Thursday 12 November 2009

We can't take your call right now, please leave a message

Telstra Country Wide is a proud part of our community, so says the huge billboard that adorns Cairns' Shields Street Telstra exchange building.
However, for nearly three hours yesterday, hundreds of thousands had their Next G (3G) mobiles and internet lines disconnected.
"An unforeseen equipment failure in a Townsville exchange was the cause of a data outage yesterday," Telstra Area General Manager Wally Donaldson said.
It was so widespread that it had an impact across pretty much all of Far North Queensland, right up to the Torres Strait.

“It affected some of our NextG base stations that use a data back hall, as well as the majority of our ADSL internet services," Wally Donaldson said.

“The failure occurred at 1:15pm and was restored just before 3:30pm,” Donaldson said.

However, some Cairns businesses, appeared to lose their connections earlier, prior to midday. Postsmith business starting lodging service calls just after 11am.

Donaldson said the disconnection was a result of a piece of electronic equipment failing in the Townsville exchange without warning.

“We monitor our network very, very closely and if we start to see any signs of any deterioration in service, it gets investigated,” Wally Donaldson said. “If we see the call failure rate increase at any particular point in time, or drop outs increase, or anything like that, the network management guys are on to that very quickly.”

“Alarms come up like Christmas trees. We actually replace a lot of components long before they fail and have an impact on customers.”

“Every so often you get something like this that just fails without any warning, and then we treat it with a priority one restoration when it has that much impact,” Wally Donaldson said.

The service was restored at 3:28pm. You can contact the local Telstra Country Wide team on 1800 687 829 or via email. Sandra is my favourite.

NB: Disclaimer: CairnsBlog is powered by a Telstra NextG iPhone and Bigpond ADSL2. So there.

13 comments:

nocturnal congress said...

Telstra's customer service has gone to the dogs since it corporatised. It only has one bottom line - profits for its shareholders and paying its sociopathic CEO and executives obscene salaries.

curry cruncher said...

After 5 calls to mumbia and 5 jerks that I could not understand I gave up .
And my son fixed my modem in 5 mins after the jerks in india buggered up my settings and tried to get me to call a mod called gizmo and pay $40 bucks to fix ,stuff bigpond/telstra!

Carl Butcher said...

What the outage highlighted yesterday was that there is no network redundancy from Townsville north to Cairns.

A core router failure took out our communications and we were back to the dark ages.

Why doesn't Telstra have a redundant link to Cairns? Perhaps we're not a big enough market to warrant it. The National Broadband Network can't be built soon enough I say.

And Mike, what the hell are doing on Bigpond ADSL2+? It's a frigen rip off!

Stuey Traill said...

This is a classic example of Privatisation gone bad. Telstra has slashed its workforce, decreased maintenance, and we all pay more for the crap service. Surely we all have learnt that it is better to keep these public assets in public hands.

The Essence of Good Taste said...

What I would like to understand is why we pay so much for all telecommunications in this country, no matter the provider. Having spent lots of time overseas in so called 2nd and 3rd world countries, their internet and mobile networks are far superior to ours and 100's of time cheaper. For example, I have sent text from the top of Mt Sinai in the Egyptian desert, called home from Iquitos in the middle of the Amazon jungle, sent email from Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains of Poland and all for a few cents. I can't do any of these things once I leave Ellis Beach on the way to Port Douglas for any money! It has nothing to do with location, population or wealth as my stated examples prove. Wally - please explain?

Ross Parisi said...

Stuey, I can well understand your frustration about the continued inappropriate sell off public assets by a Labor Government.

History shows that the Fraser/Howard Government of the 70/80's, even though advised by the Canberra mandarins to begin a public asset sell off, did not have the political courage to privatise.

Hawke/Keating grabbed the opportunity with both hand, amended the ALP policy, chastised Fraser for being gutless, and began a fire sale.

Qantas,Commonwealth Bank etc, were torched.

Howard/Costello, the "battlers Government" carried on unabated with renewed zeal. To top it off introduced 'Work Choices' for good measure.

Rudd has baulked. Once he get his electoral landslide under his belt, he will even sell off Parliament House, mark my words.

Stuey, come the next Bligh election campaign, instead of assisting the ALP to get re-elected, maintain your rage and campaign against them. Even if it means the election of an LNP Government.

