Telstra NSW outage impacts state’s regional trains, Triple Zero service
Updated ,first published
Tens of thousands of Telstra customers around NSW are unable to make calls, including Triple Zero, as the outage has caused significant delays on regional trains and some businesses are facing payment issues.
NSW Police said on Wednesday morning that Triple Zero systems were not affected but warned people may not be able to reach Triple Zero if they call from a Telstra device.
“If you try to call Triple Zero and can’t get through, we recommend using another device, landline or Wi-Fi calling,” they said.
Telstra said it first detected the problem at 4.30am on Wednesday.
Telstra said it was making good progress in restoring services, with around 90 per cent of calls and data passing through the network as of 9.30am.
“Our teams are working as quickly as possible to restore remaining services and get all customers back online,” a Telstra spokesperson said in a statement.
“We know how much our customers rely on our network and we understand how much this disrupts your day, so we are very sorry.”
Telstra’s chief financial officer, Michael Ackland, said the issue affected “some time-keeping nodes on our network”.
“When these nodes don’t work as expected, which has happened, other parts of the network can be affected, leading to intermittent problems.
“Customers who are having trouble making a call, I encourage you to try again; depending on how the call is routed over the network, it may connect successfully on another try and people see it happening.”
He said the cause of the problem is not yet fully known, but so far there has been nothing to indicate “malicious activity”.
The telecommunications company also conducts outreach checks when calls to Triple Zero fail, Ackland said.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the state’s ambulance service was working with Telstra to mitigate potential impacts.
“They were able to continue taking Triple Zero calls and responding to Triple Zero calls, but it is too early to tell if there are any impacts for individual patients,” Park said.
He said paramedics were still able to communicate. “They often use dual SIM cards, just to ensure they can respond in a different way if one of them fails.”
Mia Turney, from Cronulla, runs 10 kilometers with friends before work three times a week and expects Wednesday to be just like any other day. However, the 25-year-old noticed that there was a problem with his phone as soon as he got up.
“This morning we woke up at 7am to go for a run and neither of us could get each other’s messages. So we all went to the coffee shop where we usually meet up and hoped for the best,” she said.
“We sat down and had coffee and talked about how frustrating it was not to get service.”
Turney, who doesn’t have Wi-Fi at home and only uses mobile data, said the outage was a major inconvenience as she couldn’t check her phone for important messages or anything she missed during the night.
“It felt like old times, we just had to stick to the meeting time, get out the paper map.”
But he hoped this was a one-time incident and he wouldn’t consider switching providers.
Outside the Telstra store in North Sydney, Rick Miller, 62, was searching for answers after his wife was unable to contact their son, who was in Brisbane to monitor the Status of Origin decision.
“He doesn’t know what’s going on with him, so it’s a great opportunity for me to come here and see what’s going on,” Miller said.
But Miller was able to use eftpos to get coffee from his regular coffee shop up the street. Others weren’t as lucky as small businesses switching between payment machines and offering Pay ID transfers.
Payments provider Tyro said it was aware that some customers were unable to connect to the 4G network to process transactions.
“While the issue is beyond Tyro’s control, we are actively monitoring the situation and advise affected customers to connect via Ethernet or Wi-Fi until service is restored,” a Tyro spokesperson said.
Buses eventually replaced regional NSW trains that were out of service due to the Telstra outage, including the Hunter and Southern Highlands lines.
Suburban Sydney Trains, Opal payments and Metro services are unaffected.
“While some NSW TrainLink services, including Melbourne XPT, are experiencing delays due to telecommunications issues, we are monitoring the impacts on regional rail services,” a Transport for NSW spokesperson said in a statement.
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Jack Gramenz is a breaking news reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
Cindy Yin is an urban affairs reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
