Telstra outages strike again, hitting 4G customers across major cities

Telstra customers in Australia's major cities were left without 4G mobile access due to a series of service disruptions on Tuesday.

A Telstra spokesperson told CRN the telco was experiencing intermittent interruptions to its 4G network, while the 3G network was operating normally. The spokesperson added that major capital cities appeared to be affected, but not all customers were impacted.

The Aussie Outages website received up to 3389 reports as of 2.31pm AEST, with reports coming in at approximately 1.30pm. The spokesperson confirmed that Telstra was investigating the cause of the outages.

The outages appeared to stem from Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and a number of surrounding suburbs.

Customers took to social media to raise issues they were having with the service, including failed calls and texts. Some claimed their 3G service were having issues as well.

Is it my phone or the Telstra network?

— Virginia Trioli (@LaTrioli) May 1, 2018

Telstra’s social media team also confirmed that NBN voice calls were also affected.

Our team are looking into an issue impacting some 4G and nbn voice calls – calls over 3G are not impacted. We’re working to fix ASAP. We do apologise for any inconvenience.

- Jo

— Telstra (@Telstra) May 1, 2018

New South Wales Police also warned that the outage may affect Triple Zero and its Police Assistance Line.

This outage may affect those attempting to call Triple Zero (000) or Police Assistance Line (131 444).

Until the issue is resolved, police are advising those affected, where possible, to use a phone belonging to another carrier or a landline when attempting to call these numbers https://t.co/EVZGvlSARo

— NSW Police (@nswpolice) May 1, 2018

As of 3.30pm, the number of reports on Aussie Outages dropped down to 342, while a number of Twitter users claimed their service was up and running in parts of Tasmania and Victoria.

At 4.05pm, Telstra's Twitter account posted that the issue affecting 4G mobile voice calls has been fixed, although some users claimed otherwise. Reports to Aussie Outages are also down to 51. No word yet on NBN.

The issue affecting 4G mobile voice calls has now been fixed. Thanks for your patience while our team worked through it.

— Telstra (@Telstra) May 1, 2018

"We apologise for an issue impacting some 4G voice calls," a statement on Telstra's website read.

According to a report from the Sydney Morning Herald, a Telstra spokesperson said the issues we caused by technical changes made ahead of upgrades to mobile traffic control equipment in Telstra’s Exhibition Street exchange in Melbourne. The outage was resolved by reversing those changes.

Between February to June 2016, Telstra's network was plagued with outages, leading to an announcement that the telco would invest $3 billion into its network over three years. These investments would include retiring its legacy systems to make way for 5G services.

To compensate for the outages, Telstra in February gave away data to all mobile users for a whole day. Another outage in March led to another free data day, which was then followed by another outage that month. At least four more outages were reported on May and June.