Telstra NBN and ADSL customers hit by new network outage

TELSTRA has made progress on fixing its fourth network outage this year but some customers are still affected — and they are letting the telco know they are not happy.

Down again ... Telstra’s network woes continue. Picture: AP Photo/Rick Rycroft

TELSTRA has made progress on fixing its fourth network problem this year but some customers remain affected by the outage.

“Significant restoration has occurred but we still have some residual customer impacts, mostly in parts of NSW,” a Telstra spokesman said on Friday.

Telstra issued a statement at 6pm tonight, 18 hours after the fault began, identifying the cause.

“Following disruption to some NBN voice and data services and ADSL services today, all services were restored just before 7pm EST this evening.

“The issue we identified is extremely complex, but in simple terms there was a fault with the device that manages the interaction between our network and all of the different types of customer modems.

“We understand this has been frustrating for affected customers and we will be providing them with some additional data.

“We will contact them directly and provide more details.”

Telstra — which prides itself on having the best network in Australia — has apologised to customers affected by the internet outage, the fourth service failure from the telco in as many months.

Some Telstra NBN and ADSL users have been having difficulty connecting to the internet on Friday.

“We apologise to customers and are doing everything possible to restore services as quickly as possible,” the spokesman said. Irate customers voiced their frustrations on social media.

“Another outage. Telstra, you are an absolute joke. I don’t want free data, I want my money back,” Bridie Allen said on Facebook. Ruth Townsend said, “Dear @Telstra, how long will this outage last? How come your billing department never has an outage? Love Ruth.”

Today’s outage has affected 375,000 phone and internet customers across the country.

The frustration of unreliable networks was felt across the board this week with iiNet, Virgin and Optus all suffering network outages.

Today’s Telstra outage hit NBN and ADSL voice and data customers. Telstra, at 11am, said “significant restoration has occurred” but there were still customers offline, mostly in New South Wales.

A leaked Telstra memo sent to News Corp this morning shows the outage affected up to 350,000 NBN voice and data customers in New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia and 25,000 ADSL customers in South Australia and New South Wales.

The memo blames today’s outage on “a large number of reconnection attempts from customer modems”. Telstra confirmed the authenticity of the memo and said it reflected a “point in time” of the problem.

Several Telstra customers on Twitter this morning complained their modems were in a loop of turning on, connecting, turning off and starting again.

One of the major issues Telstra has faced with its string of network outages is that the process of reconnecting customers after a technical fault causes an even greater problem as customers get caught in a digital traffic jam.

Telstra released a statement this morning that said: “Customers with NBN voice and data services and ADSL services may be having difficulty connecting to the internet.

“The issue commenced early this morning and is impacting NBN-based services and a small number of ADSL services. Services are in the process of being restored.”

Telstra ruled out one reported cause of today’s outage. A 12-year-old boy was arrested yesterday after lighting a fire in a Telstra pit in Taree that caused outages along the New South Wales north coast. Telstra said that issue had been resolved and was not the cause of today’s wider problem.

I think @Telstra have more people working on their apology statements than their network problems.

— David Warner (@davidwarner31) May 20, 2016

Dear @Telstra, how long will this outage last? How come your billing department never has an outage? Love Ruth

— Ruth Townsend (@RuthTownsendlaw) May 19, 2016

@telstra - ADSL on the blink for the past hour and more. On hold with your customer support for more then 30 minutes. Really?

— Marc Sheldon (@MarcSheldon) May 19, 2016

@Telstra Our Internet has been down since 6.30pm last night. Ive had to spend a fortune on phone data to get assignments and work done.

— Emily (@emily_eroom) May 19, 2016

So frustrated trying 2 run my business with your constantly terrible service. I'm losing money every minute & yet u still take mine@Telstra

— Lydia Griffiths (@headshots_melbs) May 19, 2016

The latest network problem for Telstra started overnight. Aussie Outages shows the problem peaked about midnight with 987 complaints of service down, and then had a second pike about 7.30am today with nearly 500 complaints.

Two weeks ago Telstra announced a $50 million solution to fix the troubled network. Chief Operations Officer Kate McKenzie said the fix would include new equipment and new procedures.

Telstra has suffered a series of national outages this year which caused it to offer two free-data Sundays to appease aggrieved customers.