A major outage has hit the Telstra network, with thousands of customers unable to make calls or access data on their mobiles on the country’s largest network.

Trains appear to have been affected in two states and Western Australian and NSW police have confirmed potential issues with triple-zero calls.

“Triple zero systems are not affected, but you may not be able to reach triple zero if you are calling from a Telstra device,” NSW Police said.

“If you try to call triple zero and can’t get through, we recommend using another device, a landline or Wi-Fi calling.”

Telstra, which powers 25 million mobile services nationwide, confirmed the outage on Wednesday. It was first reported at 6.30am (AEST).

“We’re looking into an issue affecting some mobile calls and data connections,” Telstra said on X.

“We’re on it and will share an update as soon as it’s fixed. Thanks for bearing with us.”

Telstra asked users to restart their devices as a temporary fix.

More than 7500 customers reported the network disturbance on online monitoring platform Downdetector.

The outage is believed to also affect other mobile companies that use the Telstra network, including Aldi Mobile, Belong, Boost Mobile and Tangerine.

It is also believed to be linked to a major outage of Victoria’s regional train network, V/Line, on Wednesday morning. Services on the Bendigo, Seymour, Gippsland, Geelong and Ballarat lines have been suspended.

V/Line said it was “assessing the situation and will advise when trains will resume”. It said it had no estimated time for that yet.

Replacement buses are operating from Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station, but V/Line said space on them was “very limited”.

“Passengers are advised to defer travel where possible,” a spokesperson said.

Regional trains have also been affected in NSW.

Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain said the government was aware of the outage.

“The Australian government has been advised by Telstra that there is an outage affecting a large number of mobile calls and connections,” she said.

“We are also aware the issue is also affecting Victoria’s V/Line regional train services.

“We understand Telstra is working on resolving the issue, and arrangements are being made for affected rail passengers.

“Like all telcos, Telstra must notify customers and emergency services of any major outage.

“Australian phones are also required to fall back to other networks for 000 access.”

The latest outage comes after other telecommunications giants Vodafone and Optus experienced recent gaffes that proved fatal.

About a fortnight ago, Vodafone customers faced intermittent reception and data issues across Australia. The telco said customers who could not access the network were able to use emergency triple zero by connecting to other available mobile networks.

An Optus outage in September 2025, which lasted almost 14 hours and affected hundreds of calls in four states and territories, has been linked to two deaths.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority handed down new rules in March forcing telcos to publish in detail when an outage started and when it was restored, as well as the cause.

-with AAP