One mobile network crippled, one Telstra techie looking sheepish

Mobile customers to receive free data this Sunday as compensation.

Blackout zones.

Telstra customers are counting the cost of a nationwide network outage triggered by “an embarrassing human error” and has announced a free data day for customers this Sunday.s

The company’s network, which services 16.7 million mobile users, was struck down at 12.40pm yesterday, with 3G and 4G services disrupted. The services were ­largely restored in just under four hours, the telco’s chief operating officer, Kate McKenzie, ­admitting that human error was to blame.

The outage left people unable to make or receive calls.

Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide were hardest hit, ­although landlines were not ­affected .

By way of compensation, ­Telstra announced last night that it would offer free data to all customers on Sunday.

Ms McKenzie said there had been a failure to adhere to correct protocols when a technician took a “switching node” offline.

The switching node provides the connection between a network management system and mobile phones. Telstra has 10 network management nodes spread across the country and the failure to redirect the mobile traffic from the one taken offline may have either overloaded or disconnected the other nodes.

The network was disrupted ­despite safety measures being in place. A Telstra spokesman said a system put in place to counter node failures failed to activate.

While the duration of the outage was relatively short, it left ­customers fuming, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman receiving a surge of complaints. “The widespread outage was inconvenient for consumers, many of whom contacted the TIO,” acting ombudsman Diane Carmody said.

For Telstra customer Michael Jankie, it was a day that he would rather forget. “We’re down about $14,850 in productivity,” he said.

The outage brought to a halt his business, Poweredlocal, which provides WiFi services to businesses. Mr Jankie said the fact that Telstra attached a premium to its network was particularly galling. “We pay Telstra a premium and that’s an issue because for business-level IT we spend 30 to 40 per cent more for service,” he said.

Businesses were hard hit by yesterday’s outage, many unable to process payments through EFTPOS. While the full financial fallout will unfold over the coming days, the impact of loss of services can be significant. A fire at Warrnambool telephone exchange in southwest Victoria in 2012 left 100,000 phone and internet users without service for three weeks. The estimated cost of that outage was placed at a $950,000 a day.

Teresa Corbin, chief executive of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, said, given the size of Telstra’s network, a large number of customers would have been affected. “A short outage may not be catastrophic but it has a significant impact on business,” she said.

She added that the scale of disruption not only highlighted how important connectivity had become to users, but also the need to look at telecommunications as an essential service.

“There’s a need to consider whether we need a national roaming strategy that provides basic connectivity in an emergency,” she said.