Telstra Network Outage Disrupted Calls and Services Across Australia

A timing node restart triggered a software fault that set one section of Telstra's mobile network to November 2006, causing phones to lose authentication and drop service. The outage began around 4:20 a.m. Sydney time on Wednesday and spread as more users connected.

Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland, acting for chief executive Vicki Brady, held two press conferences on Wednesday. He first stated that Triple Zero calls used different settings and were not affected in the same way, then later apologized for the impact and said about 300 welfare checks were underway.

m. Wednesday, but a second fault from the same defect appeared hours later. By Thursday the number of failed Triple Zero calls had risen to more than 600, and Telstra had completed 639 welfare checks.

Hundreds of Triple Zero calls failed during the outage. One 95-year-old woman in the NSW Hunter region collapsed and could not use her personal alarm, which ran on the Telstra network. A report of a death linked to a failed Triple Zero call in South Australia was investigated by police and later ruled incorrect.

Communications Minister Anika Wells said she was staggered by the effort required to obtain the information. Opposition communications spokeswoman Sarah Henderson made test calls to Triple Zero during the outage. She said she needed to know whether the service was working and declined to apologize.

Background on the GPS Week Rollover The 19.6-year GPS week number rollover is a documented issue where receivers without updated firmware can reset the clock by two decades. Telstra employees and former insiders pointed to ageing timing hardware flagged for replacement in 2016 and said outsourcing contracts limited quality assurance testing.