Telstra outage: glitches continue as ‘secondary’ outages hit triple-zero calls and regional trains remain stranded | Telstra

Telstra customers were still having trouble calling triple zero on Thursday morning, as the telecoms giant confirmed a secondary issue from Wednesday’s national outage was continuing to affect calls.

Telstra said some people who tried to call the emergency helpline received an error message and their phones would attempt to connect to an alternative network.

Customers were asked to wait for the phone to connect to another network or use a different device to make calls.

Federal Communications Minister Anika Wells told ABC radio: “In some cases calls were going straight to the message bank. In other cases 000 calls were not getting through.”

“It has been largely solved, but problems still persist,” he said.

Telstra said in a statement earlier on Thursday: “We are very sorry for the impact this issue has had on so many people.”

As of 6.30am on Thursday morning, Telstra said the occurrence of the secondary triple zero issue had been reduced by 90%.

But Industry Minister Tim Ayres told the ABC on Thursday: “The only acceptable figure here is 100%.”

The telco’s troubles continue to wreak havoc across Australia.

All trains on Victoria’s regional rail network were still suspended on Thursday morning, including the morning’s peak travel period.

Telstra’s 4G network interferes with backup satellite phones used on trains when the mobile network is unavailable, according to V/Line’s managing director William Tieppo.

Although services could resume before the afternoon peak, Tieppo did not commit to a timeframe.

Regional trains in New South Wales were also stopped on Thursday morning, with buses replacing trains. Some services have resumed on the Southern Highlands and Hunter lines.

Wells said he had not heard of any “adverse consequences” linked to the ongoing triple zero issues, as Ayres announced there would be a full investigation into the outages.

“Communication and digital infrastructure [are] “It is part of the lifeblood of the economy,” he said.

“The framework is there to manage these, to make sure we have a transparent investigative framework and to impose penalties where necessary.”

Thousands of customers were unable to make calls or access data on Wednesday after a software bug affected Telstra’s systems, the telco said.

The company conducted more than 300 welfare checks on people trying to dial triple zero during the incident.

Of these, 238 said they did not need help. The remainder were referred to state and territory police for welfare checks. Six customers said they needed help and help was provided immediately.

Michael Ackland, CEO of Telstra He said the number of calls Wednesday appeared to be higher than normal.

This suggests that some may have dialed triple zero to check if it was working during the outage, and customers were urged not to do so.

Opposition communications spokeswoman Sarah Henderson defended the decision to call for triple zero during the outage.

“I accept the criticism, but I will say that I am in a unique position to hold this government to account,” he told 2GB radio on Thursday.

“Telstra’s network is critical infrastructure, this shouldn’t be happening.”

The telco blamed Wednesday’s problems on a software glitch that caused the “GPS node” to reset.

This server tells the rest of the organization’s systems what the most accurate time is in nanoseconds. The soft reset changed the time and synchronization, which was then passed on to the rest of the Telstra network.

Telecommunications companies have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years due to major problems at some of Australia’s largest providers.

The two deaths were linked to an outage at Optus in September 2025 that lasted almost 14 hours and affected hundreds of calls across four states and territories.

In June, Vodafone customers faced intermittent reception and data issues across Australia.

new rules In March, guidance was issued by the Australian Communications and Media Authority requiring telecommunications companies to publish details of when an outage started and was repaired, and why.