TASMANIAN INTERNET ISSUES CONTINUE 

Speedtest.net Tasmania to Melbourne on 2 separate 50mbit Internode NBN connections. Depicts regular peak time congestion and severe degradation yesterday during Telstra fibre break.  Permission granted for publication with credit “Digital Tasmania”

Launceston, TAS, 25 May 2016 – Digital Tasmania today called on Internet Providers to improve their technical performance and customer service standards in the wake of several major issues affecting Tasmanian consumers. The issues include widespread, persistent slowdowns and complete service outage to many customers in recent days.

Since Friday, thousands of Telstra NBN & ADSL customers around the country including in Tasmania have been without services when the telco made software updates to customers home routers. The update forced some routers to reboot repeatedly which prevents Internet and Phone services from working, and had a knock-on effect to unaffected customers by overloading their systems.

Spokesperson for consumer group Digital Tasmania, Andrew Connor said “Telstra took several days to recognise the issue and then simply referred customers to their website to attempt a reset, a difficult proposition if the Internet was not working. A viable solution involves changing the router, if customers have their old router about it may work, otherwise they may need a new one.”

Mr Connor continued “Additionally, in recent weeks the performance of iiNet, Internode and associated TPG brands in Tasmania has been slipping at peak times as their connection, a congested alternative to Basslink has been reaching capacity. This was exacerbated on Tuesday night when part of that capacity over Telstra fibre failed causing major slowdowns during the evening.” These brands represent around 30-40% of the Tasmanian consumer Internet market and they already experienced 8 days of severe slowdowns after the Basslink cable was cut for repairs in March; for which promised compensation and credits have not been forthcoming for many customers.

On Tuesday the operator of the Basslink power cable, which also provides wholesale telecommunications services to many Tasmanians, advised that the cable repair had been delayed a further two weeks by weather and would not back in service until the end of June.

Mr Connor said “Internet slowdowns and outages can’t simply be dismissed as affecting customers ability to stream video, it impacts on their ability to conduct the business of their daily lives from home and to stay in touch with friends and family. Reliable Internet is no-longer a luxury, it’s an essential service and needs to be recognised as such. Internet companies need to improve their network and technical capability to provide robust services to Tasmanians. Their customer service channels also need to be well trained and informed about outages so they can help customers without spending hours on the phone. Adequate compensation for downtime needs to be mandated, rather than ‘free data days’ or miniscule pro-rata compensation for days per month of downtime, set penalties for each day of outage need to be set in law.”

Digital Tasmania recommends that if consumers are without service or are not getting the service they are paying for, and they have not directly contacted their provider and raised a fault, that they do so as soon as possible. If they can’t get their Phone or Internet provider to fix their issue within a reasonable timeframe they should escalate to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman on 1800 062 058 or online at www.tio.com.au.

Mr Connor concluded “Tasmanians need reliable communications services, the best way to achieve this is with NBN’s Fibre-to-the-Premises service for most and Fixed Wireless where that is not possible. Beyond the NBN, Tasmania needs another Fibre Optic cable across Bass Strait to improve resiliency and competition in the communications sector.”

About Digital Tasmania:

Digital Tasmania is a consumer action group, created in 2008 to give a voice to the views and needs of Tasmanian consumers in the digital age.
Andrew Connor, Digital Tasmania