Nbn puts Sky Muster loss of service down to teething problems

“With all technology there can be glitches,” she said. “We acknowledge teething problems but this (the launch of Sky Muster) is the biggest thing to happen in satellite technology.

“We’re trying to get it right. We ask people to bear with us as we get it to run at optimal capacity.”

Ms Lindsay said the South Australian blackout on September 28 had played a “bit of a part” in the problems experienced in Queensland.

“We were looking to do an update but withdrew it because of problems with the storm, and the service was back that day,” she said, adding that nbn co wasn’t aware of ongoing issues.

She said 20 people had complained of no service and said that while it was “a pain” for them, it wasn’t a critical mass, when the 32,000 active nbn Sky Muster connections were taken into account.

“I understand that people get frustrated but we have a contract with service providers – they are our customers.

“The contract says that if the providers can’t solve a problem then they escalate it to us.

“This is important because there can often be issues affecting a service that is outside of the nbn network, like equipment quality, software, broadband plans and how each service provider designs its network.”

Better Internet for Rural Regional and Remote Australia founder Kristy Sparrow said her team became aware of the issue two weeks ago when numerous reports of unexplained outages were fielded via their Facebook page, along with news that customers were having trouble making contact with service providers to lodge their report, due to the volume affected.

“Providers tell us they’re being swamped, and when our page goes into meltdown, like it did last week, we know there’s a problem.

“It soon became clear to us the problems weren’t provider-specific, and we now know a Sky Muster beam in central western Queensland was completely out

“We are frustrated that it took so long for the issue to be identified and for nbn to communicate the problem.

“While most providers offer ‘advisories’ of known outages, this outage was not acknowledged by nbn or providers, making the running of businesses, educating of children and general communication extremely difficult or impossible for those affected.”

Addressing the nbn statement that ‘only a few’ customers were affected, Kristy said if that was the case, those people could have been contacted and notified individually.

Instead, it was BIRRR, after intervention with nbn, which communicated the information it had.

“It really doesn’t matter if it’s one or 100 people affected – when it’s the only way to run your business or educate your children, and you cannot contact your provider, then someone needs to step up, be accountable for problems, and communicate much better with end users.

“If there are serious issues beyond the control of providers, nbn need to immediately own them – the endless ‘dead bat’ being played makes life very difficult for the businesses, families and children affected.”

Kristy said fast and effective responses to nbn-related issues were vital in order to reassure users.

“If there is timely advice to problems, then RSPs will not be inundated with phones calls.  Nbn needs to let the RSPs and/or BIRRR know as soon as they know it is an nbn problem that the RSP can't fix.”

She said BIRRR was negotiating with nbn as to how it might communicate nbn-specific issues better and more promptly.

“We hope nbn can see the need for a dedicated helpdesk to communicate and guide people through issues with Sky Muster, and nbn generally.

“We appreciate the contacts we have with nbn, but they must understand we represent the end-users and will continue to be their voice as we work towards much better, reliable services in rural, regional and remote Australia.”