Telstra’s 3G outage knocks out EFTPOS, ATMs and disconnects Tesla cars
Telstra today suffered a nationwide outage that affected EFTPOS devices and other mobile payment services and forced outraged customers to pay cash. But ATMs were also disconnected and customers couldn’t get to their cash if they never had any.
The trouble started just before midday when the Telstra 3G network crashed leaving business owners and customers with no connection.
This outage didn’t affect Telstra’s 4G network so customers were still able to make and receive calls and messages and connect to the internet.
in a statement Telstra said: “We are currently experiencing an issue with some enterprise machine to machine (M2M) data services which is impacting EFTPOS devices and ATMs.
Catching a taxi today? Aussie cabs not accepting Cabcharges or credit cards due to “system being down”. Cabbies blaming @Telstra. Does anyone know what’s going on?!
— Roulla Yiacoumi (@roulla) November 2, 2018
“We apologise for the inconvenience and hope to resolve the issue as soon as possible.”
Telstra has identified the problem as an “intermittent authentication issue”.
At 6PM on November 2 the problem was yet to be resolved.
Customers vented their frustration on social media.
On Friday @telstra stopped the mobile internet, and it’s remarkable how many things don’t work, like trying to buy stuff.
— Sam Sabey (@samotage) November 2, 2018
Because of the Telstra issues, customers had no choice but to pay in cash if they had it.
But ATMs were off-line as well so cashless customers were left stranded.
The effects of the outage also affected reached Cabcharge terminals in taxis with customers unable to use Cabcharge cards or their credit cards.
That Friday feeling for Australian businesses when they find @Telstra outage has stopped all electronic payments to their businesses. You can hear the shouting from here. #business #businessowners #ausbiz pic.twitter.com/vlhSkB9ypT
— Vine Psychic Reading (@VinePsychic) November 2, 2018
The outage also disconnected Australia’s Tesla drivers. The onboard SIM card of the electric vehicles connects to via the Telstra 3G network and provides the connection for digital radio, streaming music and provides traffic information for Google Maps.
It also prevented Tesla drivers connecting to their vehicles using the Tesla mobile app.
There have been other Telstra outages this year including a major disruption in May with both the 3G and 4G networks out of action.