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

Telstra CFO Michael Ackland speaks to media, Thursday, 9 July, 2026. What will be the impact of Telstra’s outage? Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/AAP View image in fullscreen Telstra CFO Michael Ackland speaks to media, Thursday, 9 July, 2026. What will be the impact of Telstra’s outage? Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/AAP Analysis Why pay a premium fee for a service that isn’t? How the nationwide outage could hurt Telstra Jonathan Barrett and Catie McLeod The telco has long banked on its reputation as having the most stable, widest mobile telco coverage. That is now badly dented Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast 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. It benefited again last month, when TPG-owned Vodafone Australia recorded an outage. Now Telstra is grappling with its own crisis, after it plunged into a nationwide outage for most of Wednesday morning, affecting millions of customers including those dialling triple zero , and attracting fierce criticism from politicians. How a throwback to 2006 took down Telstra’s national phone network Read more How costly is the outage to Telstra, and what other threats are looming over Australia’s biggest telco? Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email Premium pricing Omkar Joshi, chief investment officer at Sydney-based Opal Capital Management, says the outage dents Telstra’s ability to charge a premium “if it is not delivering a premium service”. “One of the main differentiators to its competitors was that Telstra didn’t experience network failures. Now that they have, Telstra is lumped into the same bucket,” Joshi says. Telstra charges $74 a month for its popular SIM-only 50GB mobile plan, $14 more than Optus’s equivalent product, which comes with more data and a cut-price introductory offer. Vodafone’s rival plan costs $58 a month and has the most data. Telstra tends to receive a bump in customer numbers every time a rival suffers a significant outage, and has had little reason to compete on price. When telcos do experience problems, they are usually more careful about price rises, and they often launch promotions to soothe frustrated customers. The immediate impact on Telstra’s share price has been modest, with its stock price falling 3% on Wednesday before recording a partial recovery. But as the number of outages climbs across the sector, the chances of more and stricter regulation increase. The repeat triple zero outages elevate the problem into a major issue of public safety. “More regulatory intervention and focus is never a positive from a stock perspective,” Joshi says. New threats Telstra shares have long been a favourite among retail inv