Watch live as Telstra fronts up to Senate grillingBy David SwanTelstra executives are being grilled about last week’s mass network outage that cut hundreds of people off from Triple Zero, halted trains and brought down eftpos terminals nationally.Latest Posts1.45pmCEO defends internally-led investigation into outageBy Elias VisontayVicki Brady has defended Telstra’s move to internally lead its investigation into its outage instead of having it conducted entirely externally as Optus did for its outage last year.“We’re conducting our investigation, and then we have appointed an external expert to work with us. This is a particularly detailed technical issue, and we need very specific expertise to help us understand exactly what’s happened and looked at the detailed procedures,” she said.In response to a question on whether such an investigation could effectively examine internal cultural problem that led to the outage, Brady said: “The experts we’re bringing in, where their expertise lies, is very much in understanding and assessing outages and root cause.”“They will work through technically what happened. They have the ability to work with our technical teams to understand why processes weren’t documented, why choices were made not to update software, and so we think they’re the best positioned because we want to get absolutely to the bottom of this,” she said.1.40pmTelstra has written to almost 8 million customers, but can’t yet say what outage cost themBy David SwanTelstra has written to just under 8 million customers following last week’s outage, chief executive Vicki Brady told the Senate inquiry, but the company cannot yet say how much the disruption has cost customers or the broader economy.Brady said the outage’s impact was intermittent rather than universal, and that Telstra’s communication to the nearly 8 million affected had set out a clear process for customers to report how they were affected. Pressed by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young on whether Telstra had any current estimate of the cost to customers, Brady said the company was in the early stages of that process.Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady says the company is not aware of any life-threatening outcomes as a result of the outage.AAPHanson-Young also asked whether Telstra had sought any analysis of the outage’s broader cost to the economy, given tens of thousands of people were unable to reach trains for two days. Brady said she had not asked for an economic cost analysis, though the company was working with affected organisations including the rail operators.1.28pm‘Absolute furphy’: Senator blasts Telstra CEO over resilience claimBy Elias VisontayGreens senator and committee chair Sarah Hanson-Young has pushed Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady on statistics showing the telco’s network is suffering increasing outages, citing 3641 instances reported in 2024 up to 5221 in 2025.Brady said “certain things in a year can affect it” and that weather events such as cyclones and bushfires are a key factor. “The single biggest cause of outages on our network relates to power, and so there is absolutely a reliance on making sure that we get continuity and consistency of power,” she added.Brady then began speaking of Telstra’s investment in its network in the last 12 months to achieve “better resilience”.This and a subsequent mention of “resilience” from Brady appears to infuriate Hanson-Young.“Last week proves that to be an absolute furphy, Ms. Brady,” Hanson-Young said. “Since September last year. All of the warning signs were there, and I remember having you and your representatives before this committee, knowing that Optus had had this terrible outage, and you’re all pretty smug about it. ‘Oh, that’s an Optus problem’. Well, I’m sorry, today we see it’s not an Optus problem, it’s also a Telstra problem.”“So when you’re banking huge increases in profit, there are more outages, less reliability for people to access and use their mobile phone. I don’t think it washes to go around telling people that your system’s resilient. It’s clearly not,” the Senator said.1.27pmTelstra concedes gap in tracking medical device Triple Zero failuresBy David SwanTelstra has confirmed it has no way of knowing whether medical alert devices that rely on its network failed to reach help during last week’s outage, after Nationals senator Ross Cadell raised concerns the company’s welfare check process would not have caught cases where a device failed silently.Cadell asked whether someone who pressed a medical alert button during the outage, expecting it to trigger a Triple Zero call, could have gone unnoticed if the call never initiated. Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady confirmed the telco’s welfare check process is specifically built around failed Triple Zero calls, and that some medical devices generate an alert to a third-party provider rather than placing a direct call, meaning a device that failed to connect at all would not necessarily be identified or checked by Telstra.Brady said where a device does initiate a Triple Zero call and that call fails on its network, Telstra would be able to identify and follow up on it.1.19pmTelstra wants copper rules modernisedBy David SwanTelstra chief executive Vicki Brady has called for the universal service obligation, which guarantees landline access on Telstra’s ageing copper network, to be “modernised” to reflect newer technology, telling the Senate inquiry the obligation is both expensive to run and no longer delivers the best outcome for customers.Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.Alex EllinghausenBrady said Telstra supported reliability standards in principle but wanted the legislation updated to recognise better technology is now available, prompting Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young to press her on whether Telstra would accept the same kind of binding obligations for mobile and data services, which currently sit outside the USO. Brady said the obligation “needs to be reviewed and looked at in current context” without directly committing to mobile services being brought under it.Asked by the chair whether Australians should be able to expect their mobile phone to work, Brady said Telstra’s “obligation and commitment is to provide reliable services” but that this “does not mean they will work 100 per cent of the time.” Hanson-Young responded that the committee had only learned of “thousands and thousands of outages in the last few years” because it had specifically requested the figures, telling Brady: “You’re not delivering a reliable service for mobile phone users at all.”1.15pmTelstra CEO speaks of regulatory burden for telcosBy Elias VisontayVicki Brady has praised the Triple Zero custodian – a government official who oversees the emergency call ecosystem to ensure its availability – but said other regulations that telcos have to meet, increase costs and compliance efforts .Asked by Tasmanian Labor senator Helen Polley if there was too much or not enough regulation for the industry, Brady said “we accept regulation plays an important role, and we’ve been supportive of some of the newer regulations that have come into effect.“We also think the Triple Zero custodian, in this particular instance, having that function in place through an outage like this was a helpful co-ordination mechanism.“But equally, we would say there are some regulations where they do increase cost and time, and so there needs to be a balance. I think at the end of the day, regulation plays an important role, but that balance is important,” Brady said.1.11pmNetworks ‘not infallible’, Brady tells SenateBy David SwanTelstra chief executive Vicki Brady has stopped short of agreeing with two former Telstra chairs who said this week that politicians have been too hard on the company and that the public should accept outages as inevitable, telling the Senate inquiry instead that Telstra accepts it is accountable and that its controls “definitely let us down.”Asked by Labor senator Helen Polley whether the public should simply accept outages like last week’s, Brady said mobile networks were complex, evolving and “not infallible,” and that “no telco around the world could guarantee” zero outages. But she added: “We accept here that it wasn’t good enough” and said Telstra was “deeply sorry” for the impact on customers.12.55pmTelstra rejects outsourcing link to outageBy David SwanTelstra has pushed back on suggestions its mass outage reflects the kind of outsourcing and staff cuts blamed for Optus’s earlier failures, telling the Senate inquiry the maintenance work that triggered the fault was carried out by Telstra’s own internal team in Melbourne, not contractors.Senator Ross Cadell.SMHNationals senator Ross Cadell, who led criticism of “dumbing down” through outsourcing during an earlier Optus inquiry, asked directly whether a staff member or a contractor had been responsible for the work, and whether the relevant team had suffered cuts. Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady said the work was done internally and confirmed there had been no staff cuts in that team.12.54pmTelstra reveals details of its internal investigation into outageBy Elias VisontayTelstra’s internal investigation into the outage is being run by its chief risk officer Michael Griffiths, who is working with an external company, the hearing has heard.Brady said Telstra had appointed the company Technology Audit Partners “who are well regarded and highly skilled when it comes to being able to investigate”.“Our chief risk officer is the head of that, working closely with our networks group executive, and then we have appointed now an external expert,” she said.Telstra’s internal investigation is in addition to one being run by the regulator.12.46pmTelstra executive concedes newer hardware would have stopped outageBy David SwanTelstra’s group owner for end-to-end service performance and resilience, Gerard Tracey, has told the Senate inquiry that newer equipment would have stopped last week’s mass network outage from occurring, in the clearest concession yet from the company that the failure was avoidable.Asked whether a newer piece of hardware operating as intended would have prevented the fault, Tracey said: “A newer piece of hardware operating in the same design that we intended to, the issue wouldn’t have happened.”The admission came after chief executive Vicki Brady had twice declined to answer the same question directly, telling the committee it would be addressed by Telstra’s ongoing investigation. Tracey’s answer is the first clear confirmation from Telstra that replacing the ageing server, which this masthead has reported cost about $30,000, would have avoided the outage that cut hundreds of people off from Triple Zero and disrupted services nationally.1 of 2