The telco reported yesterday that it had recovered most of its services, and attributed the outage to a network timing fault.
“At approximately 4:30 this morning we identified an issue affecting some mobile calls and data services,” said Telstra CFO Michael Ackland.
“The issue is impacting a number of nodes within our network that keep time across the mobile network.
“When these nodes are not operating as expected, which is what has occurred, other parts of the network can be affected, resulting in intermittent issues with some mobile calls and data sessions.”
Now however, 000 calls and some train services remain impacted by issues after the telco identified a secondary problem.
The issue reportedly resulted in an error message and the phone being used attempting to connect to another network.
Telstra advised waiting 90 seconds for the phone to connect to that other network, or using a different device.
Over the outage, Telstra noted there were over 300 calls to 000 that failed to connect, and the telco said it was conducting welfare checks to follow up on those calls. It has reportedly made 333 welfare checks. 6 of those said that they needed emergency assistance while 79 were unable to be contacted by Telstra and referred to police.
South Australian Senator Kerrynne Liddle said that there had been a “tragic death following an apparent failure to connect to Triple Zero during a life-or-death emergency”, according to a report her office received.
“This death of an elderly South Australian represents a devastating failure for their family,” she said.
“Our thoughts are with them.
“No Australian should ever be unable to connect to Triple Zero when their life depends on it.”
It is not known if the death occurred as a result of the first or secondary outage.
Scammers taking advantage
Ackland warned that scammers were reportedly using the outage as an opportunity to launch scams.
“We have seen some reports of customers receiving calls from fraudsters trying to take advantage of this moment,” he said.
“Our advice to our customers is if you get a call from someone claiming to be from Telstra asking you for details in light of today’s outage, please hang up and call us directly.
“We are deeply sorry for the impact this issue has had on so many today.
“We know how much our customers rely on us to get it right – to do their jobs, run their businesses, stay safe and keep in touch.”
Other areas impacted by the outages included regional train lines nationwide and payment services, limiting operations for around 80,000 businesses across the country.
Shane Murphy, national secretary of the Communication Workers Union said the outage was “utterly shameful,” adding that it was a result of staff cuts and changes to its workforce.
“This is what happens when you prioritise the bottom line over critical services,” Murphy said.
“You get an unreliable network that lets Australians down time and time again.”
In February this year, Telstra said it would cut up to 650 jobs, and confirmed that it had axed at least 209 after it entered a joint venture with Accenture.
While Telstra ruled out any malicious activity causing the outage, Accenture has reportedly suffered a cyber incident.
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