Telstra Network Outage Interrupts Triple Zero Calls

Light Reading reported that a Telstra network outage in Australia disrupted mobile voice and data services and stopped 300 triple zero emergency calls, putting another national telecom failure in front of regulators and ministers.

Light Reading reported that the latest incident followed earlier emergency-call failures at Australian operators and led Communications Minister Anika Wells to call telecom the country's least trusted industry.

Light Reading reported that Australian mobile users were hit by the Telstra outage after a network time-keeping problem.

The Guardian, cited by Light Reading, reported that Telstra CFO Michael Ackland said a software fault caused the GPS node to reset and disrupted timing settings across the network.

Telstra apologised for what it called the intermittent failure of voice and data services.

Light Reading reported that Telstra did not disclose the size of the outage, while the company said by late afternoon that restoration had reached just under 90% of calls and data services, 12 hours after the problem emerged.

Australia Minister Says Telecom Is Least Trusted Industry

Light Reading reported that Wells described the outage as widespread and causing significant disruption.

The report said the outage prevented payment services for thousands of small businesses and also took down Melbourne's morning commuter rail service.

Light Reading reported that national freight services and commuter services in Victoria and New South Wales would likely take days to recover fully.

The timing turned a mobile-network incident into a wider service-disruption problem for transport, payments and emergency communications.

Light Reading reported that Telstra initially identified the problem at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday and said it was not aware of any problem with emergency calls.

The report said Wells later revealed that the emergency call system had been affected, based on advice from the Triple Zero Custodian.

Triple Zero Failures Follow Optus And Telstra Cases

Light Reading reported that the Triple Zero Custodian was created after a fatal Optus system outage last year.

The report also cited an opposition politician who admitted calling triple zero to test it during the outage, despite Wells's advice.

The article set the Telstra failure against several recent Australian emergency-call incidents.

Light Reading reported that an Optus outage last September led to the deaths of three people, while Telstra was criticised over another death involving a user with a non-VoLTE phone that the company failed to report for two months.

Light Reading also reported that an Optus network outage two years ago lasted half a day and that Telstra was fined 3 million Australian dollars, or US$2.1 million, for a triple-zero failure in March 2024.

Market Reform Evidence Remains Outside The Outage Record

Light Reading cited an OECD report from early this year saying Australia's mobile market suffered from a lack of competition and calling for reforms to lower barriers to new entrants.

The report said the market had three entrenched competitors serving one of the world's most sparsely populated countries without a shared network regime.

The outage record still lacks several operational details.

Telstra has not disclosed the total number of affected users, the full set of network systems involved, the final restoration timeline, or whether new redundancy measures will be required after the failed emergency calls.