Telstra is assessing the implementation of a backup system that could have prevented yesterday's full-day nationwide BigPond outage.
The network meltdown began with an authentication database overload and wiped out BigPond services - to which Telstra has over 800,000 subscribers - for an entire business day.
"The fault occurred within the network and we don't back up the total network," a Telstra spokesperson told ZDNet.
"We might have redundant lines but we don't have a redundant network."
Redundancy refers to an alternative path that traffic is re-routed to in times of excess capacity or system breakdowns.
"In some cases redundancy may be the answer, or a better alarming system - a range of solutions could be implemented," the spokesperson said.
Telstra said it is currently reviewing what can be done to ensure the same calamity doesn't occur again.
The outage meant that customers had constant problems accessing BigPond services - sometimes having to try two or three times before successfully logging on.
After about seven hours of network chaos Telstra was forced to restrict Internet access to just 10 percent of customers so that the network could stabilise itself.
The network was then opened to full access.
"With a problem like that, there will be something done to prevent it or to alert us to it more quickly," the spokesperson said.
