Phone outages have become normal in Australia. That’s not normal

July 8, 2026 — 12:01pm

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A network fault on Wednesday stopped trains in two states, pushed thousands of phones into SOS mode and left some Telstra customers unable to reach Triple Zero. In Australia, that is what a single company’s bad morning looks like.

Networks everywhere break, that’s a fact of modern life. But Australians are becoming frustrated with repeated mass outages, and it’s time to start asking why, when an Australian network breaks, so much of the country appears to break with it.

Some of the answers are obvious. Australia’s telco industry is concentrated in the hands of just three companies: Telstra, Optus and TPG, which runs Vodafone. Dozens of smaller brands rent space on them. So when Telstra faltered on Wednesday it took Boost, Belong, ALDImobile and others with it, and one fault reached millions of people at once. Telstra alone carries about 24.9........

© The Sydney Morning Herald