Optus’ reputation has taken a “very big hit” as a result of Wednesday’s widespread outage, according to a brand expert.

Emergency services and major transport were disrupted as a result of the issue, which began at around 4am (AEDT).

Reputation expert Professor Will Harvey said he’ll be watching the performance of Optus in coming months very closely following several disruptions.

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“Their (brand reputation) has taken a very big hit because it’s core infrastructure than everyone relies on,” he told Tom Elliott on 3AW Drive.

“The key question is whether this is a pattern (for Optus) and whether they’ll be any more significant issues.”