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back to article Telstra proclaims free data day to make up for epic TITSUP

A somewhat red-faced Telstra is going to give its customers free data on Sunday to apologise for yesterday's mobile network outage. It's also copped to the cause of the problem. A major switching node (one of ten in the network) failed, and some suffering sysadmin mistakenly sent traffic to the failed device instead of away …

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  1. Mike Lewis

    Network crash simulator?

    Would it be worthwhile setting up a network simulator to train techies how to handle network crashes before they happen?

    Kudos to Telstra for the day of free data, although it is a Sunday which must be the quietest day of the week.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Youngone Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Network crash simulator?

      This will be the cause of the slightly frantic email my Australian colleague sent out yesterday which pointed out the problem was with Telstra, not us, so stop asking me to fix it.

      Knowing our users it probably made no difference.

      1 0 Reply
    2. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Network crash simulator?

      All of their services go offline for a day. "Oh, here have some free data. That'll make up for it."

      Try again Telstra!

      0 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Surprised?

    Telstra is running all IT on a shoe string. Sometimes English seems not to be the official language in their offices. Bound for disaster since long, and there is hope for more. Progress could be possible when Mike Burgess, Rachael Falk and James Turner stop telling people how good they are - and perform a reality and sanity check. Process control and improved competence is overdue.

    1 0 Reply
    1. jjcoolaus
      Reply Icon

      Re: Surprised?

      Unfortunately those things cost money and reduce profits, which are two things telstra always puts before it's customers.

      0 0 Reply
  3. Diogenes

    If it was AXE node

    then I would understand , unless things have changed enormously since I used to play with exchange management software eg to connect a customer the command was SULII, to disconnect SULIE

    0 0 Reply
  4. Shaun Blagdon

    Sacrificial Lamb

    Blaming a single techy for such an outage is scapegoating in the extreme. A restart of a single node should never take down the entire network. This looks more like a network design, capacity issue that Telstra are trying to hide by blaming some poor soul.

    2 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sacrificial Lamb

      You didn't read the article did you?

      The cause of the failure was stated to be not following the correct proceedure to move traffic off a failed node, not the failure of the node.

      Unless you (commentards in general, not you personally) have relevant experience of working in a telco environment then it is unlikely you have even the faintest idea of how complex this stuff is compared to a trivially simple enterprise network. And for all the downvoters, no, I don't work for Telstra.

      0 0 Reply
  5. Sanctimonious Prick
    Devil

    But, What About...

    ...those business customers whose EFTPOS/payment systems rely on Telstra's mobile network?

    Free data is not going to help those that lost the ability to make financial transactions!

    How about free money for a day, Telstra??? :D

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