Telstra has told angry customers to purchase additional telecommunication services after an eight-day outage across southern Western Australia.
The week-long mobile and internet outage in and around Wickepin, 210 kilometres south-east of Perth, cost some residents thousands of dollars while others were forced to drive hundreds of kilometres to make calls.
Speaking after services were restored, Telstra regional general manager Boyd Brown said residents should consider connecting more Telstra services to limit the impact of future communication blackouts.
“Today we’re predominantly using mobile service with no redundancy, nothing else,” he said.
“I absolutely encourage listeners to have a look, and there is a service available for every address across Australia.
“Perhaps a fibre-to-premise fixed wireless or satellite, and now there’s Starlink, which Telstra have as well, so here are a number of options for redundancy.”
The busy Wheatbelt community has been without mobile coverage for a week. (Supplied: Russell Ord)
Solution not cost-effective
Telstra’s solution has been met with frustration by affected residents like Megan Henry.
Ms Henry’s farm is based in Kulin, 270km south-east of Perth.
“It’s not cost-effective or practical to ask us to go out and spend more money,” she said
“We’ve had a loss of money and a loss of income … now we’re being told to spend more.
“It doesn’t seem a be a very good solution.”
Megan Henry had to travel to other towns to continue operating her business during the outage. (Supplied)
Ms Henry, who also operates sporting clinics across the region, said more services at home were out of touch with the rural business model.
“I’m one of two or three business tennis coaches in WA who live rurally and operate their coaching business on the road so of course we rely heavily on Telstra,” she said.
“During the blackout, the only thing that worked was [mobile] 3G, and they are switching that off.”
Compensation ‘unlikely’
The blackout also brought additional costs to some Telstra customers who were unable to pay bills or forced to commute hundreds of kilometres to receive service.
In Harrismith, 250km south-east of Perth, farmer Simon Duckworth said his wife drove more than 600km during the blackout to work remotely from neighbouring towns.
The farmer and Telstra shareholder said the telco had fallen short of meeting its basic customer service responsibilities.
He said the family incurred additional running costs close to $1,000, while Ms Henry said she was fined $2,000 because she was unable to pay a bill.
“We missed out on rates payment with our shire, and we got fined 2,000 dollars,” Ms Henry said.
“Farm rates aren’t cheap and that was just one cost.”
Mr Brown said Telstra would consider compensating customers for costs incurred on a case-by-case basis.
After receiving a $16 rebate from Telstra during the outage period, Ms Henry believed compensation would be unlikely.
“I don’t feel like I can pursue it, there’s been no communication on that,” she said.
“We just want some positive change, but there was no apology or compassion.”
