Telstra

Who remembers having one of these? 👀

For anyone too young to recognise it, meet the 600 series connector. This bad boy was once the standard way to plug in a landline in Australia before the six position modular connector most homes have today took its place.

Despite what the Reddit comments might have you believe, it didn’t play cassettes. (Sorry about that)

A message from our CEO, Vicki Brady.

Transcript 👇

Sorry we let you down.

Last week we let you down, and I am sorry for that.

An issue in our mobile network caused significant disruption to our customers and to Australians. We know how much people rely on us to keep in touch, do their work, run businesses and stay safe. It's extremely frustrating when mobile services aren't available, and we're deeply sorry for the impact this had on so many people.

Networks are large and complex, and we invest significantly in the resilience of our network. When something goes wrong, we're committed to taking accountability, giving you clear information, and fixing issues as quickly as possible. We understand what caused the issue and will complete a full investigation and take what we learn to make our network stronger. You have my commitment on that.

More details about what occurred is available on our website, including if you want to get in contact or make a complaint.
We've also seen some reports of customers receiving calls from fraudsters trying to take advantage of this moment. Please be extra careful of calls you receive from people claiming to be from Telstra. If you're unsure, hang up and call us directly.

We take our responsibility as Australia's largest telco extremely seriously. Thank you for your patience as we worked through this, and for the trust you place in us. We don't take it for granted.

Vicki Brady, Chief Executive Officer, Telstra

⚠️UPDATE (1:40PM Thursday 9 July): We’ve now implemented a solution that has addressed the impact of the secondary Triple Zero issue.

Our backup systems and welfare check process remains in place, however we have not needed to complete a welfare check since the solution was implemented.

We’re sorry we let you down. Thank you so much for your patience as we’ve worked through this.

⚠️UPDATE (10:00AM Thursday 9 July): If you experience any issues calling Triple Zero, please immediately retry your call. We have seen good success of calls connecting on retry.

We’ll keep you updated here as soon as there’s more to share.

⚠️UPDATE (6:40am Thursday 9 July): Our teams have been working through the night on the secondary Triple Zero calling error, reducing the number of times it’s happening by 90%.

Our welfare check process remains in place. If you have trouble calling Triple Zero, please wait while your phone tries to connect through another available network (this can take up to 90 seconds) or use another phone if you can.

We’re working urgently to fix it completely and we’ll update you here when we have more progress to share.

⚠️UPDATE (9:30pm Wednesday 8 July): While we fixed the issue that caused today's outage, we've identified a secondary issue impacting some calls including Triple Zero.

In these cases, when you call Triple Zero you’ll receive an error message and your phone will try to connect to an alternative mobile network.

If you experience any issues calling Triple Zero, try:

1. Waiting for your phone to connect to an alternative network if one is available - this can take up to 90 seconds

2. Using a different phone to make the call

As part of our back up process, we will complete a welfare check where we detect a failed Triple Zero call.

The team are on it and working to get this sorted ASAP. We’ll continue to keep you updated here.

⚠️UPDATE (5:45pm Wednesday 8 July): Today’s issue affecting mobile calls and data services has now been fixed. If your device still isn’t connecting properly, please try restarting it.

We’re really sorry. It’s not lost on us how difficult and frustrating today would’ve been for every person and business that rely on us to stay connected.

Over the next few days, please be careful of unexpected calls claiming to be from Telstra. We’re aware scammers may try to use today’s outage to target customers by offering discounts or asking you to confirm personal details. If something doesn’t feel right, hang up and contact us directly through the My Telstra app or our official channels.

Again, thanks for bearing with us as we worked to get things sorted.

⚠️UPDATE (1:00PM Wednesday 8 July): We continue to make good progress restoring services. If you are still experiencing issues, we recommend restarting your phone rather than just switching on airplane mode.

We will share another update once all services are back online.

⚠️ UPDATE (9:45AM Wednesday 8 July): We’ve made good progress restoring this morning's issue affecting some mobile services, with just under 90% of calls and data now flowing successfully across the network.

Our teams are working as quickly as possible to restore remaining services and get all customers back online.

We know how much you rely on our network and understand just how much of a disruption this has been to your day.

For that, we're sorry. We'll continue to update you here until everything is resolved.

⚠️ We're looking into an issue affecting some mobile calls and data connections. If you're having trouble connecting at first, try again as it may work on a retry. We're on it and will share an update as soon as it's fixed. Thanks for bearing with us.

⚠️ We're looking into an issue affecting some mobile calls and data connections. If you're having trouble connecting at first, try again as it may work on a retry. We're on it and will share an update as soon as it's fixed. Thanks for bearing with us.

Send a message to learn more

You’ll be weirdly glad you know this one day.

Did you know you can turn this screenshot preview off? 👇

If you're an iPhone user and don't want to click through a menu each time you screenshot, just go to:

Settings > General > Screen Capture > Turn off full-screen previews

Now it will automatically send it to camera roll - just like before!

A scammer would tell you there's a time limit, but I'd never do that to you 😘

🤔 What if a shark chews a subsea cable? Do they get uploaded?

🧠 These are (adjacent to) questions that our marine team consider

⛈️ Repairs to these underwater cables come with challenges of their own, like navigating rocky seabeds or harsh weather windows

📍 Working with field teams and marine partners, Telstra's marine team began extensive planning after discovering a shunt fault just offshore from Perth

🏖️ A four-day operation saw the damaged section be re‑laid onto a sandy seabed to reduce the risk of future abrasion

🌐 Looking after these cables is no easy feat and requires collaboration and technical expertise many teams, but it's all worth it to keep Australia connected!