Mass Failure of Australian Network

Thousands of subscribers to the Australian cellular network, Telstra suffered crossed lines and access to the wrong voicemail servers following a major software failure on the network yesterday. The problems with the network started at 9am and were repaired at 5.15pm (local time) when the entire network was rebooted.

A spokesman, Michael Patterson, told the Sydney Morning Herald said Telstra still did not know what had caused the failure. "We're continuing to investigate," he said. There was no evidence to suggest the failure was related to the storm damage that caused havoc on its fixed-phone network on Sunday night, he said. "But we're not ruling it out."

Telstra says this is the first time such a failure had occurred on its network."

Posted to the site on 2nd September 2003