Telstra outage still impacting some Triple Zero calls amid work to solve ‘software defect’

Telstra says work is ongoing to resolve a “secondary issue” impacting customers trying to make calls on its network, including to Triple Zero, but some people may still be unable to contact the emergency service.

The update comes after the Telstra network suffered a major nationwide outage that left potentially millions of Australians unable to make phone calls or access the internet. The company said in another update released after 9pm on Wednesday that while it had fixed the initial problem that sparked the outage, the secondary issue was still impacting emergency calls. The telco suggested customers attempting to call Triple Zero either wait for their device to connect to an alternate network or use another phone. It also encouraged customers to restart their device if the connection problems persisted.

Telstra’s chief financial officer Michael Ackland told reporters on Wednesday that there was no evidence to suggest “malicious activity” might have sparked the outage, stating that he believed malfunctioning “nodes” that managed time synchronisation within some of the network data centres were to blame for the initial outage. 85 people were referred by Telstra to emergency services for an additional welfare check or further help.

Communications Minister Anika Wells said on Wednesday that the Australian Communications and Media Authority would conduct an investigation into the outage, which would include asking further questions of Telstra about how the incident unfolded.