A widespread Telstra outage that began in the early hours of Wednesday morning has disrupted mobile calls and internet connections across every state and territory in Australia, prompting WA Police to issue an urgent public warning that some people may be unable to reach Triple Zero emergency services.
The disruption was first detected before 5am, with outage-tracking data showing reports beginning to spike at around 4:15am and peaking near 6:30am. More than 7,000 fault reports had been lodged through monitoring platforms by early morning, with complaints flooding in from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide, as well as from regional areas in Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania.
Telstra acknowledged the problem, saying it was "looking into an issue affecting some mobile calls and data connections," but the company initially provided no information on the number of customers affected, the cause of the fault, or an estimated restoration time. It advised customers to try restarting their devices or Wi-Fi services in the meantime.
WA Police and Emergency Services Sound the Alarm
Western Australian Police issued a formal statement warning the public that the Telstra outage was directly affecting some customers' ability to dial Triple Zero. The force urged community members to check on vulnerable people around them during the service disruption.
"If you have a vulnerable family member, friend, neighbour or co-worker, consider offering support during the service disruption," the statement read.
The situation with emergency call access varied across jurisdictions. NSW Police advised that Telstra customers may not be able to connect to Triple Zero on affected devices, recommending people use landlines, alternative mobile devices, or Wi-Fi calling where possible. South Australia Police said Triple Zero calls were still being received, but also encouraged residents to seek alternative means of contact if their mobile service was down — including reaching out through neighbours or local emergency services.
Victoria Police said there was no evidence at this stage that frontline services were being impacted, though the force confirmed it was monitoring the situation after some of its own mobile and landline services were affected.
Federal Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain confirmed the outage was affecting "a large number" of calls and connections nationally, noting that Australian phones are required under existing regulations to fall back to other available networks for Triple Zero access.
Victoria's Regional Train Network Brought to a Standstill
Beyond the impact on communications, the outage caused significant disruption to Victoria's regional rail network. V/Line train services — used by approximately 70,000 Victorians each day — were severely affected, with dozens of services stopped at stations across regional and suburban Melbourne. Passengers were urged to seek alternative travel arrangements while the situation was being addressed.
Minister McBain confirmed the Telstra fault was directly responsible for the V/Line disruptions.
Government Services and Everyday Life Disrupted
The outage also created problems for Australians trying to access government services that rely on SMS-based verification codes. With text messages failing to arrive on affected devices, people found themselves locked out of platforms such as myGov, preventing them from completing tasks including responding to tax authority demands.
A telecommunications expert and associate professor at RMIT University warned that not all mobile devices would automatically attempt to reconnect to the network once services were restored — a pattern observed in previous major outages. He advised customers to periodically power their phones completely off and back on again to help re-establish a connection.
Consumer advocates described the outage as a serious safety matter, with the head of a national communications consumer group saying Australians' trust in the telecommunications sector was at an all-time low. She argued the reliability of mobile networks was now as critical to public safety as aviation standards, and that people's everyday experiences were failing to match what they were being promised by providers.
Services Partially Restored as Telstra Works to Fix the Problem
As the morning progressed, Telstra issued an updated statement indicating that "just under 90 per cent of calls and data" were flowing successfully across the network again, with engineers continuing to work on restoring the remainder. The company thanked customers for their patience but did not confirm a timeline for full restoration.
This is not the first time the telco has faced a high-profile national outage. A major system failure in March 2024 similarly disrupted emergency service lines, drawing significant public criticism at the time.
Social media was flooded with complaints from customers on Wednesday morning, with some reporting inconsistent behaviour across their devices — certain handsets connecting normally while others on the same account failed entirely. Business owners also reported disruptions to their operations as a result of the fault.
For more on how this outage is unfolding across the country, see our earlier coverage: Telstra outage hits thousands of customers nationwide and cripples Victoria's regional network.
