It seems no matter what network operators do to have the most up-to-date infrastructure in place, provide the fastest speeds imaginable and offer the best services they can lay their hands on – if a network fails for one minute it all comes to naught.

The latest ‘victim’ of a massive network dropout was Telstra in Australia. Its mobile network is the envy of many. Its transformation projects spanning many years are almost legendary, the vast area it covers to serve a meagre population of around 24 million people is immense and the technology it has deployed to get the most out of every megahertz of spectrum is truly remarkable. Yet ‘human error’ yesterday resulted in a network crash and massive market backlash that can best be described as brutal.