Telstra outages affected millions of Australians around the country on Wednesday. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
The Federal Government has promised a full investigation into the nationwide Telstra outages affecting millions of calls, banking transactions and transport on Wednesday (8 July).
Communications Minister Anika Wells said on Thursday (9 July) that Telstra needed to explain itself for letting Australians down in a big way.
But she said there appears to have not been any deaths related to people being unable to call Triple Zero.
“I have not had it reported to me that any failure to connect to Triple Zero has contributed to an adverse outcome,” Ms Wells said.
She said the technical issues had been largely resolved, but there are still residual problems that Telstra would inform its customers about.
“Telstra needs to account for how and why that has occurred because Australians are right to expect that as a baseline service from their telco.”
She dismissed speculation that the outage was due to a cyberattack, saying there was no evidence of that and that any parliamentarians suggesting cyberattacks were being irresponsible.
Industry Minister Tim Ayres said a full investigation will examine the network outages and Telstra’s persistent challenges.
It would also determine if any penalty will be applied to the tech company.
“There’ll be a full investigation in due course by the proper authority, ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority), but right now, the Communications Minister is on deck dealing with these challenges,” he said.
“I mean, it goes without saying, communications and digital infrastructure are part of the lifeblood of the economy. Each of these operators has responsibilities here.
“The framework is there to manage those, to make sure we’ve got a transparent investigative framework and to apply penalties where it’s necessary.”
Telstra had issued updates saying its teams are busy working on any remaining issues.
“Overnight, our team have made good progress reducing the occurrence of the subsequent Triple Zero calling error by approximately 90 per cent and will continue work to eliminate this issue entirely,” the statement said.
“If you experience any issues calling Triple Zero, please immediately retry your call. We have seen good success of calls connecting on retry.
“Our welfare checks process remains in place where a call does not connect successfully.”
The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) reports that freight and passenger train services are progressively returning to normal following the Telstra outage.
In some instances, buses will continue to supplement trains where necessary.
Two affected regional NSW lines had restarted – between Campbelltown, Moss Vale and Goulburn on the Southern Highlands line, and between Newcastle Interchange, Maitland/Telarah, Scone and Dungog on the Hunter line.
Transport Canberra said that as of Thursday morning, light rail services were back to normal and MyWay+ travel information was coming back online.
The Greens have promised to drag Telstra before a Senate inquiry over the network failures and will introduce legislation to make telcos improve their standards.
“When we return to parliament, the Greens will move to legislate reliability standards to ensure that big telcos, who are raking in the big bucks, are legally required to provide reliable, dependable services,” communications spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young said.
“We will force Telstra to front the Senate inquiry and explain why this happened and what led to the mass outage, including the impacts of cost-cutting and offshoring of services.
“The public expect and deserve better from Australia’s largest telecommunications provider. Telstra must explain what went wrong, how many people were affected, what safeguards failed, and what steps will be taken to ensure this never happens again.
“This cannot be left to ACMA to manage. ACMA has become a lapdog, not a watchdog.
“It has become too cosy with the big telecommunications corporations and does not stand up for the interests of the Australian people.”
Telstra has blamed a software defect for the outage.
Meanwhile, shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson has had to defend herself after test-calling 000 several times during the outage to see if it was working.
Making non-emergency Triple Zero calls is a Commonwealth offence, but Senator Henderson denied breaking the law and said she was doing her job.
“I was simply, as the shadow minister for communications, making those initial calls to work out whether the system was actually operating,” she said.
“I was doing my job, and there is a provision in the criminal code that if you make hoax or vexatious calls, that can be in breach.
“I accept the criticism, but what I will say is that I am in a unique position, holding this government to account.
“Australians have very little trust in our telecommunications carriers.”
Original Article published by Chris Johnson on Region Canberra.
