Hail pounds telecom networks in Queensland

A severe storm in Queensland has battered services for major ISPs in the state.

Telstra, Optus and iiNet have reported network faults as a result of the storm, which on Thursday afternoon reportedly dumped 70mm of rain and tennis ball-sized hail

It’s understood that about 80 mobile phone towers in the area rely on power from the grid to function.

Telstra

“Last night’s storm has affected a large number of mobile base stations due to the loss of mains power,” a Telstra spokesperson said in a statement to Computerworld Australia.

“While all our network sites have a back-up power supply, the size and prolonged nature of the mains power outage is starting to impact our network.”

“We appreciate that this is having an effect on our customers and reassure them that we are working as fast as we can to restore services,” the spokesperson said.

Optus

”Following severe weather events across Brisbane and greater metropolitan area yesterday, power outages in parts of South Brisbane are affecting some Optus mobile towers in the area,” said an Optus spokesperson.

“As a result, some customers may be experiencing interruptions to their voice, text and data services.”

Optus is working with authorities to restore sites and where possible has deployed portable power generators, he said.

“We apologise to Optus customers affected in the area and are working to restore power and service to affected towers as quickly as possible. Optus is continuing to assess our network across Brisbane to identify whether there are any further issues.”

iiNet

Separately, iiNet issued a fault notice stating that multiple exchanges in the state have experienced “power issues due to adverse weather conditions.”

“Our Network Partner has advised there are multiple exchanges with issues due to storms and power failures,” said the notice.

“Some broadband customers in QLD may have been disconnected and be unable to reconnect to the internet.”

Vodafone

The adverse weather has caused power outages at some Vodafone sites, but the network is understood to be mostly operational with network traffic being carried through working sites.

The telco has deployed generators to power some affected sites.

"We apologise to any customers whose service has been impacted by the wild weather in parts of Brisbane last night and thank them for their patience while we work to restore power to affected sites as quickly as we can," said a Vodafone spokeswoman.

Adam Bender covers telco and enterprise tech issues for Computerworld and is the author of dystopian sci-fi novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall. Follow him on Twitter: @WatchAdam

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