Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady has publicly apologized for the national outage that occurred on Wednesday morning, which disrupted mobile networks, Eftpos services, rail operations, and some triple zero calls for nearly five hours. Speaking in Sydney on Friday, Brady expressed regret for the widespread impact on customers and the community.
Telstra admits prior knowledge of time system risks
Telstra has acknowledged that it was aware of the potential dangers associated with a failure in its time-keeping systems. The outage was triggered by a software fault in these systems, which caused the network to reset to November 2006, leading to a cascade of failures. Brady stated that work was being carried out on a time-keeping node when it reset and failed to acquire the correct time upon restart. She noted that timing systems are "very well-known" and "critical" in mobile networks, but could not explain why backup systems did not prevent the outage. The company is now investigating the failure of its redundancy measures.
Government and regulatory response
Communications Minister Anika Wells declared that it is "time for Telstra to face the music" and emphasized that the company has "a lot of questions to answer." The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will conduct an investigation into the outage. If found in breach of legal and regulatory obligations, Telstra could face civil penalties of up to $30 million, under powers strengthened after the Optus triple zero outage in 2025.
Similar incident in Jersey
This is not the first time such an issue has occurred. A telco in Jersey suffered a similar outage in 2020, when its time server generated the wrong date—November 2000—nearly 20 years earlier. The incorrect date was passed to routers, which then isolated themselves from the network, leading to a loss of half the network and a complete outage that took nearly five days to fully restore services.
Police rule out death link
South Australia police have ruled out a connection between the outage and a death reported by Liberal Senator Kerrynne Liddle. Police Commissioner Grant Stevens stated that the woman's partner used a Telstra mobile phone to call a neighbour, who then successfully contacted triple zero. Both calls went through without difficulty, and the woman was taken to hospital but later passed away. Stevens noted that the incident had placed "unnecessary strain" on the family and that the death would not have received such scrutiny under normal circumstances.
Telstra extends apology to family
Telstra's chief financial officer, Michael Ackland, confirmed that the company is assisting authorities with the investigation and has found no record of a failed call from a Telstra phone. However, in a later update, a Telstra spokesperson acknowledged an intermittent issue affecting some voice and data services that prevented family members from being informed that their loved one was being taken to hospital. The company extended its sincere apologies to the family for the role it played in making a distressing day even worse.
Political reactions
Minister Wells criticized the opposition for "playing politics" with the portfolio, referencing claims about the outage's source and Shadow Minister Sarah Henderson admitting to calling triple zero to test it. The ABC reported that Telstra had been warned by the government's Cyber and Infrastructure Security Centre about the critical nature of its time-keeping services for maintaining infrastructure operations.
