About half of our mobile customers experienced disruption to their voice and data services during yesterday evening. On behalf of everyone at Telstra, I am very sorry and deeply disappointed this happened.
We are still investigating how the service disruption occurred, but our early findings show we had a problem that triggered a significant number of customers to be disconnected from the network, and as they were all automatically reconnecting at the same time, this caused congestion.
At Telstra we place the highest priority on getting things right for our customers. Our mobile network is a vital part of the nation’s infrastructure and it carries millions of calls and data connections for our customers every day.
Mobile phones and other mobile devices have become critical parts of our lives and our customers rightly have high expectations of us. We invest billions of dollars a year to meet and exceed these expectations and provide our customers with the best mobile experience in the country.
That is why it is so disappointing for us to have let down our customers.
We will be offering all of our mobile customers another free day of data as a way of making this right. This will be on Sunday 3 April 2016. Customers do not need to do anything to receive the free data.
While this is unrelated to a network outage last month, the congestion caused by people reconnecting to the network was similar. Following the last event we started a major process and engineering review of the network, which includes global network experts, to understand how it occurred. We will add the lessons learned from this incident to that review.
Once again I apologise for any inconvenience we have caused. You expect seamless mobile service with Telstra and it is our responsibility to ensure that is delivered day in, day out.
Andy
For more information on free data day head to Crowd Support.
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Does this include mobile broadband bigpond wireless customers?
Hi Phill. Thanks for getting in touch. Yes it does. Cheers Rick
I don’t really care about free data since I don’t do much downloading anyway and you have to be home for that day if you are to utilise this “free” gift. I still like internet access, what I would like to see is money off my bill. Doesn’t a big company like Telstra have redundancy built in to their network?
Hey telstra. Although free data is awesome I feel that this time it is not enough to make up for this time around
Do you really think a day of free data makes it right? Three outages in two months… One resulting in not being able to use mobile data for five days…
What about those on MVNO that use telstra
Hi Jordy, customers of Telstra wholesale providers who use the Telstra mobile network may also have access to the ‘free mobile data’ offer on Sunday 3rd April, but you will need to check with your provider for more information.
Have enough difficulty getting reception at the best of times and now another outage-not good enough really
Wow free data for a day . What about money we lost by not being able to opperate our business’s . I dont see any apologies for this in your statement , and for this to happen twice . What your offering isnt good enough , not happy Telstra
On both Wednesday and Thursday afternoon at 5:30pm I had no service. I had no service on Monday evening at aproxamatly 6:30pm as you said mobile phones are a bit part of our lives and when loved ones contact you and you can respond leaves you frustrated. Work away and a phone call can make a bad day shine. Please get back the excellent service we are so used to.
as well as the 2 free days of data I think we should not be billed for the month as well
Many thanks for the sincere, detailed apology Andy, on behalf of Telstra and thanks very much for the free data day. Cheers Alan, a much happier customer. PS I appreciate honesty in keeping us in the loop no matter how embarrassing it may be as opposed to treating us like gullible dills and telling us stories like politicians particularly the present federal government.
You are right Andy, it is disappointing especially for your customers who live and travel in regional parts of Australia. I’ve had another disappointing experience with Telstra during the last twelve months and my decades long loyalty is being tested. Best advice, stop worrying about the share-holders and look after the customers so that the share prices will take care of themselves.
Hi I bought a prepaid voucher and cannot load it($20,00)this has happened to me before whe I purchased a$15.00 WiFi recharge voucher, out in Newman
Hi Ernest, sorry to hear you’re having difficulty loading voucher, our Crowd Support team will be able to assist with this one. Cheers, Rick
Does this include boost mobile customers, as I believe boost is also owned by Telstra?
Hi Sarah, yes the ‘Free mobile data on Sunday’ offer is available to Boost customers. You’ll find more information at Crowd Support.
does this mean that the prepaid network users will be getting their credit back, as I put $30.00 on tuesday and its says by 3 days later I have under $10.00 – have sent 10 text messages. Yes I have reported it and the $50 for the 2 weeks before as well. I don’t want free data I want my credits back
Hi Tricia, the team at Crowd Support will be able to help answer this one. Cheers Rick
So angry this is the 4th day my data and internet coverage isnt working too well. Whats going on??
Hi Phill, Also I would like Telstra to look into why Oxenford on the Gold coast Qld has had the internet adsl2, go offline 2-3 times in the past 2 yrs for up to 4-5 days at a time, and no explanation at all from Telstra, this is outrageous for people and businesses that live there. I hope in the future that this does not occur again unless people are told and updated why this is happening. If there is a problem with infrastructure there, this needs to be addressed and they need compensating. This also went offline last Dec 2015 right at xmas time for about 5 days, no explanation from Telstra at all ridiculous.
Rgs Malcolm.
When there is an outage, either phone or internet related, why don’t all affected customers get notified that there is a problem with an idea of when it will be resolved. That would save customers a lot of wasted time, and frustration , trying to find out what has happened to their equipment, only to find out it’s not THEIR equipment after all . With thanks
How does free data make up for the fact that people couldnt make or receive calls. How many people lost business and work because of this… Or those that rely on their Telstra mobile phones as a means of contact in case of an emergency or medical condition? Telstra really need to step up their apology means and offer people a month of no billing .. especially as this has happened twice now.
I am sure a few heavy downloaders/leechers love each failure as they can get a lot of data, but this is little use to those who use their mobile for business.
Why are you not offering “a way to make it right” that is suited to your business customers – only seeming to care for those with a billion torrents or usenet downloads instead?
$50 off the bill seems far more equitable.
Hi Angela, our Crowd Support team will be able to help you with this one. Cheers Rick
Agree also that free data day isn’t of interest to me, I already pay a premium for 15GB of data every month to make sure I’m covered. Perhaps a number of free days in the future, ie reduction in bill?
So how many people do you think will use a lot of data on a Sunday,
a good potion of people will be out at Church and rest will be spending time with family or friends.
I guess this is why Telstra chose a Sunday right? still no loss for Telstra.
We have to wait till 3rd April? No prizes for guessing why we can’t have it over the Easter break!
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