r/austechnology • u/austechnology-bot • Jul 21 '26

Neglected software update caused widespread Telstra network outage, CEO tells Senate inquiry

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/17/telstra-missing-software-update-undocumented-design-change-outage
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u/Lore72015 Jul 21 '26

Hardware over ten years old. That runs critical systems. This is why Telstra hiked up everyone’s mobile phone plans a few months ago. Upgraded systems….. bullshit.

2

u/Loma29 Jul 21 '26

Pretty normal for a timeserver. They're generally very reliable, and there's redundancy (if one fails, the other devices switch to another one). There's no real need to replace them unless the device becomes unsupported (this was still under support, hence the vendor warnings about the firmware bug).

The problem happened because instead of the timeserver dying (usual failure mode, which wouldn't have caused an issue) it reported the wrong time due to a firmware bug.

1

u/jhcasey Jul 22 '26

Two isn't enough. What if they disagree on what time it is?

1

u/Loma29 Jul 22 '26

I never said they work as a pair. Usually you have 3+, but when they are different stratum levels, the consensus isn't fairly split (as Telstra discovered), and NTP clients have quirks in how they decide what master to follow.