telstra mobile outage

**Eevo** · 10th February 2016, 02:20 PM

so you probably all heard or read the news about the nation wide telstra mobile outage.

here is my semi technical summary for people that are interested.

the simple explanation, the way I understand it (I could be wrong, i dont work in mobiles and i dont have an invite to the PIR)

node/SGSN (like a MSC but for data) was faulty, causing small impact to some customers.
Normally, that node is turned off and its customers migrated to other nodes while it gets fixed. there is about 1 node per state.
the nodes hold information like what tower you are connected to and which SGSN controls which tower.
so normally the customers on that node, are migrated onto a nearby node. the migration triggers a location update as the new node needs to know where the mobiles are. the network is scoped for this to happen seamlessly.

unfortunately the node wasnt shutdown. it was rebooted. so it shutdown, triggering a migration/location update, then the node came back up, triggering a second migration/location update. this is where all hell broke loose and a location storm occurred with locations going left right and centre with locations records going back n forth, back n forth.

the location storm is two parts
1) every mobile had to do a location update which uses a command channel. all the command channels were overloaded and this is seen as having no reception. for example, i lost reception in adelaide for 3min while all of adelaide updated its location
2) the link between the SGSN/LBS/HLR was overloaded due to location updates going back n forth.
the HLR talks to the MSC's (which controls voice) and hence ability to make and receive voice calls failed.

kenleyfred · 10th February 2016, 02:34 PM

And we all get free mobile data on Sunday as a result.

**Eevo** · 10th February 2016, 02:37 PM

Originally Posted by kenleyfred

And we all get free mobile data on Sunday as a result.

Laptop and several external hard drives at thr ready. Will be interesting to see thr congestion

**jonesfam** · 10th February 2016, 03:57 PM

So, people lost reception for 3 minutes?
The way folks were stacking it on I thought it must have been 3 or more hours.
Get a life.

I often wonder what would happen if I could flick a switch & all mobiles no longer worked?

Now that would be fun!

Jonesfam

**weeds** · 10th February 2016, 04:10 PM

Was it only 3 minutes.........holly **** people would have had to put there phone down and talk to somebody.

**Eevo** · 10th February 2016, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by jonesfam

So, people lost reception for 3 minutes?
The way folks were stacking it on I thought it must have been 3 or more hours.
Get a life.

I often wonder what would happen if I could flick a switch & all mobiles no longer worked?

Now that would be fun!

Jonesfam

i think for some people it was more than 3 min.
maybe 3 hours.

i got a haircut yesterday and the eftpos machine didnt work. i suspect it was on 3g now that i think about it.

**JDNSW** · 10th February 2016, 07:12 PM

I think the outage period varied from place to place (and perhaps even from phone to phone) I was unable to connect to my families mobiles in Yass and Canberra for around three hours although my mobile seemed to work normally (son asked me to try his wife and daughter's mobiles when he could not reach them, having found his mobile was not working).

Comments on Whirlpool from all round the country showed very varied experiences.

Symptom I found was that when calling one of these phones, there was just silence, and eventually disconnection. No tones, no messages, except any from the phone itself.

John

**Toxic_Avenger** · 10th February 2016, 07:44 PM

I was in Walcha at the time... I tried to make a call and it didn't connect. Since I was away from the office, I wasn't bothered at all- 3 hours of radio silence!

Surprisingly, life in Walcha continued on unphased.

**scarry** · 10th February 2016, 07:49 PM

Originally Posted by Eevo

i think for some people it was more than 3 min.
maybe 3 hours.

i got a haircut yesterday and the eftpos machine didnt work. i suspect it was on 3g now that i think about it.

A good 2 1/2 hours here and a PITA.

Some calls got through and txts,but most of the time you got nothing,depending where you were.

**Bytemrk** · 10th February 2016, 09:15 PM

About 2/12 hours for me too..... still could send texts and emails.. but no phone calls 't was lovely and peaceful, I got lots of work done.

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