For the second time in six weeks, the Telstra mobile network has gone down all around Australia. These reports have been rolling in for nearly an hour as I type this, and the only public statement Telstra have provided comes from their Twitter page and is as follows:
We are aware of an issue affecting some of our mobile customers. We’re working to fix this as soon as possible. Sorry for inconvenience.
- Telstra (@Telstra)
Hardly useful when millions of customers want to know where their service has gone… Some report just 4G is down, most can’t make calls, and many say their service isn’t working at all - with their phone reporting “SOS only.”
Poor Telstra customers. Here’s to hoping the outage doesn’t last much longer, and that customers are compensated in a more meaningful way than they were when this happened last month.
Meanwhile, I’ll sit back and watch social media explode over this incident all while enjoying my reliable connection to the Optus mobile network.
Update: Nearly an hour later with no reason or explanation from Telstra. The closest thing to any relevant update comes from Trevor Long on Twitter:
My information is that @telstra has around 4000 sites down. Around half their network is my understanding #telstra
- Trevor Long (@trevorlong)
According to the latest information from OzTowers, Telstra have 7455 active sites around the nation (as of writing this on 17th March 2016.) 4000 down is indeed just over 50%, but when you consider the load on the remaining ~3500 due to the congestion as a result of the outage, I daresay the number of customers who can get online at the moment is significantly less than 50%.