A spokesman for Telstra confirmed that all Australian telecommunications companies were suffering from severe network problems that prevented people from dialing the 000 emergency numbers everywhere.
The telecoms company has been holding a crisis meeting Friday morning to discuss a solution to the accident.
Around 02:50 on Friday, a cable was cut off, causing problems with customer phone communications across the country. By 8 a.m., emergency calls in New York, Victoria and Western Australia were still interrupted intermittently.
Fiber-optic maintenance personnel found traces of fire on a cable well east of Orange and found significant fire damage "consistent with lightning strikes," a spokesman said.
A spokesman for the telecoms company said: we are trying to repair the cable and apologize for the interruption of services across Australia, and for all the people who have been troubled by it.
A Telstra spokesman said: the phone is back to normal communication by noon, the call service is returning to normal, and we are working with Emergency Services, government and corporate customers to address all the remaining problems caused by the accident.
Earlier today, services from some operators, such as TPG Telecom, appeared to have resumed.
Craig Levy, chief operating officer of TPG Telecom, said: morning tests showed that the emergency call was on the line.
Police, fire departments and ambulance call centers received three interruptions at around 2 a.m., emergency services said.
Australian police said that people in need of emergency assistance can first call 000, if the 000 can not be reached, can call the National Police assistance hotline 131,4444.
A spokesman for the Australian Communications and Media Authority said they were working with Telstra to address the issue, and emergency call services were provided by Telstra to the federal government under the contract.
The accident is currently being dealt with, I believe that the national, government, operators will do their best to solve the problem.
