Wednesday’s nationwide Telstra outage left businesses in Petrie Terrace scrambling to serve customers after payment terminals and mobile services stopped working during the busy morning trade.
The nationwide network failure disrupted calls and data services across Australia, but for many local businesses, the immediate concern was much simpler: how to keep trading when customers couldn’t pay.
Customers walked away as EFTPOS failed
Among those affected was Tiger Eye Bar in Petrie Terrace, where owner Sudhir Shetty said all three Telstra-connected EFTPOS terminals stopped working for about two hours.
Without working payment terminals, some customers who did not have cash chose to leave instead of waiting for the systems to return.
To keep the business operating, Shetty brought in an Optus-connected EFTPOS terminal from another venue. After the outage, he also encouraged customers to carry cash, saying it remained a reliable backup when technology failed.
His experience reflected the challenges faced by businesses across Australia as the outage disrupted payment systems, online services and mobile communications.
Businesses across the country felt the disruption
The outage began early on Wednesday morning, 8 July, after a software fault affected Telstra’s network timing systems.
For several hours, customers across Australia were unable to make calls or use mobile data. The disruption also affected businesses, public transport services in several states and emergency communications before services were progressively restored later in the day.
Questions over emergency calls
As Telstra restored its network, attention turned to the outage’s effect on emergency services.
Health Minister Tim Nicholls said Telstra had not initially told the Queensland Government about 17 missed Triple Zero calls affecting the Queensland Police Service, with most originating from regional Queensland.
Queensland Police later confirmed every affected caller had been identified and contacted. Officers carried out welfare checks by phone and, where necessary, in person. Queensland Ambulance Service also confirmed that people who required medical assistance received help.
Software fault blamed
Telstra apologised for the disruption and said a software fault affecting its network timing systems caused the outage. The company also said there was no evidence the incident was linked to a cyberattack.
Some customers also needed extra time to reconnect after services began returning.
The federal government has launched investigations into the outage and its impact on emergency communications.
Published 9-July-2026
