The festering problem of outages at Telstra took a new turn yesterday with many BigPond users Australia-wide unable to access their e-mail or send messages. Some users also were unable for many hours to access the Internet.
The outage appeared quite capricious, with CDN co-editor Kate Castellari on the NSW Central Coast unable to access either BigPond or Web e-mail but managing editor David Frith, located several blocks away, blessedly unaffected.
A Telstra exec told Castellari the outage was extending right across Australia, with some people as far away as WA affected, and it would be at least Thursday night before the situation could be rectified.
In answer to a later CDN query, James Kelly, Telstra corporate affairs manager for Victoria and Tasmania, told CDN: “Some customers are experiencing issues when attempting to use their e-mail. We are working on the issue and hope to have it fixed shortly. We will provide an update as soon as possible.”
A 6.08pm follow-up message stated simply; “The issue has been resolved, thanks.” And indeed by 6.30pm, Kate Castellari – among many others – was reconnected.
For that we’re glad – and thanks, James, for the helpful posts – but it’s hard to escape the view that this was yet another blow to the sagging perception of Telstra as a world-level telco delivering quality connections. – DF
