Telstra customers across Australia were unable to make or receive calls for two hours on Tuesday afternoon due to an “embarrassing human error”, the company has said.
The systems failure meant customers nationwide were unable to access some services, with a third-party map showing its impact in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.
A Telstra spokesman confirmed that the failure began at about 12.30pm AEDT and prevented customers from making and receiving calls. Data usage was affected for only a short period.
Full services were restored by about 2.30pm.
Telstra's outage, just the capital cities. No biggie. pic.twitter.com/ATRCAWyW9X
— Good Sir Knight (@BrigadierSlog) February 9, 2016
Chief operations officer Kate McKenzie told Nine News the failure was an “embarrassing human error” after a node, which manages network traffic, malfunctioned on Tuesday morning.
A Telstra spokesman told Guardian Australia 10 nodes were subsequently taken out of action when no more than four can be taken down without affecting services.
“A lot more than that were worked on this morning ... which is human error.”
He said an investigation into how the problem occured was under way, and Telstra intended to offer customers free data to compensate for the inconvenience.
Police and emergency services advised at the time of the failure that triple zero calls were not likely to be affected.
You can still call 000 provided another carrier has sufficient network coverage in the area you're calling from. https://t.co/3fyvdljQyJ
— NSW Police (@nswpolice) February 9, 2016
Just before 3pm the company reported that the problem had been identified and services were gradually being restored.
We've identified the issue and services are being restored progressively. Thank you for your patience. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.
— Telstra (@Telstra) February 9, 2016
Until then Telstra’s communications staff had their work cut out tweeting at irate Twitter users to thank them for their patience.
@DamoAu78 Great to hear Damien :) - Jessica
— Telstra (@Telstra) February 9, 2016
@DamoAu78 :(
— Telstra (@Telstra) February 9, 2016
One employee, Dani, valiantly tried to keep pace with Twitter users’ helpful suggestions to try “turning it off and on again”.
@developerjack nah we just flicked the off switch as a bit of fun ;p - Dani
— Telstra (@Telstra) February 9, 2016
"Turning it on again" an essential part of the "turning it off and on again" process @telstra #Telstra #TelstraDown https://t.co/aDjiFAEPqz
— Daniel Johnson (@danjohnson1979) February 9, 2016
The shutdown also led this promotional image, from Telstra’s Facebook page, to resurface.
Current functionality level of Telstra mobile phones. (From Telstra's Facebook feed, HT @AzMoo) pic.twitter.com/n29SQGfbTP
— Adam Brenecki (@adambrenecki) February 9, 2016
According to Twitter, the effects of the outage were wide-ranging and of variable consequence.
I couldn't pay for $5 worth of ham today thanks to Telstra. I had to use physical currency! I am suitably outraged. #Telstra #prayfortelstra
— The Brass Monkey (@SailorMonkey) February 9, 2016
Well done @Telstra, people are actually talking during their lunch break instead of focusing on their mobiles! More outages please ;)
— BYoung (@MrBMYoung) February 9, 2016
It's not often us Optus customers get to one-up Telstra people. I'm going to enjoy this!
— Mitchell Scott (@WhippingBoySEN) February 9, 2016
An artist's impression of Australia in about five minutes without #Telstra coverage pic.twitter.com/FlHlr7FY2l
— Jesse Graham (@JesseDGraham) February 9, 2016
"Hello, #Telstra support, how can I help?" pic.twitter.com/fkI5qnzbmP
— The Wolf (@WillHillWolf) February 9, 2016
