We’re making progress restoring services to QLD and northern NSW after floods

After weeks of severe weather and extreme rainfall, entire regions across southern Queensland and New South Wales have been flooded, causing disruptions to electricity and telecommunications services.
Campbell Simpson · 14 March 2022 · 7 minute read

If you’ve been affected by flooding in this area, we’ll SMS you to help you access our disaster assistance packages.

We have technicians on the ground across the affected regions working to restore landline and mobile services, often working in tandem with electricity providers and other authorities.

Widespread electricity outages affect our network as they do other utility services – while our mobile base stations are equipped with backup generators and/or batteries, these only have a finite amount of backup power in an emergency. As power is restored, we’re next in line to restore telecommunications for our customers.

Many areas are also still inaccessible due to flood waters and road infrastructure damage, which is preventing us getting in and assessing whether there has been any damage to our network. Unfortunately, where we have been able to access, we have found significant damage to some of our network, which will take time to fix.

Monday 20 March update

We continue to make good progress repairing parts of our network that were damaged in the severe weather that affected Southern Queensland, Northern New South Wales and parts of North West Sydney/Hawkesbury.

As we’ve reported below, there are no longer any communities in isolation, and around 95% of our mobile base stations are back online and delivering coverage to their communities. More than 80% of our landline services (excluding Telstra nbn) are also now back.

There’s still work to do repairing damage to some of our infrastructure, as floods and storms washed away cables and inundated exchanges. We have technicians continuing to work around the clock. Thanks for your patience while they get this job done.

For further updates on restoration, check out our Service Status page on Telstra.com.

Our updates on previous restoration work is below:

Friday 18 March update

Latest stats:

  • 10 mobile sites affected (either partially or completely offline)
    • NSW – 2 sites affected, down from 4 yesterday
    • Qld – 8 sites affected, unchanged from yesterday
    • Nth West Sydney/Hawkesbury – 0 sites affected, down from 1 yesterday
  • 3277 fixed line phone/ADSL affected, down from 5221 yesterday
  • 4140 nbn services, up from 3937 yesterday
  • There are no longer any communities in isolation (ie no landline or mobile services)

Thursday 17 March update

Latest stats:

  • 14 mobile sites affected (either partially or completely offline)
    • NSW – 4 sites affected, unchanged from 4 yesterday
    • Qld – 8 sites affected, down from 9 yesterday
    • Nth West Sydney/Hawkesbury – 1 sites affected, unchanged from 1 yesterday
  • 5221 fixed line phone/ADSL affected, down from 7225 yesterday
  • 3937 nbn services, down from 3968 yesterday
  • There are no longer any communities in isolation (ie no landline or mobile services)

Wednesday 16 March update

Latest stats:

  • 15 mobile sites affected (either partially or completely offline)
    • NSW – 4 sites affected, unchanged from 4 yesterday
    • Qld – 9 sites affected, unchanged from yesterday
    • Nth West Sydney/Hawkesbury – 1 sites affected, unchanged from 1 yesterday
  • 7225 fixed line phone/ADSL affected, down from 7451 yesterday
  • 3968 nbn services, up from 3796 yesterday
  • There are no longer any communities in isolation (ie no landline or mobile services)

Tuesday 15 March update

Latest stats:

  • 15 mobile sites affected (either partially or completely offline)
    • NSW – 4 sites affected, down from 5 yesterday
    • Qld – 9 sites affected, unchanged from yesterday
    • Nth West Sydney/Hawkesbury – 1 sites affected, unchanged from 1 yesterday
  • 7451 fixed line phone/ADSL affected, up from 7318 yesterday
  • 3796 nbn services, down from 3917 yesterday
  • There are no longer any communities in isolation (ie no landline or mobile services)

Monday 14 March update

Latest stats:

  • 15 mobile sites affected (either partially or completely offline)
    • NSW – 5 sites affected, down from 6 yesterday
    • Qld – 9 sites affected, unchanged from yesterday
    • Nth West Sydney/Hawkesbury – 1 sites affected, down from 5 yesterday
  • 7318 fixed line phone/ADSL affected, up from 7642 yesterday
  • 3917 nbn services, down from 4458 yesterday
  • There are no longer any communities in isolation (ie no landline or mobile services)

Saturday 12 March update

Latest stats:

  • 18 mobile sites affected (either partially or completely offline), down from 22 yesterday
    • NSW – 4 sites affected, down from 6 yesterday
    • Qld – 9 sites affected, unchanged from yesterday
    • Nth West Sydney/Hawkesbury – 5 sites affected, down from 7 yesterday
  • 6922 fixed line phone/ADSL affected, down from 7467 yesterday
  • There are no longer any communities in isolation (ie no landline or mobile services)

Friday 11 March update

Latest stats:

  • 22 mobile sites affected (either partially or completely offline), down from 31 yesterday
    • NSW – 6 sites affected, down from 9 yesterday
    • Qld – 9 sites affected, down from 10 yesterday
    • Nth West Sydney/Hawkesbury – 7 sites affected, down from 12 yesterday
  • 7476 fixed line phone/ADSL affected, down from 7925 yesterday
  • The communities of Modanville and Uki may be isolated

