Telstra Went Down for Five Hours. Most Small Businesses Had No Plan B.

A software fault at Telstra knocked out mobile services, EFTPOS terminals, and payment systems across Australia on Wednesday morning. For thousands of small businesses, that meant losing their busiest trading hours with no way to process a sale.

The outage started around 4:30am and hit hard during peak morning trade. Payment provider Tyro reported that terminals running on 4G couldn't connect. CBA and NAB both confirmed merchant customers were affected. Telstra said the fault came from a network server that keeps time synchronised across parts of its mobile network: after maintenance, the server restarted with the wrong date, and the incorrect time spread through the network.

What went down

Telstra serves 24.9 million retail mobile services nationally. When the network dropped, it didn't just take phone calls with it.

EFTPOS and card payment terminals running on mobile connections stopped working. Retailers, cafes, restaurants, and service businesses lost the ability to take payments during the morning rush. Transport operators couldn't process fares. V/Line suspended all Victorian regional services. The Australian Rail Track Corporation pulled 9,500km of track offline.

Some triple-zero calls failed to connect. Telstra's account of the outage records 58,835 triple-zero calls that connected successfully and 611 automatic welfare checks on callers whose calls did not, of which 23 were referred to emergency services.

Telstra's own timeline has the issue mostly resolved by 4pm, with more than 90 per cent of calls and data services back up before that. Some regional train services remained affected into Thursday.

The part most businesses haven't addressed

The outage exposed a vulnerability that most small businesses already know about but haven't fixed: everything runs on one network.

EFTPOS, mobile comms, booking systems, supplier ordering, even security cameras. For many operators, all of it sits on a single mobile connection. When that connection goes down, there's no fallback. No manual option. No ability to trade at all.

The exposure is not complicated. When payment systems and telecommunications go down together, a business cannot process sales, reach customers or suppliers, or get on with the job.

And the scams started almost immediately. Telstra warned that fraudsters were already calling people pretending to be from Telstra within hours of the outage. If someone calls you about the outage, hang up and call Telstra directly.

What to do now

If you lost revenue on Wednesday, document it this week while the details are fresh. Note your usual morning takings, what you actually took, any staff costs for idle hours, cancelled bookings, and refunds issued. Contact Telstra first. If that doesn't resolve it, escalate to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman or the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. Small Business Minister Anne Aly specifically urged affected businesses to keep records.

Check how your EFTPOS terminal connects. If it runs on 4G only, you had zero fallback on Wednesday. Most terminal providers offer dual connectivity: mobile plus Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Some businesses run a second terminal on a different provider's network entirely. Ask your provider this week what your options are. It's a small cost relative to a morning of lost sales.

Keep a cash float. It's not glamorous, but $200 to $300 in change and a handwritten sign got some businesses through Wednesday morning while their neighbours turned customers away.

Update, September 2026: the Australian Communications and Media Authority has opened an investigation into whether Telstra complied with its regulatory obligations during the outage.

This article is general information only and is not financial advice.