Australia's biggest phone and internet provider Telstra confirmed that it had been struck with its third outage in just two months, impacting around 500,000 customers in Melbourne, Hobart, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, and Perth.  And it happened just days after announcing a free data to make good for an earlier glitch.

"We've received reports from some customers facing difficulties making voice calls on our fixed and mobile networks.  We're investigating as a priority," read a statement from Telstra.  But even after declaring the outage repaired, some customers - especially in south Perth - were still reporting problems.

Two earlier nationwide blackouts on 9 February and 17 March left some eight million customers isolated for as long as four hours, while another incident saw 500,000 pre-paid customers lose service briefly.  The company will compensate customers for last week's debacle with a free data day on 3 April.  This time around, many disgruntled customers have said they are expecting more than a free data day, as more people are living on their mobiles and an interruption means lost opportunities.