Labor senators are poised to grill NBN Co and the federal government during Senate estimates on Thursday over “unfair service outages” in Tasmania.
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Opposition spokeswoman on small businesses Katy Gallagher said the “second-rate NBN network” hampered the ability of small businesses to succeed.
“It’s unacceptable that hard working small business owners across Tasmania are facing unnecessary barriers to doing business and particularly with little or no explanation from the NBN Co or the Turnbull Government,” she said.
“I consistently hear from small business owners that their NBN connection is unreliable and sub-par.
“Labor accepts that from time to time there will be issues with the network, however, unexplained outages for days on end can be crippling for a business’ viability and we will be seeking answers on this issue on behalf of businesses and residents.”
The People Affected
Legana business owner Virginia Bower from the St Johns Foot Clinic said the recent outage, which was for more than four days, had cost her customers. She said her service provider, iiNet, could not see any issues with her connection.
Meanwhile Colin McPharlin, a private subscriber, was also affected by the issue in Legana.
When he contracted Telstra, his service provider, he was told it was his equipment at fault despite him saying otherwise.
“It was obvious that Telstra has no idea what was going on, despite the fact the NBN say they are in regular contact with service providers,” Mr McPharlin said.
He said it felt like the person in the street was isolated and locked out, with Telstra, the NBN and the telecommunications ombudsman all referring the issues to each other.
“For me the NBN has done nothing. My service is no faster than it ever was and I am paying quite a lot more than I was before,” he said.
Who Can Help?
Launtel director Damian Ivereigh started his Launceston-based business after ongoing frustration with the impersonalised service that he and many small business associates experienced with large telcos.
Legana business owners who were affected by the outage told The Examiner that Launtel was the only internet service provider who were any help during last week’s outage, even for customers with other ISPs.
“What the service provider is supposed to do is when they get a call from a consumer, they will go into the NBN system and do some tests,” Mr Ivereigh said.
“It is possible that they couldn’t see a problem, and in fact that’s what we saw … but they should still have been able to log a fault with NBN Co and that’s what we did.”
He said there has been an ongoing issue with the NBN project having a carrier between NBN Co and the individual because some service providers did not understand exactly how the process was supposed to work.
“In Launceston we have fibre to premises which we have found to be extremely reliable once we connected it and we very rarely get any outages but fibre to the node, which is what they are using in Legana, we have found is a less reliable system, it does have drop outs and it does have issues,” Mr Ivereigh said.
Who do I complain to?
A spokeswoman for the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman said that if a residential consumer or small business was not satisfied that their issue with their service provider was resolved they could call 1800 062 058.
For services delivered over the national broadband network, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman can record and resolve complaints between consumers and small businesses and their service providers, based on their contract for the provision of services.
The spokeswoman said the office can look into connection to the national broadband network, the performance of the service once it is connected, objections to land access and damage to property.
But this was not the information relayed to Legana business owner Virginia Bower, who said she was told by the ombudsman’s office that an individual could not make an complaint about the NBN.
Local Representatives Angry
Labor Bass MP Ross Hart said it was unacceptable to have reported to us that service providers and the wholesaler have been referring complaints about outages to each other.
“Unfortunately businesses and consumers in Legana have been frustrated firstly by delays in the delivery of the NBN to a large part of Legana which are directly related to the change of focus dictated by the government and secondly by an unexplained outage for the last five days,” he said
Labor Lyons MP Brian Mitchell said the federal government’s change of course to divert “resources from the delivery of the original vision to a second rate NBN” had failed consumers in business and homes.
“This week we’ve heard about the blow out in the buying of 15 million metres of inferior copper for the NBN rollout in Tasmania, now we hear of small businesses unable to go about their business because of another Turnbull NBN fail,” he said.
NBN Co’s response on Monday
NBN state corporate affairs manager Russell Kelly said the outage was caused by a technical fault and work to restore services began as soon as possible.
“The best advice in an outage is to contact the retailer, because that's who you're paying for the service. They know their customers first-hand and will be able to report faults and give out any information on when services will be restored,” he said.
“NBN regularly communicates with retailers about outages so that they can pass this information directly to their customers.”
He apologised to residents and businesses that lost services and said: “Unfortunately, telecommunication networks, like other utilities, do experience unplanned outages from time to time.”