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Australians can feel confident when calling triple zero, Telstra has said, after a secondary issue on the network left hundreds unable to connect to the emergency hotline.

The day after the telco addressed a major outage, its customers continued to experience problems calling triple zero, with many receiving an error message as their phones attempted to connect to an alternative network.

The Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland said a subsequent issue remained ongoing, which caused issues with calls and again brought some regional train networks to a standstill on Thursday morning.

“I want to again apologise for the disruption these issues have caused to our customers and to the broader community,” he said.

“Mobile networks are complex, and we will continue to work through further changes to ensure we have the most robust solution, but customers can feel confident in calling triple zero.”

Since the start of its outage issues on Wednesday, Telstra has completed 639 welfare checks.

No assistance was required for 230 callers, who responded to the checks by text, while 402 required follow-up calls, including 170 cases which were passed to police for further assessment.

In total, seven callers said they needed assistance and their details were referred to emergency services, Ackland said.

“It is unacceptable what has happened, and our focus is on how we have addressed it through our processes,” he said.

“Customers can trust the triple zero system, it’s a very robust system.

“No system is completely immune from impacts and outage.”

The telco blamed Wednesday’s issues on a software fault that caused the “GPS node” to reset.

This server tells the rest of the organisation’s systems what the most accurate time is to the nanosecond. A software reset changed the time and synchronisation, which was then passed on to the rest of the Telstra network.

Thursday’s problem was a consequence of the same defect, but needed to be addressed in a different way, Ackland said.

The company urged customers to immediately redial triple zero if their first call didn’t connect, as there had been “good success” of getting through on a second attempt.

But Telstra’s problems also continued to wreak havoc on commuters.

All trains on Victoria’s regional rail network were suspended on Thursday morning during the peak travel period, though services have gradually returned.

Telstra’s 4G network was interfering with the back-up satellite phones used in the trains when the mobile network is unavailable, according to V/Line’s chief executive, William Tieppo.

Regional trains in New South Wales were also interrupted, but services have since resumed on the Southern Highlands and Hunter lines.

On Wednesday, businesses also reported being unable to take customer payments due to interruptions to Eftpos terminals.

The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network’s chief executive, Carol Bennett, told Sky News the outage had caused huge disruptions in people’s lives.

“There certainly needs to be some kind of recourse to compensate customers and businesses who’ve lost a lot when it comes to these outages,” she said.

The communications minister, Anika Wells, said she had not yet heard of any “adverse outcomes” linked to the continuing triple zero issues as the industry minister, Tim Ayres, announced a full investigation.

“We’ve got a transparent investigative framework and to apply penalties where it’s necessary,” he said.

The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, accused the government of trying to “spin their way out” of the outage furore and defended his initial response, which linked the connection issues to a Chinese missile test in the Pacific.

“When you haven’t had a minister out explaining what’s going on, of course Australians are asking questions, and that was a reasonable question to ask,” he said.

Ackland said the outage was not the result of a cyber incident.

Two deaths were linked to an outage at Optus in September 2025, which lasted almost 14 hours and affected hundreds of calls in four states and territories.

In June, Vodafone customers were left with intermittent reception and data issues across Australia.

New rules were handed down by the Australian Communications and Media Authority in March requiring telcos to publish when an outage started and when it was restored in detail, as well as the cause.