Telstra's July outage cost the economy an estimated $552m, FTI modelling for ACCAN finds

A single Telstra mobile outage in July cost the Australian economy more than half a billion dollars, according to economic modelling released in the days before 21 October 2026. The report, prepared by FTI Consulting for the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN), estimates a potential economy-wide impact of $552 million in value-added terms. That figure measures the net cost to total output, in terms of contribution to GDP, and includes about $302 million of direct losses based on time lost and other disruption-related impacts.

The outage began early on 8 July 2026, when a fault in a timing device took down Telstra's mobile network nationwide. Calls and data were disrupted for around 12 hours. At the peak, 45 per cent of all calls and data sessions were affected and up to 8.8 million users were hit. Some people could not reach Triple Zero, regional trains in Victoria stopped running and small businesses could not process payments.

FTI said it took a deliberately conservative approach because of data limitations, and that its figures should be read as a "lower bound estimate". The report expects other significant impacts occurred that could not be quantified, and it does not assess the heavier effects likely in regions that rely on Telstra as their only provider. ACCAN commissioned the work to give policy discussions on telecommunications reliability an evidence base.

At Telstra's annual general meeting, chairman Craig Dunn said the company had received 33,000 complaints after the outage and had paid about $1 million in compensation. CEO Vicki Brady's pay package for 2025-26 was cut by $607,000, and the short-term incentives of nine other senior executives were docked by a total of $1.3 million. ACCAN CEO Carol Bennett said that was clearly insufficient given the cost to the economy. Bennett said "One outage cost this economy over half a billion dollars, but the telco at fault didn't foot the bill." She said households and small businesses paid instead, and that since 1 April Optus had recorded 97 outages and Telstra 322.

The report came days before passage of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2026, which lets the Minister for Communications set standards, benchmarks and rules that mobile operators must meet for quality and reliable service. Amendments to introduce enforceable standards were voted down, which disappointed Bennett. Bennett said "Mobile networks are the only essential service in Australia without enforceable reliability and performance requirements," she said.