South Australia Police say they are not aware of any death linked to the Telstra network outage yesterday, after a state senator said her office had received a report of a fatality.
South Australian Senator Kerrynne Liddle said her office had been told an older resident of the state had died after being unable to contact Triple Zero.
A SAPOL comment underneath the Facebook post of the senator disputed reports of a death during the Telstra outage. Facebook
“My office has received a report of a tragic death following an apparent failure to connect to Triple Zero during a life-or-death emergency amid Telstra’s nationwide outage today,” Liddle said in a post on Facebook.
“This death of an elderly South Australian represents a devastating failure for their family. Our thoughts are with them.
“No Australian should ever be unable to connect to Triple Zero when their life depends on it.”
However, in the comments under the post, SAPOL wrote that they “are not aware of any death in South Australia today as a result of the Telstra nationwide outage.”
The family had been “advised to contact SAPOL when they’re ready to talk about their experience”, a spokesperson for Liddle’s office previously told Nine newspapers.
Nine.com.au has contacted Senator Liddle’s office for comment.
Opposition leader Angust Taylor backed Liddle’s statement, saying she was passing on “distressing reports” made to her office.
New issue ’90 per cent resolved’
A new “secondary issue” was identified at about 9.30pm overnight, several hours after the telco said its original nationwide outage, caused by an issue with timekeeping nodes in Telstra data centres, had been fixed.
The new issue was identified at about 9.30pm overnight and has been ’90 per cent’ fixed. The Age
This new issue continued to affect Triple Zero calls, but this morning, Telstra said, matters were mostly resolved.
“Overnight, our team have made good progress reducing the occurrence of the subsequent Triple Zero calling error by approx. 90 per cent and will continuing (sic) work to eliminate this issue entirely,” the company said in an update at about 6.30am AEST today.
“Our welfare checks process remains in place, and we continue to advise customers who experience the issue to wait for the call to be connected via an alternative network or recall using a different phone.”
At 10am, the telco issued another statement which potentially indicated issues on the network remained.
“If you experience any issues calling Triple Zero, please immediately retry your call,” the update read.
“We have seen good success of calls connecting on retry.”
Telstra in a previous statement advised anybody who received an error message while making an emergency call, to wait 90 seconds and then try again.
Multiple reports have emerged of people claiming they were unable to reach emergency services through Triple Zero.
A woman named Lynne spoke to the ABC to say her 95-year-old mother had collapsed at her home in the NSW Hunter region, and was unable to contact Triple Zero through her wearable alarm.
Lynne luckily found her mother unharmed if distressed, but said it could have been a very different situation.
“She was pressing her… alarm to get help and without Telstra or without it piggybacking to another provider to carry that emergency through, it could have been life-and-death for her,” Lynne said.
Meanwhile, Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Cynthia Gebert flagged the possibility of compensation for businesses which were affected by yesterday’s outage.
Many EFTPOS payment services linked to Telstra went offline during the incident, while other owners and managers were unable to contact people for necessary jobs.
“We’ve only seen a small number (of complaints) at this point, so only about 30 received yesterday,” Gebert told Today.
“But obviously, there’ll be more that have come in overnight.”
Gebert said the complaints received would be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
“I would imagine there’d be a wide range of possible outcomes as a result of that,” she said.
“Some may involve compensation, but we do need to look at the individual circumstances.”
Gebert praised Telstra for its regular updates on the outage, but said they needed to “get to the bottom” of what happened and ensure it couldn’t happen again.
Commuter chaos as train shutdown continues
V/Line trains in regional Victoria have started up again after more than 24 hours in fuill shutdown.
“V/Line will gradually resume services from midday after extensive testing of train radio communications following the Telstra outage,” the operator said in a statement.
“The Australian Rail Track Corporation has this morning advised V/Line and other national rail operators using the National Train Communications System (NTCS) that following testing it is safe to begin operating trains.”
Passenger services will be gradually phased back in ahead of the afternoon peak hour.
