Ericsson joins Telstra probe into network outages

Telstra equipment partner Ericsson has joined the telco’s search for the cause of recent outages across its network.

Some claim Telstra is not spending enough on its network.

Telstra’s long-term equipment partner Ericsson has joined the telco’s search for the cause of recent outages across its network.

With four separate outages in the past two months knocking out services to Telstra customers, the telco’s chief operating officer, Kate McKenzie, has outlined to staff how a review of its key infrastructure will proceed.

It is understood that Telstra will establish an expert panel to oversee the process, which will include input from global network engineering experts and the telco’s equipment partners.

Ericsson, which is a key core network service provider to Telstra, has confirmed that it is a member of the “investigation team”.

The Swedish company is not the only equipment vendor on Telstra’s books but it is the telco’s major partner on the network front. Telstra is working closely with Ericsson in upgrading its mobile network to boost peak speeds on its 4GX network and prepare it for 5G technology. The companies are set to begin field-testing 5G technology in Australia later this year.

While Telstra is keen to push the boundaries with its network, the frequency and severity of the outages has raised questions about whether the telco is sacrificing the health of its core network as it chases the latest technology.

A Telstra spokesman confirmed that Ms McKenzie had sent an email, but did not ­elaborate.

“We have nothing to add at this stage and we would prefer to call it a review (rather than an investigation),” he said.

Industry sources have told The Australian that the recurrent disruptions across Telstra’s network were not surprising given the magnitude of the first outage last month, which knocked out Telstra’s mobile voice and data services across the country.

Telstra, which has about 16.7 million mobile users, blamed that outage on an “embarrassing human error” after a core node was knocked offline but has since had to deal with three separate network outages.

Telstra suffered another nationwide blackout on March 17 that was caused by a ‘‘signalling storm’’ triggered by a problem in its connectivity layer, which connects different offices or locations around the country.

It is understood that a disruption in the IP layer design took a large volume offline in one go and the network was crippled as the traffic was subsequently brought back into the network.

The latest disruption on March 21, which saw 500,000 prepaid customers, mainly in Victoria and Tasmania, lose service briefly, has been attributed to a card failure in a media gateway that temporarily prevented calls from getting through on the network.

Telstra has brushed off concerns of any fundamental weakness its network, but with redundancies (back-ups) in place failing to activate in every outage, analysts argue the problem may lie deep within Telstra’s core network rather than in issues associated with base station or tower-related infrastructure.

“For anything to hit them this hard, it has to be something in the core,” a telco industry source told The Australian.

While outages and equipment failure are routine for telco operators, the lack of resilience displayed by Telstra’s network has also raised concerns about whether the telco is spending enough on its network and whether the investment is well targeted.

While Telstra is committed to spending about $5 billion on its mobile network by June 2017, an industry source said that the telco had “starved “its core network to some extent.

Network maintenance is expensive and with mobile revenues relatively flat in a highly competitive market the outages have highlighted just how fine the balance is between managing capacity and the rising volume of traffic.

It has also highlighted the fragility of the network when it comes to dealing with disruption events. The string of outages has also raised questions about Telstra’s core maintenance, with talk that the telco has over time reduced its investment in building in-house technical and network management capabilities.

It’s understood that some disciplinary action has already taken place following an initial review.

The outages may not immediately translate into loss of customers but the Telstra’s claims about the robustness of its network have been tarnished.

The Deutsche Bank brokerage said the outage could have an impact on sales, particularly when customers came to renew mobile contracts.

“We ­expect the financial impact (to Telstra) would most likely occur over a six-18 month period when contracts come up for ­renewal, as we do not believe customers would incur the cost of ­exiting contracts early,” a spokesman said.