Published on the 24/05/2016 | Written by Beverley Head

Five days with Telstra service interruptions and ten hours without email for most of iiNet’s customers – and that’s just in the last week…

Social media has been awash with complaints from consumers and small businesses which have been left adrift by rolling communications problems over the last week. And it’s not just the old network that’s creaking.

According to one post on Telstra’s service page this week; “NBN service has been out for more than a week, still not fixed, now been on hold for more than an hour and a half, AGAIN still haven’t heard a REAL person the entire time. I run my own business relying on the internet and mobile phone, the amount of downtime is more than 6 hours so far (just on phone calls to Telstra about this, and then there’s the lost income. of more than $15.000, who’s going to fix this? I’m not going to wear this cost again!”

While Telstra did take to social media to respond to some consumers, and its online page confirmed that yes there was a problem, users were left without any indication of when services would be restored – and at time of writing some Sydney CBD users remain without internet or home phone connection.

The problem that Telstra did fess up to this time was, it said; “extremely complex, but in simple terms there was a fault with the device that manages the interaction between our network and all of the different types of customer modems.

“That took some time to identify, but once we did, we isolated that device and were able to start restoring services.” Customers were told if they still had problems to turn off modems, then turn them on again – and if the problem persisted to repeat the exercise the following day.

iiNet customers meanwhile endured a 10 hour problem last week. Some customers could not access the ISP’s service at all, others were unable to access emails, and calling the company didn’t work as the complaints line was down – basically because the incoming complaints swamped the network. The company did however respond to concerns customers raised on social media, and later acknowledged that it was a software issue that had been resolved.

Telstra has endured a series of network problems through the year and has committed to invest $50 million to lift its game. It will be cold comfort for many small businesses which are likely out of pocket.

The company has in the past run marketing stunts offering a day’s free data in recompense – but these offer little comfort to digital businesses.

While there is huge inconvenience for most businesses which rely on their ability to use the internet, make and receive phone calls and use email – for companies reliant on cloud services to operate their business, any network outage means they grind to a halt.

Some organisations routinely use dual ISPs so they have a back up option – but that adds significant cost overheads to a business.

It’s all likely to lead to a bumper complaints season.

The most recent report from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, released at the end of April, reveals a 32.8 per cent increase in complaints to the organisation in the first quarter of the year – which the organisation described as a sharper than usual uptick. Compared to the same period last year the 31,297 new complaints were however 5.6 per cent lower than in 2015.

The TIO noted that the proportion of internet related claims rose from 26 per cent a year ago to 35 per cent in the first quarter of 2015 with consumers concerned about services performing at lower speeds than they were promised, and long waits for connection and repairs.