politics
Telstra network outage traced to GPS time error resetting systems to 2006
A software defect in Telstra's GPS node caused the company's mobile network to reset its internal clock to November 2006, triggering authentication failures across cell towers and switches. The outage disrupted mobile service, emergency calls, and rail communications on Wednesday before services were restored by Thursday morning.
Jul 9, 11:00 AM·1m read1 source
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A software defect in Telstra's GPS node reset the company's internal network clock to November 2006 on Wednesday morning, causing authentication failures that disconnected customers from the mobile network. The network time protocol within the GPS node broadcast the incorrect date to other systems, which then treated valid security certificates as expired.
Cell towers and core switches terminated connections, placing phones into SOS-only mode.
Emergency services impact Some customers attempting to reach triple zero could not connect despite backup routing through other carriers. The company completed 639 welfare checks on unsuccessful triple zero callers by 1pm AEST Thursday, referring 170 cases to police and seven to emergency services.
A second issue that produced error messages for other calls and triple zero was resolved by Thursday morning.
Rail services disruption The Australia Rail Track Corporation suspended services after the outage affected the 4G system used for driver-to-control communications. V/Line reported that the 4G failure also interfered with its satellite backup system.
Telstra said it had stabilized the 4G train radio integration with satellite phones by Thursday morning and continued working with affected enterprise customers on remaining issues. The company described the network as complex but robust and stated it would conduct a root cause analysis with vendors and external support.
