Vodafone back online after network outage causes chaos

Robyn Wuth and Andrew Stafford | June 18, 2026

Vodafone says its network is back online after a crash left millions of customers hanging on the phone with intermittent reception and data issues across Australia.

The mobile network failure threw services into chaos nationwide, but Vodafone said connectivity had been restored on Thursday afternoon.

The telco said customers who could not access the network were able to use emergency triple zero by connecting to other available mobile networks.

A Vodafone spokesman said the ability to connect to another network if the primary one was not in operation was encoded into every phone, meaning a triple zero call would search for the nearest Telstra or Optus tower.

Vodafone said the disruption was caused by a power issue at one of its network hubs about 8am.

“We understand some customers experienced intermittent connectivity as services were restored and we’re sorry for the inconvenience this caused,” the spokesman said.

“We are reviewing this incident and working to strengthen the resilience of our network to help prevent a recurrence.”

It was almost four hours after the disruption before Vodafone acknowledged the issue.

“We are aware that some customers are experiencing intermittent issues with the Vodafone network this morning,” Vodafone said in an earlier statement to AAP.

“The issue has been isolated and resolved and services are now being progressively restored.”

Vodafone’s online network status checker also buckled under the strain, at one point displaying only a generic error message. 

Earlier, the page had warned customers they might experience connection issues while the network was being improved.

Outage-tracking website Downdetector had received tens of thousands of reports of Vodafone problems before 10am.

Vodafone is Australia’s third-largest mobile network operator, behind Telstra and Optus. In addition to its own subscribers, the network is used by customers of TPG, iiNet, Internode and Lebara. 

As of February 2025, Vodafone was providing mobile services to about 5.4 million customers across Australia.

The Vodafone outage was not on the scale of Optus’s September 2025 blackout, which lasted almost 14 hours and was linked to two deaths after emergency calls failed to connect.