“However, passengers are advised some service delays may still be experienced as the network returns to its normal timetable,” the statement read.
“Passengers are advised to continue to check the V/Line website and app for up-to-date information as services are progressively restored.”
V/Line trains are up and running again at Southern Cross Railway Station in Melbourne. Ollie Haig
A photo from Southern Cross station showed commuters gladly welcoming the trains pulling up alongside the platforms.
V/Line chief executive William Tieppo earlier said it was possible V/Line could seek compensation from Telstra, noting the added expense of bus replacements, with 140 buses deployed yesterday and 100 today.
“A disruption of this scale has been unprecedented for us,” he said.
In NSW, trains have resumed services on the previously-closed Hunter and Southern Highlands lines.
Buses may continue to replace some trains and passengers are urged to allow extra travel time.
The ARTC said in a statement rail services were “progressively returning” across affected networks.
“Given the size and complexity of Australia’s national rail network, recovery will take time and services will resume in a controlled and phased manner as communications are confirmed and all operational safety checks are completed,” a spokesperson said.
“Passenger services will remain paused until the network is fully operational.”
The ARTC also emphasised the fault had been with the Telstra outage, rather than any equipment failure or misjudgement on the ground.
Calls for a new Triple Zero system
Tech expert Trevor Long said this morning the government needed to acknowledge the current telecommunications system was out of date.
“We need the government to go: ‘we have to start again and create a new system for 2026’,” he told Today.
“We have Wi-Fi at home. We have Wi-Fi in public places. We should be able to contact 000 using WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, FaceTime.
“We should be able to use any network Starlink satellites.
“We should be able to use anything to call 000, and that’s what the government should be focusing on. We need a modern 000 that outlasts the mobile networks.”
And the networks, he said, should take what happened to Telstra as a warning.
“You look at these systems and you go, is there a backup for everything? And I think obviously here there wasn’t a backup for that situation,” he said.
He said computers encountering an error should be automatically “segregated” from the rest of the network, leaving the majority of connections unaffected.
“That will be what, frankly, every mobile network will now be going, hey, have we got this sorted?” he said.
“Because it could happen to anyone.”
Hundreds of emergency calls failed
A fault in the timekeeping nodes at several Telstra data centres in Sydney and Melbourne at about 4.30am yesterday sparked a nationwide outage of the Telstra network, with many customers reporting sporadic coverage.
Many were left with their phones on SOS mode – but even then, the telco said more than 300 emergency calls did not go through during the outage period.
Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland said yesterday afternoon the telco had contacted 333 people for welfare checks after detecting failed calls.
And 79 people who could not be reached were referred to police.
Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland speaks after a major network outage yesterday morning. Alexander Darling
Triple Zero Victoria said in a statement today they continued to receive and respond to calls.
“We have been notified by Telstra of twenty-four calls that experienced difficulty connecting to the Telstra national Triple Zero (000) emergency service,” a spokesperson said.
“Victorian Police Communications Liaison Officers located in our communications centres are currently conducting welfare checks with these twenty-four calls as a matter of urgency.
“As Telstra has also communicated, we ask the community to not test call 000.
“No adverse events have been identified at this time.”
Telstra was fined more than $3 million over a previous outage in 2024, and could potentially face multi-million dollar penalties again.
Scam warning for customers
Telstra has warned that the occasion of an outage is one ripe for scammers.
Would-be fraudsters are likely to get in touch with Telstra clients claiming to represent the telco.
“We’ve seen reports of fraudsters calling customers, claiming to be from Telstra and trying to take advantage of today’s outage,” Telstra said yesterday.
“Please be extra vigilant. If you get a call from someone claiming to be from Telstra asking for your details in light of today’s outage, hang up and call us directly.”
On Today this morning, Long said emails were also a potential vehicle for scammers.
“Don’t trust any email that says, you know, ‘it’s Telstra, click this link right now’,” he said.
“That’s going to be the worst thing you could do as a Telstra customer.
“So take caution for any communication you get from Telstra. Before you click any links, pick up the phone, ring them.”