Police conduct urgent welfare check after Telstra network outage hits triple-0 calls in WA

WA Police have conducted a welfare check in Perth’s southern suburbs after a caller affected by Telstra’s network outage failed to reach triple-0.

The telecommunications company advised police that a person calling from a commercial premises in Bull Creek was unable to reach emergency services on Wednesday morning.

WA Police said a welfare check had been completed at 9.30am, and they confirmed the initial call was a mistake.

“Police attended and confirmed the call was made in error and that no assistance from emergency services was required,” a spokesman said.

“WA Police has no outstanding welfare checks pending as a result of the telecommunications outage at this time.

“Telstra is continuing to undertake welfare checks and will notify WA Police should any further welfare checks requiring police attendance be identified within Western Australia.”

WA Police commissioner Col Blanch on Wednesday said his officers were still awaiting information from the company as of 8.30am — four hours after Telstra’s first social media post advising of the network disruption.

“We’re already ready to go, so if we get a welfare check task from the telecommunications carrier, where they cannot contact them over the phone, we’ll deploy straight away,” Mr Blanch said.

Mr Blanch said WA Police communications had not been impacted.

“What we know in regional WA, is that there are places where there are no secondary (telecommunications) carriers, so if it’s a Telstra only location, there is a strong potential that there were failed triple-0 calls, but as to whether or not we’ll have to do a follow-up welfare check, I can’t tell.

“I don’t have numbers, and we might not for some time, as you can imagine, as soon as this outage occurred, there was a significant information vacuum.

“It’s not just triple-0, clearly it’s transport, it’s payment systems, and many other systems. So Telstra, no doubt, are very busy trying to understand what’s happened.

After learning of the outage, WA Police sent a media release to journalists and posted information across social media advising the public of the issue about 6.15am. By this point, Telstra had published a single post on Facebook at 4.48am.

“We’re looking into an issue affecting some mobile calls and data connections,” Telstra’s post said.

“If you’re having trouble connecting at first, try again as it may work on a retry. We’re on it and will share an update as soon as it’s fixed. Thanks for bearing with us.”

By 7.45am, Telstra claimed they had made “good progress” restoring the issue, with “just under 90% of calls and data now flowing successfully across the network”.

Communications Minister Anika Wells said an unknown number of calls were confirmed to have failed to connect.

“The core Triple-0 system remains operational, with connected calls flowing as expected from carrier networks to the Emergency Call Person (ECP), and on to state and territory emergency services dispatchers.

“However, the Triple-0 Custodian has advised that some callers were unable to connect to the ECP, and that these are being investigated by Telstra. “

Telstra Chief Financial Officer Michael Ackland said an issue with the timing of network nodes were to blame, but the root cause has not yet been determined. He did say the cause was not the result of a hack.

Outages across Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, and locations in Victoria have been reported.

It has impacted EFTPOS machines, taxi services and retailers across the country — forcing some businesses to reportedly close.

More to come.