Telstra suffers nationwide web outage

update A planned change in the international gateway that Telstra was using was the apparent cause of this morning's nationwide web outage, according to a Telstra spokesperson.

Telstra still does not have an exact explanation for why its fixed line and wireless broadband connectivity went down this morning, but a spokesperson told ZDNet.com.au that the outage happened after its staff changed the international gateways it was using to carry in international traffic.

"It appears a planned change on the international gateways implemented earlier in the morning was the trigger. The change was rolled back, restoring services at 8.48am," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson confirmed that the outage was limited to customers attempting to access websites hosted overseas. Customers received a message stating "Network error — Domain Name Service server failure".

Members of broadband enthusiast forum Whirlpool began reporting connection problems in all states from 7:51am. The outage appeared to have affected all of Telstra's broadband services, including its Next G network. Users had reported not being able to access websites hosted offshore, while services hosted locally remained accessible.

A full investigation is being undertaken, said the spokesperson.