outage and believes the most probable cause to be a fuel feed anomaly to one of the thrusters on the satellite.

Optus is continually investing in its satellite infrastructure and is set to launch the first D-series satellite later in 2006.

Media contact:
Simone Bergholcs and Melissa Favero
Optus Corporate Affairs
+61 2 9342 7850