Vodafone says it has fixed issue that caused major outage
Vodafone's mobile network suffers hours-long outage, potentially affecting millions of Australians
Vodafone's mobile network crashed on Thursday morning, leaving millions of customers potentially affected. (ABC News: Stephen Cavenagh)
In short:
Vodafone Australia suffered a major network outage on Thursday morning, leaving potentially millions of Australians without mobile access.
The company says it has since "isolated and resolved" the issue that caused the outage, and has apologised to its customers for the inconvenience.
What's next?
Vodafone says some customers may still be experiencing "intermittent issues", but promises their services will soon be back online.
Vodafone Australia says its mobile network is being "progressively restored" after experiencing a major outage on Thursday morning that potentially affected millions of Australians.
A statement from the company at 11:10am AEST said it was aware some customers were still experiencing "intermittent issues" with network coverage, but the cause of the problem had been "isolated and resolved" and services would soon be back online.
"The disruption was caused by an outage at one of our network hubs at around 8am," the statement said.
"Most services have now been restored, however some may continue to experience intermittent issues as devices reconnect.
"We apologise for the inconvenience and recommend customers restart their devices to help restore connections."
The company added that customers who were cut off from the Vodafone network should still have been able to access Triple Zero (000) during the outage, with their phones able to connect to other available mobile networks.
The outage prompted angry comments from Vodafone customers across social media, with some reporting they were without access for the full three hours, while others said their access had been "off and on".
Many complained that their businesses relied on a steady mobile connection, and one man said he had been stuck behind a gate because he was unable to open it by phone.
Customers also reported Vodafone stores in Australia were also affected by the outage, and calls by the ABC to several stores returned messages that their numbers were not connected.
The mobile provider's own Network Status Checker also displayed a "502 Bad Gateway" message for a period on Thursday morning, but has since been brought back online.
Vodafone Australia's Network Status Checker itself appeared to be down on Thursday morning. (Vodafone Australia)
Vodafone is Australia's third-largest mobile network operator, behind Telstra and Optus.
In addition to direct subscribers, its network is used by customers of TPG, iiNet, Internode and Lebara.
As of February 2025, the network provided services to 5.4 million customers across Australia.
Investors in TPG Telecom, Vodafone Australia's parent company, did not appear to have been spooked by the outage, with the share price still up 0.55 per cent on the morning as of 11:27am AEST.
