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Understanding Australia's triple-0 meltdown is as complicated as it is concerning.
Telstra has suggested a lightning strike early this morning near Orange, NSW, affected infrastructure and sparked the problems.
But the telecommunications giant's contingency plan also failed.
This is why an "act of God" on one side of the country has knock-on effects thousands of kilometres away.
Everything is connected
Australia's phone network is more connected than you think, and the ties go beyond cables and satellites.
Under an agreement with the Federal Government, Telstra is responsible for what happens when you call triple-0.
After dialling the emergency digits, the first voice you hear is from an operator in a call centre operated by Telstra — they transfer requests to emergency services.
Telstra's network in Australia comprises three main "links", which keep the country connected.
When one is not working, services are redirected to the other two, except this time something went wrong.
Telstra CEO Andy Penn said the lightning strike not only affected one of the three "links" but also a router which is responsible for redirecting calls to the other two.
Not even your mobile will save you
About 70 per cent of emergency calls in Australia are made from mobiles, but their wireless technology does not mean they're immune from meltdowns.
That's because they rely on towers to transmit their signals, and the towers must be connected to the cabled network to manage huge amounts of traffic.
Another issue that complicates Telstra's network in regional areas is that they often rely on one cable.
While problems with network cables in populated areas are often mitigated by "loops" which provide a back-up when something goes wrong, that's not always the case in the bush.
Topics: telecommunications, industry, information-and-communication, disasters-and-accidents, emergency-incidents, emergency-planning, nsw, vic, wa
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