Triple zero emergency number outage hits customers from all telcos
All telecommunications companies have been hit by a serious network issue that has prevented people from being able to call the triple zero emergency number across Australia, a Telstra spokesman has confirmed.
Telcos have been in crisis meetings on Friday morning, with some issuing social media posts telling customers of the outage.
A cable cut about 2.05am on Friday caused phone issues for customers across the country and, by 8am, there were still intermittent interruptions to emergency calls in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia.
A Telstra spokesman confirmed that it is the provider of the service to all other providers.
Fibre repair crews were on the site of a cable pit east of Orange, and they found significant fire damage "consistent with lightning strike", a spokesman said.
"We are working to restore services as quickly as possible and are sorry for service interruptions," the spokesman said.
Vodafone has tweeted that Victorians who don’t get through should "keep trying" as per advice from emergency services.
A Vodafone spokeswoman said it was working with Telstra and emergency services on alternative arrangements.
"We are trying to call back all Vodafone customers who have attempted to call triple zero to check on their welfare and offer assistance. We are also passing on those customers’ details to state based emergency services for follow-up," she said.
Earlier, Telstra said the service issue was affecting Telstra customers in NSW, South Australia, Victoria and Queensland.
"There are still intermittent interruptions to 000 calls in NSW, VIC and WA following the cable cut in NSW earlier today," Telstra said in a statement.
"We're working closely with emergency services in those states."
NSW Police said people requiring emergency assistance were urged to still call triple zero in the first instance, and if they could not get through, then they should call the national Police Assistance Line on 131 444.
A spokesman for Victoria's emergency call answering service ESTA said it was aware of the problem, but urged people to keep trying triple zero if they cannot get through on the first go.
"We're making every attempt to call them back," he said.
Queensland Police said they were aware of emergency call issues in other parts of the country, but triple zero calls were still getting through in Queensland.
NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Walton said triple zero calls appeared to be going through.
"We are confident that anyone can ring through on triple zero if not 131 444 and, of course, local police are able to take calls and their numbers are available on the internet," he said on the Today show.
The assistant commissioner said emergency services were "still reviewing" whether the outage had affected people's ability to receive emergency assistance.
A spokeswoman for the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which regulates and monitors carriage service providers and the emergency call service for triple zero, said it was working with Telstra to fix the problem.
"The ACMA is closely liaising with Telstra about the recent disruptions to its network which affected calls to the triple zero service," the spokeswoman said.
"At this stage the ACMA’s primary concern is the restoration of access to triple zero as quickly as possible."
She said the emergency call service was provided by Telstra under contract to the federal government.
Services issues widespread
Telstra customers including businesses and government departments are also having problems with their phone lines after the cable fire.
The NSW Department of Justice said it experienced interruptions to its court registries and calls to the NSW Court Services Centre, but a department spokesman said phones were up and running again at 9.40am.
Commonwealth Bank also apologised to customers who were experienced difficulties due to supplier network issues.
“We are aware some customers may be having difficulties with some of our services. This is due to network issues with our supplier,” the bank tweeted.
“We apologise for the inconvenience and have our teams working on this as a priority.”
It's the second widespread network outage for Telstra within a week.
On Tuesday, Telstra customers across the country were unable to make or receive calls for about three hours after a major network outage.
Telstra said it became aware of that issue with its NBN and 4G networks about 1pm, and by 4pm a company spokesman said the problem had been fixed.
The issue on Tuesday was caused by technical changes made ahead of upgrades to mobile traffic control equipment in Telstra’s Exhibition Street exchange in Melbourne, the Telstra spokesman said.
At that time, NSW Police were concerned the outage would affect emergency calls, and advised people requiring help to use a landline or call from a mobile on another carrier.