‘Dangerous’: Days-long Telstra outage leaves regional WA town without calls, card payments, or warning

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

‘Dangerous’: Days-long Telstra outage leaves regional WA town without calls, card payments, or warning

Concern evolved into outrage and ***** for residents as a days-long

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

outage struck the regional wheatbelt area of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

for most of last week.

Shirley Cook, 54, who lives alone with a disability that affects her mobility, had no warning from the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

giant before her mobile phone — which she said she uses to receive twice-daily ******** checks — was cut off.

An unplanned outage of the Northam East tower, which provides the coverage for Cook’s home, coincided with a planned outage of the Northam North tower soon after — cutting off the network’s backup coverage for the eastern tower.

But because text alerts were only sent to those who were expected to be impacted by the planned outage, Cook was one of many who were left in the dark from about Wednesday to Monday, Telstra told 7NEWS.com.au.

Several regional social and tourist events were also impacted by the Telstra issues, leaving vendors, volunteers and visitors scrambling “to go find cash — not a small task in a country town where all the banks have evaporated,” member for Wheatbelt Mia Davis told 7NEWS.com.au.

Cook, who has *******, goes to the hospital three times a week for dressings — it was there that nurses alerted her to the planned outage on Wednesday, which she assumed was the concurrent unplanned outage which had actually affected her service.

“We upgraded our mobile site in Northam North, adding 5G connectivity,” a Telstra spokesperson told 7NEWS.com.au about the planned outage from October 22-25.

“Unfortunately, an unrelated hardware issue impacted our Northam East site between October 23-27, which required replacement of some equipment. Our technicians worked hard to fully restore service by Sunday afternoon.

“We do our absolute best to minimise any downtime because we know how critical the service is to our customers.”

Cook told 7NEWS.com.au the communication was “not good enough” and the outage was “endangering lives”.

“If I need help, I am not able to get it unless it is something that requires triple-0. If I need to get to the hospital and am not able to make it using my (mobility scooter), then I am not able to get there as I am not able to call a taxi,” she told 7NEWS.com.au.

It was also a hot weekend on the Wheatbelt, which creates a heightened risk for vulnerable people and increases the chances of fires, and Davis told 7NEWS.com.au: “This is what makes communities nervous.”

Vulnerable customers ‘can’t afford’ safety net

Telstra told 7NEWS.com.au vulnerable customers can not solely rely on a single Telstra mobile phone service to keep them safe, and advised paying for a second service for backup.

“During these outages, NBN and landline services were not impacted,” the Telstra spokesperson told 7NEWS.com.au.

“Having a second type of connection such as NBN, satellite internet or a landline is the best way for customers to make sure they can stay connected even when a mobile outage occurs. Customers with a fixed internet connection such as NBN or satellite can also access Wi-Fi calling.”

But Cook, who survives on a pension, said she cannot afford to pay for more than one Telstra service and, due to where she lives, she does not have many other options — even her internet comes through a prepaid dongle on the mobile network.

“A lot of us, when we’re on the pension, we can’t afford to have a landline as well as a mobile, and the mobile is the best for us because we can have it on us in case we need help,” she told 7NEWS.com.au.

Camera IconShirley Cook was not warned before her mobile service was cut off for almost a week from last Wednesday. Credit: Shirley Cook/Getty Images

Davis also acknowledged Telstra services are “expensive” but said a large majority of the residents in her electorate rely on Telstra “because you just don’t get the coverage unless you’re with them”.

“(Telstra) needs to be cognisant that in regional Western Australia, that when their network it down, whether it’s planned or unplanned, it’s not just an inconvenience, it’s also a matter of economic and potentially life-threatening situations,” she said.

“It’s not good enough.

“As the former national carrier — I know they are no longer but they have been a recipient of support from state and federal government for a long time — they have a responsibility to look after the vulnerable in our community.”

Telstra advises vulnerable customers to be aware of its Priority Assistance service.

“If a customer needs to stay connected for health reasons, we recommend they have a home phone and register as a Priority Assistance customer,” the Telstra spokesperson said.

“This means we would know their personal circumstances and have a regulated commitment to restore their service within 24 hours or provide a backup connection.”

Local trade suffers at events hit by outage

The unplanned outage also affected the Northam Cup and Northam Multicultural & Heritage Festival.

Davis received a “very concerned” call from the Northam Race Club manager when they learned that the outage would not be resolved in time for the races.

“All of your ******** and transactions at the Northam Race Club are reliant on the Telstra network, so they were scrambling, panicked, like … ‘Do we need backup, do we need to go get a dongle with Optus or something?’,” Davis said.

Telstra had specifically arranged for the planned outage to be completed before the local events, and told 7NEWS.com.au it was also the unplanned outage that impacted those events.

“The scheduled upgrade work in Northam was completed on the day prior to the Northam Races as planned to provide better connectivity for the community,” the spokesperson said.

“Unfortunately, an unplanned outage at another site in Northam due to a hardware issue impacted connectivity on the day.”

Davis said the network also took a hit further east in Gidgegannup, where she was attending major attraction, the Gidge Show.

Camera IconThe Telstra network was affected by congestion at the Gidgegannup Show, leaving vendors and visitors to scramble for cash. Credit: Experience Perth Hills/

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

“All the vendors relied on (the Telstra) network, all the volunteers working at the gate had to move to cash … (and) we’ve got decisions by the Show that kids come in for free because we’re dealing with all this cash,” Davis said.

“People don’t carry cash.

“All the vendors that had come up to sell their wares, and participate, they were unable to do anything unless they had cash.”

Telstra said there was no outage in Gidgegannup and the major network issue was simply “congestion”.

“There have been no recent outages in Gidgegannup. One-off annual events like the Gidgegannup Show can put extra demand on our local network, which can slow data speeds and sometimes cause delays with connecting calls.

“We made optimisation changes ahead of the event to prepare for the increased demand on our network, however the traffic was higher than anticipated.”

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Dangerous #Dayslong #Telstra #outage #leaves #regional #town #calls #card #payments #warning

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up