Telstra apologises for network outage

Telstra chief executive Andrew Penn has apologised for last week's network outage, which affected about 15 per cent of its customers for around two hours

Telstra chief executive Andrew Penn has apologised for last week's network outage. (AAP)

Telstra chief executive Andrew Penn has apologised for the giant telco's recent national network outage.

"We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience it caused," Mr Penn said Thursday at the start of Telstra's half year earnings results presentation.

The network outage on February 9 affected about 15 per cent of the group's customers for around two hours, with some flow-on affects for others, Mr Penn said.

The outage happened when a technician made a mistake while moving customers across mobile nodes - a device which helps control the flow of mobile calls connecting to the telco's larger networks.

Mr Penn reiterated that customer advocacy is the company's number one priority.

To apologise for the network outage, Telstra gave its customers free mobile data on Sunday.

Around 2,000 terabytes of data was used by Telstra customers that day, the network's biggest day, Mr Penn said.