Telstra’s nationwide outage was caused by software bug that led to a timing server issue before disconnecting customers across the country and preventing more than 300 people connecting to Triple Zero.
Customers from around Australia were reporting issues with Telstra and other related companies that use the Telstra service, including Boost, Belong and Aldi.
The troubles began at about 5:00 am with customers from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra, and Adelaide lodging complaints.
Outage tracking site Down Detector recorded a sharp uptake in reports at that time.
“There was a software fault that changed the time desynchronisation,” explained Telstra Chief Financial Officer Michael Ackland.
Telstra CEO Vicky Brady on a European family holiday when the outage occurred and is flying back to Australia to deal with the crisis.
The outage also meant retail outlets who were using payment terminals connected to the Telstra network were unable to do business.
More than 300 people were unable to connect to emergency services and Telstra is still carrying out welfare checks.
One issue would be the fact that anyone trying to contact 000 if their own network is unavailable is that it takes up to 60 seconds for your device to “camp on” and connect to another network and call emergency services.
That 60 seconds can seem like an eternity in an emergency and it could be a case where the person hangs upon before the 60 seconds required to camp on is completed.
This needs serious attention and the telcos should ut their heads together to come up with another way to ring Triple Zero via the internet.
Why can’t you dial Triple Zero through WhatsApp or Messenger or FaceTime? This would solve the issue and prevent people being cut off at the worst possible time.
The Telstra outage also brought several train services to a standstill.
Some trains have a connection via the Telstra network for traffic updates and to provide a connection for passengers.
Without the traffic updates they now so heavy rely on they deemed it was unsafe to operate the services.
Minister for Regional Development and Emergency Management, Christine McBain, issued a statement saying: “The Australian government has been advised by Telstra that there is an outage affecting a large number of mobile calls and connections.
“We are also aware the issue is also affecting Victoria’s V/Line regional train services.
“We understand that Telstra is working on resolving the issue and arrangements are being made for affected rail passengers.
“Like all telcos Telstra must notify customers and emergency services of any major outage.
“Australian phones are also required to fall back to other networks for triple zero access.”
