A major Telstra outage has thrown a very annoying spanner into Australia’s Wednesday morning.
Mobile users across the country reporting dropped service, “SOS only” warnings, and trouble making calls, sending texts, or using data.
The issue kicked off early Wednesday, with outage reports climbing before 6:30am. Telstra has confirmed it is investigating a problem affecting some mobile calls and data connections, but so far, the telco has not confirmed what caused the disruption or when services are expected to be fully restored.
For now, customers are being advised to restart their phones or switch flight mode on and off while Telstra works on a fix. The company’s outage page is still the best place to check postcode-specific updates, although during large-scale outages, local restoration estimates can take a while to appear.
The outage may also affect customers on smaller providers that use Telstra’s network, including Belong, ALDI Mobile, Tangerine, Boost and other Telstra-backed mobile brands.
The disruption has also spilled into public transport, with V/Line regional train services in Victoria suspended after the outage affected train radio communications. Passengers on major regional lines have been told to check updates before travelling.
Emergency services have also urged caution in affected areas. Mobile phones are designed to try another available network for Triple Zero calls if a user’s usual provider is down, but anyone unable to get through should retry, move location if possible, or use another phone.
Until Telstra gets the network back online, the advice is fairly simple: stay on Wi-Fi where possible, check transport alerts before heading out, and do not rely on mobile data for anything urgent.
Head to Telstra Outages for live updates.
