Telstra CEO Apologizes for National Outage, Cites Software Glitch

Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady has apologised to the company's customers, saying the telco let them down and that investigations into the cause of Wednesday's Telstra outage are continuing.

In her first public appearance since Wednesday's outage that affected Triple Zero networks, trains and eftpos payments across the country — and has left the company open to potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation claims — Ms Brady explained the outage, which was due to a software glitch, was now under control.

Ms Brady was overseas with her family when the outage occurred but said she had returned as quickly as possible when she learned of the crisis that engulfed the company for days.

She had been in contact with Communications Minister Anika Wells throughout the incident and had also spoken with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this morning "to provide him with an update directly".

"I understand how much Australians rely on us to keep in touch, to work and stay safe. I also understand the broader impact on the community when services go down, from things like payments to transport.

"It's extremely frustrating and disruptive when services aren't available, and I am sorry for the impact that this has had on so many people."

She said the telco took the impact on people's inability to dial Triple Zero "extremely seriously, and it's our responsibility to do everything in our power to make sure calls are answered and transferred immediately".

"You have my commitment on that."