Many residents on the outskirts of Jamberoo are angry about the low quality communication network that they have been left with, and are calling for Telstra to explain why it takes so long for faults to be both acknowledged and fixed by that communications provider.

They missed out on the rollout of the NBN fibre, even though it runs tantalising close to some.

“Our ADSL 2 service was out of action from 18 December 2020 until 5 January 2021,” says John Jennings, a consulting engineer, who works from home in Factory Lane, Jamberoo. We had five days of joy from 5-10 January, then down again.

“The Telstra website is not connected to reality. The time taken to update that site leads to real frustration.

“Why doesn’t Telstra send us a text message when there is an outage?”

Alan Baxter, novelist and Kung Fu teacher who also lives in Factory Lane, says the most frustrating part is that he can see where the NBN fibre optics cable runs underground from his front door, but is still consigned to using the outdated copper wire Telstra ADSL 2 service.

“We had a brief power outage around Dec 17 and when it came back on, ADSL was out,” he says.

“The phone line fine, but no internet. Westnet (now iiNet) said there was no outage in the area and wanted me to get a different modem.

“There was constant back and forth between carriers and it took two days for Telstra to admit there was an outage.”

After contacting other neighbours in the Valley, some who had waited five hours to report their issue to a Telstra ‘customer service’ person, John’s wife Diana called the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman where their individual complaint was soon escalated.

“In less than 24 hours, I had two case managers phoning me (one for our business mobile phone account and the other for our home phone/ADSL account),” she says. 

“They were helpful and made peace offerings which helped us hobble along using a 4G hotspot device with a pre-paid SIM card with generous credit on it.”

Then a call to local Federal Member, Fiona Phillips, further escalated the issue.

“I was pleased to work with Telstra to help resolve the most recent internet outage in Jamberoo quickly once it was raised with my office,” she says.

“I am continuing to liaise with NBN about why some people are still accessing ADSL in this area.

“Everyone deserves to have access to reliable internet – whether you are in the city or in regional areas like ours.”

Another neighbour, Ken McIntyre, recently retired IT professional from Fujitsu, says the first fault was in a transmission board (probably in a switch) and the second was a faulty patch lead.

“Both are easy fixed and both could have been replaced in a maximum of 24 hours,” he says.

“Telstra admitted it was a resource issue. My view remains the same, there is no cover during public holiday periods.”

Alan says it would be great if NBN Co could at least put a node in Factory Lane, then residents in that area could get fibre to the node, something promised by this Government.

While the Jennings might receive a small ex gratia payment from Telstra for business interruption, they feel it won’t compensate for the time wasted on trying to get a response from Telstra or for having no service over this period.

Alan says, “As a writer, a massive amount of my job involves being in contact with publishers around the world, interacting with social media and doing online interviews.

“I had to hot spot my phone and have had to get a large data contract because of the irregularity of the service here.”

Mrs Phillips says one of the problems is that while many people in Jamberoo can access FTTN, many of the impacted properties are only able to access satellite or fixed wireless NBN

“In the first instance, residents should discuss their technology options with their provider, however my office is also able to make some enquiries with NBN about what options are available,” she says.

“I encourage anyone who continues to experience connection problems to contact my office on 4423 1782,”

John says NBN via satellite may be available but does not come highly recommended by any local users.

Telstra was contacted for comment.