Optus is experiencing a “major outage”, hitting mobile customers in Victoria and New South Wales, the company says.

The problem, identified about 3:30pm, means customers will have intermittent problems making or receiving calls.

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The company said technicians are working “as a priority” to restore services as quickly as possible.

“We apologise to customers and appreciate their patience,” a company spokesman said in a statement.

“We are aware that many customers are not affected.”

On Twitter, one customer claimed to have smashed his phone in anger about the outage.