A major network outage at Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, caused widespread disruption across the country on Wednesday. The problem started at around 4:30 a.m. local time and lasted for about 12 hours before services were fully restored.
During the outage, many customers were unable to make mobile calls or use mobile data. The disruption also affected train services, payment systems, and some emergency phone calls. Telstra’s Chief Financial Officer, Michael Ackland, apologized to customers and said the company understood how frustrating the outage had been.
He explained that the problem was caused by a software fault linked to timekeeping servers in the company’s Sydney and Melbourne data centers. He also confirmed that the outage was not caused by a cyberattack.
Emergency services were also affected. Telstra said its backup systems, which send emergency calls through other mobile networks, worked in most cases. However, a few calls failed to connect properly.
The company later contacted customers who had tried to call emergency services during the outage. Six people were found to need immediate assistance and received help.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the incident as very concerning. Communications Minister Anika Wells said the Australian Communications and Media Authority will investigate what caused the outage and how it affected customers.
The network failure also disrupted transport services. In Victoria, all regional train services were cancelled. Some regional train routes in New South Wales were also delayed or interrupted. Freight rail services were affected as well.
Businesses also faced problems processing payments. Around 80,000 businesses that use the Tyro payment system experienced disruptions during the outage.
Ackland said Telstra continues to invest heavily in network reliability, backup systems, and cybersecurity. He said the company takes outages seriously but admitted that technical problems can still happen because of the size and complexity of the network.
The incident follows similar outages in recent years. In 2023, an Optus network failure left thousands of Australians unable to contact emergency services and later resulted in regulatory action.
