Internet not working? Try again tomorrow, Telstra tells customers

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This was published 7 years ago

Internet not working? Try again tomorrow, Telstra tells customers

By Patrick Hatch
Updated

Telstra customers who have been without internet access for days have been told they might have to wait another 24 hours until they are reconnected.

The telecommunications giant suffered a massive network meltdown on Friday in which thousands of ADSL and NBN customers were left without service.

Despite claiming to have fixed the problem on Friday night, customers continued to flood social media with angry complaints over the weekend. Fuel was then added to the backlash when some customers lost access to mobile data on Sunday morning.

Telstra told customers it fixed the fault in "the device that manages the interaction between our network and all of the different types of customer modems", and that remaining problems could be solved by customers restarting their modems.

Telstra has told customers there was a faulty upgrade to its Gateway modems.

Telstra has told customers there was a faulty upgrade to its Gateway modems. Credit: Craig Sillitoe

But on Monday, some customers grew even more frustrated as they discovered they still could not get online.

Andrew Sweeney, from Lewisham in NSW, said he lost his connection about 5.30pm Friday and was told by Telstra it was due to a faulty upgrade to Telstra Gateway modems.

Despite already being without service for three days, Mr Sweeney was told on Monday he might have to wait until Tuesday night before the problem could be fixed.

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"The solution offered each time has been to wait another 24 hours before reactivating the modem and see if something happens," Mr Sweeney told Fairfax Media.

"At 6pm tonight, I am to unplug the modem, wait two minutes then plug it back in.

"If no webpage can be reached, I am to call back on Tuesday between 7am and 8pm - so again, another 'wait 24 hours' type of solution."

Mr Sweeney questioned why the upgrade was scheduled for a Friday when it appeared there was not appropriate technical staff rostered on the weekend to deal with the fallout if it went wrong.

Paul Fisher, boss and founder of Byron Bay digital marketing firm 30acres, was left wondering whether to send his staff home for the day after finding on Monday that his business could still not connect to the internet.

"For us, and businesses like ours, it's arguably as important as electricity," said Mr Fisher, whose connection has been out since Wednesday night and has restarted his modem to no avail.

"I find it bizarre that such a major outage is not front-page news during an election. All this talk of jobs and innovation… reliable internet is the backbone of innovation and the knowledge economy."

A Telstra spokesman apologised to customers for any inconvenience and asked those still having issue to contact the company for help.

However, that might not be an easy task: some customers claim it has taken them over two hours to get through to the Telstra call centre.

patrick.hatch@fairfaxmedia.com.au

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