X
Tech

Telstra customers hit with Monday morning mobile outage

Users from across Australia complain of network outage.
Written by Chris Duckett, Contributor

Telstra has said its services are improving, following a nationwide outage on Monday morning.

"Our 4G voice and data traffic volume is improving nationally after we bypassed hardware that had been preventing some customers from accessing the 4G mobile network. 3G voice and data volumes are also improving," the telco said.

"We're very sorry for the interruption to services."

According to complaints on Monday morning made to Telstra's Twitter account, users from all over Australia had fallen victim to the outage.

"The issue is impacting some 4G mobile voice and data services nationally, which is also causing congestion for 3G services. We're working to resolve the issue and are investigating the root cause," Telstra said on Twitter.

NSW Police warned the outage may hit Triple Zero services, and advised that people use another carrier while the outage exists. Telstra however said calls to 000 will connect over other carriers.

In May alone, the dominant Australian telco has suffered a pair of outages.

The first impacted 4G voice calls, which Telstra put down to "upgrades to mobile traffic control equipment in Telstra's Exhibition Street exchange in Melbourne".

The second took out Triple Zero and mobile voice services, when a fibre link between Orange and Bowral suffered fire damage consistent with a lightning strike.

Australia's incumbent telecommunications provider had similarly suffered a 4G outage in September last year, at the time saying it "very quickly" repaired the issue.

It last year also experienced an outage across fixed-line and mobile services due to a fire at its Chatswood exchange, which caused SMS messages to be delivered to the wrong people, along with an enterprise voice and data outage caused by faulty hardware, which both occurred during February.

Telstra last week revealed its earnings for the full year to be at the bottom end of its AU$10.1 billion to AU$10.6 billion guidance range.

Updated at 12.25pm AEST, May 21, 2018

Related Coverage

Optus and Telstra battle in court over 'unlimited' mobile ads

Optus argued in court that consumers could assume Telstra's 'unlimited' mobile network ads refer to unlimited network coverage and unthrottled data speeds; Telstra argued the industry is 'awash' with unlimited advertising.

Telstra financials slide in 'challenging' market

Telstra has provided a financial update for Q3 as CEO Andy Penn speaks in the US about the NBN- and 5G-related challenges facing the telecommunications industry.

Telstra announces A-League broadcast deal

Telstra will live stream all A-League games via a new app thanks to a sub-licensing deal with Foxtel and Fox Sports.

Telstra ends sale of ZTE white-labelled devices

The first domino falls after the Chinese manufacturer announced it is ceasing its major operations.

Telstra triple zero outage caused by fibre fire damage

Telstra has said fire damage consistent with a lightning strike caused the Triple Zero and mobile voice outages by damaging fibre between Orange and Bowral.

Telstra gains access to TiVo intellectual property under licensing deal

The 'long-term' IP licence agreement will give Telstra access to TiVo's device and application technology portfolios.

Editorial standards