General News
9 July, 2026
Telstra fixing network problems but disruptions remain
WEDNESDAY’S nationwide Telstra mobile outage looks to be diminishing in effect. However, serious questions remain about the vulnerability of the network and the implications for industry, business, transport and public safety.
From about 4.30am, Telstra mobile network users across the country were reporting disruptions to their services, with normal calls and internet data not reliable or even completely absent – the issue peaked between about 6.30-7.30am.
The most visible issue affecting people in the Victorian regions was the halt of V/Line train services.
Unfortunately, in some cases, this occurred before the earliest morning services had departed, leaving passengers stranded while limited bus replacements were organised.
Bus services did not appear to be affected.
On Thursday morning at 9am, V/Line released a statement informing that train services were still not running, with no clear time of resumption indicated.
Transport Victoria said the advice from Australian Rail Track Corporation was “Telstra’s ongoing telecommunications reliability issues mean it is not yet safe to resume train operations”.
Both authorities said non-essential journeys should be delayed until the system fully resumed.
Some businesses have been unable to use electronic payment services and had to rely on cash only, but perhaps the most serious revelation was the number of emergency 000 calls affected.
Initially, Telstra said the calls were treated differently by the system and remained largely operational, but by the end of Wednesday, it became clear the problem was more widespread.
Telstra chief financial officer, Michael Ackland, said 333 welfare checks were carried out on people who had attempted calls – most responded saying they did not require assistance, but six cases did, and the remainder who did not respond were referred to police to investigate in person.
The telco has also warned that some scammers have been exploiting the outage to target customers.
The cause of the issue took some time to identify, with it believed to be an internal software glitch related to system node clocks falling out of sync.
Mr Ackland said that while Telstra were working on their side to bring the network back up, some devices may require a restart to “reconnect correctly”.
The telco is set to be investigated by the industry regulator and may face steep fines.
Check online for updates on vline.com.au and telstra.com.au/outages.