Update on our mobile network disruption and free data day
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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The Author
Andy Penn became the CEO and Managing Director of Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, on 1 May 2015. At Telstra Andy is leading an ambitious change program transforming Telstra to be positioned to compete in the radically changing technology world of the future with 5G at its core. Andy has had an extensive career spanning 40 years across 3 different industries - telecommunications, financial services and shipping. He joined Telstra in 2012 as Chief Financial Officer. In 2014 he took on the additional responsibilities as Group Executive International. Prior to Telstra, Andy spent 23 years with AXA Asia Pacific Holdings, part of the AXA Group, one of the world’s largest insurance and investment groups. His time at AXA included the roles of Chief Executive Officer 2006-2011, Chief Financial Officer 2000-2002, Chief Executive Asia and Chief Executive Australia and New Zealand. At AXA, Andy was instrumental in building one of the most successful Asian businesses by an Australian company that was sold to its parent in 2011 for more than A$10bn. Outside of work Andy has a deep passion for the visual arts. He is Patron, on behalf of Telstra, of the National and Torres Straights Islanders Arts Awards (NATSIAA) and he paints in his spare time. Andy is also active in supporting community and social causes. He is Life Governor of Very Special Kids and an Ambassador for the Amy Gillet Foundation. He serves on the advisory boards of both The Big Issue Home for Homes and JDRF. In 2018 he was voted by the Financial Times number 8 in the top 50 male leaders globally in their HEREOS champions of women in leadership report.