Telstra acknowledges widespread iMessage & FaceTime outage, says it’s working on a fix

Chance Miller | Feb 20 2018 - 5:45 pm PT

Update: Telstra says the issue has been resolved and service is being “progressively restored.”

Earlier today some customers experienced a disruption to Apple iMessage and FaceTime services. We worked with Apple to resolve this issue. Services are now being progressively being restored. We apologise for any inconvenience this caused.

Telstra, one of the largest mobile carriers in Australia, is experiencing a widespread outage of iMessage and FaceTime services. Oddly enough, this outage only seems to affect Apple’s services, as everything else functions normally. The carrier has confirmed the outage on Twitter and says it is working on a fix…

Users on Twitter report that the outage has been ongoing for the last few hours (it’s currently a little past noon there), and it’s unclear when a fix will be available. The issue appears to primarily be affecting the eastern coast of Australia, though users in Perth are also reporting issues.

Telstra says that it is aware of the issue with FaceTime and iMessage services and is working to fix it. In the meantime, the carrier is encouraging users to send all of their iMessages as traditional SMS texts:

Our team are working to fix an issue with Apple iMessage and Facetime for some customers. You can continue to send and receive SMS messages. We’ll provide an update ASAP.

If you press and hold on the message that is stuck sending, you can choose to send it as a text message immediately. If you hit “more” you can highlight the message and delete it too.

It’s unclear as to what’s causing this issue, but it’s clearly pretty widespread. An abundance of users on Twitter are complaining about the outage across the entire country, as seen below.

Apple hasn’t commented on the issue and it’s unlikely they will, as the issue seems to be on Telstra’s side. Users have complained to the Apple Support account on Twitter, but that account seems to be oblivious as to what’s going on.

Are you experiencing issues with iMessage and FaceTime in Australia? Let us know down in the comments!

Our team are working to fix an issue with Apple iMessage and Facetime for some customers. You can continue to send and receive SMS messages. We’ll provide an update ASAP.

— Telstra (@Telstra) February 21, 2018

iMessage is just a form of data so why doesn’t @Telstra need to touch things that aren’t broken? Your organisation is as useless as your staff. A Grade Useless 😡😡😡🖕🏻

— DJ Wynyard (@danijeljw) February 21, 2018

This Telstra iMessage outage is an absolute disaster – I’ve already had to ring 2 people I didn’t really want to talk to. #Telstra

— Nate Llewellyn (@MrNateLlewellyn) February 21, 2018

https://twitter.com/rajdeut/status/966112503582269442