'Human error' behind Telstra's huge nationwide outages

Harry Tucker

Telstra experienced massive outages of its 3G and 4G network across the country earlier today, with all major cities affected.

Australia’s largest telco confirmed the problem was linked to a restart of a malfunctioning node, or one of their major connection points.

The outage began in Melbourne around midday, where users would see reception on their phone but weren’t able to make calls, receive texts or access the internet. It later spread to Sydney and the rest of the country. All services have begun to appear back online.

Telstra has said it will be offering customers “free data” to make up for the incident, however it hasn’t specified how much. The telco confirmed the issue was due to an employee connecting customers to a malfunctioning node which had a flow on effect.

These are all the places affected.

Telstra’s service log states it is both their 3G and 4G network that’s experiencing problems, however those accessing 4G data and have enabled voice over LTE on their devices are achieving a better chance of success.

Sources have told Business Insider the problem came about with the restart of the core network switch and connecting it customers to a dodgy node which caused major congestion on the network.

The core network switch is what connects the telco’s main network servers to access network. The process to get the network fully back online is underway, but it is a slow process.

While local outages are common, sustained nationwide outages are a much more unusual occurrence.

https://twitter.com/emceeRAC/status/696875062448656384

https://twitter.com/jayjetjay/status/696872819339046912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Whirlpool is also full of problems, with users reporting problems from right across the country.

Quite a list of service problems.

NOW WATCH: Tech Insider videos

Business Insider Emails & Alerts

Site highlights each day to your inbox.

Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.