Phone lines down as Telstra crippled by national outage

Telstra has been crippled by a network outage overnight – leaving customers unable to make phone calls.

Telstra has resolved a major network outage after about 11 hours that left some customers unable to make or receive phone calls.

The telco has issued a statement saying the network is back up and running as of 9am, a spokesperson said.

“We‘re sorry for the impact this had to people’s days,” they said.

“Our team worked to get everyone calling again as quickly as possible.

“Some customers may need to retry calling if it doesn’t connect the first time, but then you’ll be good to go.”

📣 8:33AM UPDATE: Majority of those affected are now in NSW and QLD. Triple Zero calls continue to work where you have mobile coverage. We know you rely on your mobile and we'll keep you posted as we hear more.

— Telstra (@Telstra) May 8, 2023

The majority of those impacted by the outage as of 8.30am were in NSW and Queensland.

Incident reports registered on independent outage tracker Down Detector suggest the outage started at about 10pm on Monday.

A heat map shows that the reports were concentrated heavily around major cities, including Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney Brisbane.

“We‘re sorry for the late night hassle for our customers,” an alert posted to the company’s website read.

Telstra customers are unable to make or take phone calls as the telco works urgently to fix a network outage. This is a heat map of user-submitted problem reports over the past 24 hours. Souce: @downdetectorpic.twitter.com/laPM0aHQHH

— Madeleine Achenza (@madeleineachenz) May 8, 2023

A Telstra spokesperson said the telco was working to fix an issue that occurred overnight that meant some mobile customers couldn’t make calls.

The telco has apologised for the impact on customers. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

The outage alert shared to the Telstra website. Picture: Telstra

They assured customers that mobile data was not affected and emergency calls to triple-0 could still be made.

“We‘re sorry for the impact to the start of people’s day and are working urgently to fix the issue,” the spokesperson said.

The telco is working urgently to fix the issue. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

If you’re having trouble with calls on your mobile this morning, we’re working urgently to fix it. We’re sorry to mess with the start of your day.

❗ Triple Zero and mobile data aren’t affected

✈️ Switching Airplane mode on/off can fix the issue for some customers

— Telstra (@Telstra) May 8, 2023

If customers are experiencing issues, Telstra recommends switching aeroplane mode on and off or try making a data call using wi-fi calling or other apps such as FaceTime.

Originally published as Phone lines down as Telstra crippled by national outage