Lightning possibly to blame for triple zero emergency number outage across the country
Lightning might be to blame for a serious network issue that has prevented people from being able to call the triple zero emergency number across Australia for the second time this week.
A cable cut about 2.05am on Friday caused phone issues for Telstra customers across the country and, by 8am, there were still intermittent interruptions to emergency calls in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia.
A Telstra spokesman said fibre repair crews were on the site of a cable pit east of Orange, and they found significant fire damage "consistent with lightning strike".
"We are working to restore services as quickly as possible and are sorry for service interruptions," the spokesman said.
Earlier, Telstra said the service issue was affecting 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.
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.
More to come