You and other Union leaders need to teach arrogant Governments of both political colours a political lesson.

Do that and you will be lifted to the rafters by the workers you represent and the people that lack a voice. Baulk and you will be branded shallow, all bark and no bite.

That is your challenge!!

Thaddeus said...

Hear hear, Stuey. Look at Telstra, QANTAS, Centrelink (aka Centrestink) and the privatised employment agencies which have done sweet f* all to help the unemployed.

nocturnal congress said...

Ross Parisi...public ownership and control is.....SOCIALISM. The LNP are vehemently opposed to socialism.

Ross Parisi said...

Nocturnal Congress, you are correct. However, the overriding fact is that Australia has a mixed economy and as such Socialism will be managed by the LNP when in Government, just as Capitalism is managed by the Labor Party.

The irony is that the Labor Party does the dirty work for the Liberal Party and sometimes the Liberals do the dirty work for the Labor Party. A subtle form of collusion.

The sad reality is that the people always come off second best. Analyise the Global recession and it consequences. The Banks are bailed out by the peoples money, the State, Socialism, while the people's houses are repossessed, Capitalism.

Then someone like Rudd comes along and rules like a technocrat, well for now!

KitchenSlut said...

Ross gets closer but not quite with the 'mixed economy' diverted by his ideology. There is much delusion in commentary here? As I have previously posted with reference to privatisation its case specific. Take each on its merits or otherwise.

I get the impression dear old Stuey would still be stridently defending the previous government ownership of 90 or so butcheries? As long as they were union members!

The only reason Stuey is in on this is the proposal on the QR Coal disposal else the unions wouldn't give a shit. It's as ignorantly nonsensical as the Entsch 'unsustainable debt' scare.

Oh what wonderful services we had under public ownership. KS well remembers sitting in the dark with scheduled blackouts when the NSW public system failed in the early 80's! Wow that happens every day with these private bastards now?

Qantas? Seriously someone with the pretense of a brain is suggesting public ownership of a high risk, ultra competitive industry. Hey, Qantas has actually been a good performer in a dud industry but it's impossible to contemplate how public ownership could have been beneficial?

Service? Christ, don't forget the old regulated duolopy days when Ansett and TAA both mirrored flights and excessive prices affordable to few. Which provided a regulated bonanza to Ansett because the TAA service was CRAP! No corporate client would touch it!

Similarly since when the fuck was Telecom service so great under public ownership? Its been crap under any ownership for fucks sake! Same for Stueys beloved QR Coal business which even considering blame shifting has been the primary cause of dysfunctional coal chain supply dysfunction and shipping queues which have cost this state in recent years amounts which would make yesterdays Telstra failure trivial!

Enough ranting! I maintain that a case by case evidence based approach is superior to delusional ideology. On that basis there are no assets currently up for sale which should not have been sold ahead of the Cairns Airport? So the fuck were these lickspittles when that was done sold and sealed before the state election for a second rate hospital proposal?

colin riddell said...

Ross parisi I read your challenge with a wry smile , you dare stuey to maintain his rage , well I dare the lnp to stop kicking the crap out of unions and scaremongering the population with the evil unions crap you run every election !

Stuey Traill said...

Ross,
I guarantee that I will not be assisting the ALP at either State or Federal elections whilst they continue with their Privatisation strategy and the Feds continue to support the role of the Construction Commission.
Kithenslut can rant all he likes but I have very little membership in QR, I do this because I believe its right and the vast majority of people I talk to agree.
I will campaign against any Govt that makes crap decisions even if that means I get kicked out of the ALP. The ETU is a left union politically and industrially and we will continue to challenge governments on a range of issues. This is not only our right but our responsibility to our membership and the community.
PS at least some of us have the guts to post our names instead of hiding behind nicknames.

nocturnal congress said...

KitchenSlut, I agree with your comments on Ansett and TAA. People have forgotten the duopoly days when a flight to Melbourne and back was too expensive for working people. As for flying overseas...well hardly anyone did that here back in the 60s and 70s.
As for service from Telstra, I'm inclined to think from my point of view that Telstra's service has deteriorated, but you are correct in pointing out that they never ever did have excellent client standards in the first place.