Telstra Outage or Outrage?
It’s a fair bet many of the households who pay an estimated 40% premium* for their telecommunications from Telstra, are older Australians who have been loyal for many a year.
Perhaps they don’t like or understand the offerings of the competitors, large and small, and of which few are known for their simplicity.
The onward march of technology can leave older Australians bewildered or, they prefer a tried and trusted brand like Telstra over a less pricey newcomer.
Maybe they believe Telstra really does have the best network and customer service and it’s worth paying quite a bit extra.
But it’s a dead cert many of the 370,000 customers affected by the telco’s latest outage, will be wondering why they bother.
Until now Telstra have chosen to offer the remedy of free data on Sundays for service crashes.
Now they’ve belatedly come to the party with some cash compensation, or rather a $25 credit on your bill, but they indicated not everyone will be eligible.
And while other networks have outages, none have quite as many or as often as Telstra with four big ones this year. .
…and we’re talking about the full range of telco services affected including mobile, broadband be it cable, ADSL or NBN and the humble landline.
According to figures from the Australian Communications and Media Authority only nine per cent of Australians aged over-65 use their mobile phone for calls and most of those would be with Telstra.
The authority says more than half use their fixed-line phone the most, compared with ten per cent for the rest of the population.
So what to do if you’re fed up with the giant incumbent or merely keen to see what else is on offer?
Sadly there is no simple answer as the offerings, which typically involve different products such as calls, SMS and broadband bundled together, make simple comparisons difficult.
Morgan Stanley analysts’ mobile phone tracker* finds Telstra charge up to 40% more than its comparable rivals such as Optus and Vodafone.
It’s another idea to visit a Telstra shop or using the call centre to see if you are on the best deal from them considering your usage patterns.
There are minimum performance standards for the carriers meaning if the service does go down, it has to be repaired within certain time frames or there’s automatic compensation under Australian Consumer Law- check with your carrier.
Telstra’s Connected Seniors program can help a less technologically confident generation and in NSW there’s face-to-face teaching with the Tech Savvy Seniors partnership.
