Telstra outage disrupts Triple Zero calls, welfare checks

A major telecommunications outage that began early Wednesday morning, July 8, 2026, disrupted mobile services nationwide and led to hundreds of failed emergency calls, prompting urgent welfare checks by authorities. The disruption, which started around 4 a.m., was followed by a secondary fault affecting Triple Zero calls late Wednesday, compounding the crisis.

Telstra's chief financial officer, Michael Ackland, stated that the initial widespread outage was caused by a software defect related to a firmware upgrade, described as a "20-year time travel glitch." While the primary service was restored later in the day, a secondary issue was identified around 9 p.m. Wednesday. Ackland explained that this subsequent problem, which caused some callers to receive an error message before their phones attempted to connect to an alternative network, stemmed from the same original software defect but required a different fix. By early Thursday, July 9, Telstra reported implementing a solution that had significantly reduced Triple Zero call errors.

During the initial outage, more than 300 Triple Zero calls across Australia failed to connect. Telstra conducted 395 automated welfare checks by...