SYDNEY: Telstra outages disrupted trains, emergency calls to 000, and business payments across Australia before services were restored about 12 hours later, the company said.
Telstra Chief Financial Officer Michael Auckland apologised for the outage, which began at 04:30 local time on Wednesday and affected some mobile calls and data services.
Auckland said software defects linked to time-keeping servers at data centres in Sydney and Melbourne caused the issue. He said Telstra had no evidence of a cyber attack or malicious activity.
Telstra described the outage as intermittent but acknowledged its national impact. Ackland said the company conducted welfare checks on customers whose emergency calls failed during the outage. He said six customers required immediate help after those checks.
The Triple Zero Custodian said about three dozen emergency calls did not connect, while the core emergency system remained operational.
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Communications Minister Anika Wells said the Australian Communications and Media Authority would investigate the outage.
In Victoria, authorities cancelled all regional train services because of the outage. Some regional train services in New South Wales and national freight services were also disrupted.
Payment systems also failed, affecting about 80,000 businesses using the Tyro app. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the outage “deeply concerning.”
