Can’t catch the train, can’t use Eftpos, can’t charge your car: how Telstra’s outage wreaked havoc across Australia

Trains, mobile phones, triple-zero calls and even EVs – if it communicates, Telstra bricked it Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The first signs something was wrong with Australia’s largest mobile network began just after 4am, as people rolled out of bed to begin their day only to find they couldn’t make or receive phone calls or access mobile internet. “No Telstra mobile service for past half hour,” one person from Victoria’s Point Cook wrote on Down Detector, which had reports slowly trickle in from 4am and then ratchet up to 7,000 in the hour from 5.30am. “No mobile service,” someone else wrote from Sydney’s inner west. “Can’t call 000,” one person wrote. Telstra, which powers about 25m mobile services nationwide, plunged into a nationwide outage for most of Wednesday morning, an event the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, labelled “deeply concerning” and “disruptive”. Over the course of the approximately six-hour outage, it became apparent just how much Australians rely on Telstra. Some Eftpos machines couldn’t process payments, leaving customers in the lurch. “C