Telstra CEO Vicki Brady returned to Australia on Friday after her European summer holiday was cut short due to a major national mobile outage that affected millions of customers and disrupted emergency services. The company now faces a Senate inquiry as early as next week.
Outage Details and Cause
The outage began at 7am Sydney time on Wednesday, caused by a software fault in Telstra's time-telling systems. The defect made the network believe it was November 2006, triggering a 'digital domino chain fall' that brought down the network within minutes, according to experts. Security and authentication measures failed, kicking mobile users off the network.
The disruption affected train services, EV chargers, Eftpos, and prevented some customers from calling triple zero. Telstra conducted 639 welfare checks on triple-zero users, with seven requiring assistance after initially failing to reach emergency services.
Executive Response and Senate Inquiry
Brady was informed of the outage two and a half hours after it began, following a missed message on Microsoft Teams and a voicemail from Telstra's head of operations. She apologized to Australians and spoke to the family of an elderly woman in South Australia who died during the disruption, though Telstra and police concluded the outage was not responsible for her death.
Federal Minister Jason Clare stated, 'People could have lost their lives and that's why there's an investigation by Acma.' Communications Minister Anika Wells said trust 'stands in peril' and vowed to 'hold Telstra's feet to the fire.'
Telstra has 45 days to provide a report to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) explaining the cause and steps to prevent recurrence. Deputy Acma chair Adam Suckling said the investigation will examine network maintenance and configuration. The company could face civil penalties of up to $30 million under new powers introduced after the 2025 Optus outage.
Industry Regulation Concerns
This is the third major national outage in less than a year for Telstra, which powers about 25 million Australian mobile services. RMIT Associate Professor and telecommunications expert Mark Gregory said Australia's legislation needs to be rebuilt 'structurally from the ground up and in tune with the modern era,' noting the Telecommunications Act of 1997 was written before smartphones and streaming.
Wells acknowledged substantial improvements since the Optus 2025 outage but conceded more work is needed to close the gap between regulation and modern customer expectations.
