Telstra Outage Leaves Customers Seeking Compensation Up to $100,000

The outage on Wednesday cut hundreds of people off from Triple Zero, knocked out train services in Victoria and NSW and brought down payment systems across the country. The disruption rolled into a secondary outage on Thursday, continuing to cause Triple Zero connection errors and leaving V/Line regional trains in Victoria suspended for a second day.

This masthead first revealed the outage was likely to have been caused by a server that had reached the end of its supported life almost a decade ago and was never replaced, despite newer devices costing less than $30,000.

Australians who lost income or could not reach critical services during last week’s Telstra outage may be entitled to compensation of up to $100,000, but the industry’s ombudsman has urged the company to offer payments across the board to avoid customers having to apply individually.

The nation’s largest telco also faces the spectre of a class action over the failure, according to a network of law firms, and a push from consumer advocates for fixes to what they call the country’s “woefully inadequate” compensation laws. Hayder Shkara, director of the Justice Network, an alliance of 11 boutique law firms, said the outage was far more than an inconvenience for those who rely on a connection to earn a living.

He said the sheer number of people affected opened the door to a co-ordinated legal action. Telstra, Optus and other telcos largely exclude themselves in their contracts from liability for indirect, economic or consequential losses caused by outages.

The main exception is Triple Zero failures, which carry penalties of up to $30 million per breach.