Telstra disconnect on NBN

The Federal Member for Brand Madeleine King has urged Telstra to lift its customer service standards after she was contacted by disgruntled residents frustrated by the NBN changeover process.

Safety Bay resident Mary Fogg reached out to Mrs King’s office after she spent four months trying to connect to the NBN through Telstra.

After she was connected, Mrs Fogg said the service began dropping out and the issues were ongoing.

“I’ve called this my nightmare journey,” she said.

“I’ve felt useless, isolated and nobody cared. I’ve been on the phone for five hours at a time to foreign operators who have no idea what’s going on here.

“I’m an English migrant and I need to Skype my family every Sunday otherwise they fear for my health.”

Mrs Fogg said Telstra had now assigned her a case officer and a spokesman confirmed a technician was being sent out.

Last year the Telegraph reported that the lack of connectivity in the area led to then-opposition leader Mark McGowan and Mrs King to write to the Prime Minister and Federal Minister for Communications respectively to raise awareness of the issue.

Since then, Mrs King said she had been contacted by people who were having a range of different experiences with the telecommunications giant and the move to the NBN.

“I’ve seen some positive experiences but other people are calling and saying it’s frustrating and some cases like Mary’s are extreme,” she said.

“What I find the most difficult to accept is corporations like Telstra who are trying to enable us to be on better communication systems are failing to take account of individual circumstances. It’s the frustration of not caring for people and it’s not that hard to do, they’re a communications company yet they’re utterly failing at communicating, it’s basic service and that’s what Mary has mentioned.”

Telstra area general manager Boyd Brown said Telstra had apologised to Mrs Fogg and were investigating the connection issues.

“We’re very sorry that Mrs Fogg has been having ongoing issues with her Telstra NBN service,” he said.

“Each customer’s circumstance is different and we are looking into what appears to have gone wrong in this instance.”

“Customer satisfaction is a priority for our business and we’ll work with our local NBN technicians to get this issue resolved as fast as possible.”