[time-nuts] Re: Telstra outage: Possible GPS-related 1024 week rollover.

[Bob kb8tq]

Hi

On a many devices, the “roll over” changes with each firmware update. They set things to roll over
1024 weeks from the start of writing that update. Typically this is not documented very well. 

More modern gear ( = built in the last decade) often has the issue addressed in one of several ways.
The idea is that they will not roll over if used as the manufacturer expects. 

Bob

> On Jul 12, 2026, at 8:18 PM, Steven Sommars via time-nuts <time-nuts at lists.febo.com> wrote:
> 
> A major outage in Telstra's mobile network (Australia) occurred at 4:20 am
> AEST on Wednesday, July 8 2026.
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-10/telstra-warned-about-vulnerability-before-national-outage/106896906
> 
> 
> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-11/telstra-gps-timing-network-failure-back-up-systems/106902532
> <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-11/telstra-gps-timing-network-failure-back-up-systems/106902532>
> 
> Early reports indicate a cold start of a data center node set the time back
> to November 2006 (about 1024 weeks) triggering the outage.  The time-nuts
> community is presumably familiar with GPS Week Number Rollovers and the use
> of pivot dates.  In this case the rollover was delayed until the unit
> cold-started.
> 
> Do manufacturers ever publish the pivot dates?
> It should be feasible to use an inexpensive SDR-based GPS simulator to
> determine a GPS receiver's pivot date.
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