Telstra mobile network outage grounds flights, halts trains across Australia
A widespread outage on Telstra's mobile network, Australia's largest, left millions unable to make calls or access data early Wednesday, grounding flights, suspending regional trains, and disrupting emergency services.
A major outage on Telstra's mobile network, which powers about 25 million services nationwide, hit Australia in the early hours of Wednesday, 8 July 2026. Thousands of customers reported being unable to make calls or use mobile data, with over 7,500 reports logged on Downdetector starting around 4 a.m. local time.
Transport chaos
Perth Airport on the west coast was among the hardest-hit locations. Hundreds of mining industry workers on fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) flights to remote mine sites faced delays of up to three hours, with dozens of flights departing late. In Victoria, all regional train services operated by V/Line were suspended because of radio network issues linked to the Telstra outage. The operator said services were "unable to operate" with no estimated time for restoration.
- Around 4 a.m. local time, thousands of Telstra customers report being unable to make calls or access data.
- All V/Line regional train services in Victoria are halted due to radio network issues linked to the outage.
- Dozens of flights at Perth Airport are delayed by up to three hours, affecting hundreds of FIFO mining workers.
- WA police warn that triple zero calls are affected and urge support for vulnerable people.
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calls the outage 'deeply concerning' and says it significantly affects lives nationwide.
- Telstra says about 90% of mobile services are back online by late morning.
- ACMA opens an investigation into the outage.
Emergency calls and payments affected
Western Australia police warned that the outage was affecting calls to the emergency triple zero number and advised people to offer support to vulnerable family members. Telstra said customers who could not access its network could still reach emergency services by connecting to other available mobile networks. Payment systems were also disrupted, according to reports.
That is deeply concerning and significantly affects people's lives across the country.
Cause and restoration
Telstra attributed the outage to a fault in a time synchronisation system for its mobile network and said there was no indication of a cyberattack. The company initially asked users to try restarting their devices as a temporary fix. By late morning, around 90 percent of services had been restored, Telstra said.
Regulatory scrutiny
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) launched an investigation into the incident. The outage follows new rules introduced in March requiring telecommunications providers to publish detailed information about when an outage starts, when it is restored, and its cause. The Telstra disruption comes after a Vodafone outage in June and a 14-hour Optus outage in September 2025 that was linked to two deaths.
