NBN Co Bungle Leaves 20,000 Customers Unable To Connect Or Book Appointments
NBN Co blames technology problems, but unhappy customers are blaming the service providers such as Optus and Telstra, who say it’s simply not good enough.
The Australian Financial Review claim that 19,600 customers are “unable to secure connection or service appointments”, with sources telling the publication that roughly 15,000 Telstra customers had appointments missed or delayed since February.
Optus currently has 4,000 customers unable to connect due to NBN Co. issues, while TPG said almost 5,500 of its customers experienced a delay in NBN connection or appointments to fix a fault during the month of May.
“There’s a margin squeeze that is coming through which the whole industry has been talking about. It means we lose profitability on all customers that we migrate across from our own proprietary networks to the NBN,” Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said.
“I am trying to get the NBN to deliver better customer service because one of the reasons why it’s hard to make a profit is they’re not always the most reliable.
“You can’t book technician appointments, or the technicians don’t show up on time or at all. And because the customers deal with us, that just drives them to our call centres … All these service costs associated with the NBN are extremely onerous. And unfortunately, there is no direct implication back to the NBN.”
An NBN spokesman told AFR: “Our focus continues to remain on service order prioritisation and reducing missed appointments. The company has advised internet retailers that it is continuing to improve its weekly performance on new connection and service assurance requests.
“This week it has offered appointments for more than 87 per cent of new connections requests within nine business days, and 83 per cent of service orders within two business days.”
