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A nationwide Telstra outage has knocked out phone communications and thrown morning commutes into chaos.
Reports of a system outage started to pour in about 4am on Wednesday from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide, as well as regional centres in Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania.
What services have been affected?
Triple Zero
Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland said the telco had received “a small number of reports” of connection failures.
“We have been conducting welfare checks on those [people],” Ackland said at a press conference in Melbourne.
“We don’t believe this issue has impacted Triple Zero in the same way as other calls – it uses different network settings. But we are continuing to investigate every angle on … where it may have impacted Triple Zero, if that has occurred.”
Police warned some devices might not be able to reach emergency services.
A NSW Police spokesperson said: “You may not be able to reach Triple Zero if you are calling from a Telstra device. If you try to call Triple Zero and can’t get through, we recommend using another device, a landline or Wi-Fi calling.”
West Australian police and South Australian police have urged those whose network had been affected to make arrangements with neighbours or family to ensure access to a working phone.
Victoria Police said there was no evidence that frontline services in the state had been affected.
“Triple Zero Victoria remains fully operational and continues to dispatch calls for police assistance.”
In Tasmania, residents were reminded to only contact Triple Zero for genuine emergencies and not to use the service unless required.
Public transport
Victoria’s entire regional train network ground to a halt after a radio network fault, with a V/Line spokesperson saying no trains were able to run.
“This has resulted in significant impacts to our passengers this morning with no trains able to run on the V/Line network,” the spokesperson said.
“A very limited coach replacement service is in place and passengers are asked to avoid travel until further notice. Passengers are encouraged to check on the V/Line website and app for the latest information.”
Transport for NSW warned regional and intercity trains were also facing significant delays.
“Due to Telstra outage, significant delays are expected to all services,” the department said.
Canberra’s public transport ticketing system was affected, with travel time outages for bus and light rail.
Taxis
Reuters reported some taxi services could not take payments on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, traffic lights in South Australia reverted to an automatic timer rather than responding to traffic flow.
EV charging
Electric vehicle charging platform Chargefox said the outage was affecting some charging stations.
“Please consult the Chargefox app for real-time charger status and availability,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
Other services
Mobile virtual network operators such as Boost Mobile, Belong, Aldi Mobile and Tangerine Telecom also reported issues.
Tyro, a company that processes eftpos payments, investigated “possible system issues”. The company recommended customers try connecting via ethernet or Wi-Fi until service is restored.
“While this issue is outside Tyro’s control, we’re actively monitoring the situation and will provide updates as they become available,” the company said.
What caused the Telstra outage?
Telstra said on Wednesday morning it was urgently investigating the cause of the outage.
CFO Michael Ackland said the problem originated within a number of nodes responsible for keeping time across the telco’s network.
“When these nodes are not operating as expected, which is what has occurred, other parts of the network can be affected, resulting in intermittent issues with some mobile calls and data sessions,” he said at a Melbourne press conference.
For a big telco like Telstra, its infrastructure – like computers, cell towers and routers – must stay synchronised. A timing node helps keep time for data transmission, like a clock.
Ackland said there was no evidence of malicious activity.
“We’ve been in contact with all regulators and government agencies to that effect, but we continue to investigate. We continue to remain curious and explore every avenue, but we have nothing on that.”
Brittany Busch is a federal politics reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners
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