politics
Telstra to appear before Senate inquiry into July mobile outage that blocked over 600 Triple Zero calls
Alastair Gaisford, a Telstra priority assistance customer near the New South Wales-Australian Capital Territory border, says his landline has failed to reach emergency services for 150 days intermittently since December 2023. His wife and son have life-threatening asthma. Telstra is scheduled to front a Senate inquiry into its July 8 nationwide outage on July 16.
Jul 16, 3:05 PM·2m read1 source
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Telstra is scheduled to appear before a Senate inquiry into its July 8 nationwide mobile outage on July 16, 2026. The outage prevented more than 600 calls to Triple Zero. Alastair Gaisford, a Telstra Priority Assistance customer whose property lies less than half an hour from Parliament House, told Abc he has been unable to reach Triple Zero for a total of 150 days intermittently over the past two and a half years.
His wife and son suffer from life-threatening asthma, making the account eligible for the Priority Assistance for Life-Threatening Medical Conditions service under Telstra's carrier licence. Gaisford said that when the landline fails, as it has 15 times, the family must drive 1.5 kilometres to obtain mobile signal.
He purchased an Optus mobile phone after repeated issues and contacted Telstra via more than 100 emails and 150 calls.
Telstra delivered a mobile signal booster, a Starlink aerial and a big button phone with a pre-installed 4G SIM, but Gaisford said none resolved the problems due to roof tile condition, lack of compliant location and unreliable signal. Telstra stated it has worked extensively with Gaisford over several years.
The company said its priority assistance policy applies only to fixed landlines and covers 140,000 customers, with just over one third also receiving a big button phone that includes battery backup for emergency calls.
Gaisford made a submission last year to the Optus outage Senate inquiry outlining concerns that the priority assistance service's ability to call Triple Zero was outside the inquiry's scope. That inquiry produced 21 recommendations after the outage was linked to two deaths.
