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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Business
Jonathan Barrett and Catie McLeod

Why pay a premium fee for a service that isn’t? How the nationwide outage could hurt Telstra

Telstra CFO Michael Ackland
Telstra CFO Michael Ackland speaks to media, Thursday, 9 July, 2026. What will be the impact of Telstra’s outage? Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/AAP

Telstra has long profited from its reputation of having the largest and most stable mobile telco coverage in Australia, allowing it to charge premium prices.

When its main rival, Optus, suffered a series of operational issues that culminated in a damaging triple zero outage last year, Telstra attracted new customers.

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