Thursday 10 March update

Latest stats:

  • 31 mobile sites affected (either partially or completely offline), up from 28 yesterday due to the addition of affected sites in north west Sydney and Hawkesbury
    • NSW – 9 sites affected, down from 16 yesterday
    • Qld – 10 sites affected, down from 12 yesterday
    • Nth West Sydney/Hawkesbury – 12 sites affected, down from 18 yesterday
  • 7925 fixed line phone/ADSL affected, up from 6,554 due to the addition of affected sites in north west Sydney and Hawkesbury
  • The communities of Modanville and Uki may be isolated

Disaster Assistance:

Check out a full outline of the various disaster assistance packages offered to Telstra customers impacted and displaced due to the floods is available here.

Wednesday 9 March update

Latest stats:

  • 28 mobile sites affected (either partially or completely offline), down from 33 on Tuesday 8 March
    • NSW – 16 sites affected, up from 16
    • QLD – 12 sites affected, down from 17
  • 6554 fixed line phone/ADSL affected, down from 7,808

The communities of Modanville, Pillar Valley, The Channon, Tucabia, Uki, Ulmarra, Whian Whian and Wooli may be isolated.

Tuesday 8 March update

Nearly 90% of our mobile base stations that were affected are now back online and delivering coverage to their communities and we have restored nearly 75% of landline services (excluding nbn). A significant number of communities in isolation were brought back online overnight, with 75% now reconnected.

We are working with power companies and local authorities to access the affected areas so we can get to work to bring services back online. We are also working with nbn co to ensure our nbn customers’ services are restored as soon as possible.

Latest stats:

  • 33 mobile sites affected (either partially or completely offline), down from 50 on Monday 7 March
    • NSW – 16 sites affected, down from 28
    • QLD – 17 sites affected, down from 22
  • 7808 fixed line phone/ADSL affected, down from 8,022

The communities of Modanville, Pillar Valley, The Channon, Tucabia, Tyalgum, Uki, Ulmarra, Whian Whian, Woodburn, and Wooli may be isolated.

Monday 7 March update

We are making progress reconnecting communities in south east Queensland and northern New South Wales following severe storms during the week.

Around 80% of our mobile base stations that were affected are now back online and delivering coverage to their communities and we have restored nearly 75% of landline services (excluding nbn). We have also brought more than half the number communities that were in isolation back online.

More power outages, likely due to severe weather late yesterday, have affected a small number of sites in northern NSW. We have more than 1,100 technicians and staff on the ground working to restore services and more are on standby from other states if necessary.

Many areas are still inaccessible, however, due to flood waters and road infrastructure damage, or are without power – and we need both to assess whether there has been any damage to our network. Unfortunately, we have found significant damage to some of our network, which will take time to fix.

We are working with power companies and local authorities to access the affected areas so we can get to work to bring services back online. We are also working with nbn co to ensure our nbn customers’ services are restored as soon as possible.

Latest stats:

  • 53 mobile sites affected (either partially or completely offline), down from 74 on Sarturday 5 March
    • NSW – 26 sites affected, down from 39
    • QLD – 27 sites affected, down from 35
  • 9,625 fixed line phone/ADSL affected, down from 11,252

The communities of The Channon, Mullumbimby, Koonorigan, Ocean Shores, Pillar Valley, Jiggi, Stokers Siding, Uki, Modanville, Ulmarra, Tucabia, Wooli, Duranbah, Kingscliff, Whian Whian, Main Arm, Woodburn, Tyalgum may be isolated. There are now no communities isolated in SE Queensland.

Saturday 5 March update

There has been a significant reduction in the number of affected services over the past 24 hours as power is progressively restored and waters continue to recede. There are however still a number of areas that are inaccessible and/or without power. The Bureau of Meteorology advise there are no current severe weather warnings, however minor to major flood warnings are still active for multiple rivers across affected areas.

Latest stats:

  • 74 mobile sites affected (either partially or completely offline)
  • 11,252 fixed line phone/ADSL/ISDN affected
  • 41,600 nbn voice and data services affected

The communities of Mullumbimby, Jiggi, Uki, Koonorigan, Ocean Shores, Stokers Siding, The Channon, Main Arm, Modanville, Pillar Valley, Ulmarra, Tucabia, Wooli, Duranbah, Kingscliff, Whian Whian, Doubtful Creek, Cinnabar and Oakview may be isolated.

Find more details about our assistance package for customers.

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By Campbell Simpson

External Editorial Lead

Campbell is our External Editorial Lead and manages the Telstra Exchange website. He came to Telstra with over a decade of experience in technology journalism at websites like Gizmodo, CNET and PC World, and has a long-time love of tech and gadgets of all kinds. When he's not writing, Cam spends his downtime outdoors whenever possible.

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