Telstra has revealed that the cause for the crash of the Telstra 3G and 4G networks on Monday was due to a software fault. The fault crashed the 4G network, pushing every customer over to the 3G network, which then overloaded and crashed.

In a statement addressing the matter, Telstra said:

"Starting from approximately 10:00am yesterday morning some key network equipment failed causing a disruption to 4G voice and data services nationally. The impact was widespread and with a large number of customers dropping back to 3G there was significant disruption to 3G voice and data services as demand exceeded the capacity of our 3G network.

We have identified that the initial cause of the disruption was a software fault which triggered multiple elements across the network to fail. The network is designed to switch onto standby hardware which it did. Following the failover however, a further fault caused an interruption which impacted 4G connections. There is redundancy built into these systems but this did not operate as intended."

This is the third occasion this month that Telstra customers have been left without service.

Should Telstra refund all mobile services and bills for the month? Are you thinking of changing to a different provider?