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Telstra outage: Free data on Sunday to compensate

Telstra is attempting to make up for the loss of voice and data services for several hours yesterday with free unlimited data for all customers on Sunday.
Written by Corinne Reichert, Contributor

Telstra is gifting all customers with free unlimited data this coming Sunday, February 14, to provide compensation for the nationwide Telstra outage caused by "embarrassing human error" on Tuesday.

The outage took down 2G, 3G, and 4G, services across the country for several hours.

"While the outage was short in duration, we fully realise the impact it had on our customers, which is why we are offering all of our customers a day of free mobile data this Sunday," Telstra chief operating officer Kate McKenzie said.

"Customers don't need to do anything to receive the free data; it will happen automatically for all of our mobile customers. I apologise again on behalf of the company, and thank everyone for their patience while we restored services."

McKenzie had revealed on Tuesday afternoon that the outage was caused by an incorrect procedure being followed after one of the telco's 10 nodes was taken down to be repaired.

"Our mobile network is set up with a number of major connection points (what we call nodes) around the country, which our customers connect to. These nodes are the equipment that essentially manage the flow of voice and data traffic across our mobile network. The outage was triggered when one of these nodes experienced a technical fault and was taken offline to fix," McKenzie explained.

"This normally wouldn't impact services, as we have processes in place to make sure any customers currently connected to a node are transferred to another node before it is taken offline. Unfortunately, on this occasion, the right procedures were not followed and this resulted in customers being disconnected and consequent heavy congestion on other nodes as customers attempted to reconnect to the network."

The telco then brought voice services back online, followed by data services.

Telstra had on Tuesday pointed towards compensating customers -- particularly business customers -- for the loss of voice and data for several hours.

"We do take this very seriously, and we've been focused all day on doing absolutely everything we can to get the services up and restored as quickly as possible," McKenzie said.

"We'll certainly be talking to our business customers and understanding the details of any impact that's been caused and you know we'll be open to whatever it takes to ensure our customers don't suffer any more convenience."

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