Thursday
The Advocate did ask the Telstra media team whether customers who lost service would be compensated, get a discount or credit on their account as well as whether there was any provision for those who are with other service providers.
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The question was not answered in their response, but the Advocate is advised household and business customers of Telstra should contact Telstra – or their service provider - to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Wednesday
We’re back online! The affected ADSL services were restored on Tuesday night.
Telstra says the problem was a complex technical issue in the transmission from Orange to Forbes.
The Telstra spokesperson said some ADSL services were impacted.
“Technical teams worked to fix the issue and restore services around 9.20pm last night,” a Telstra spokesperson said.
“We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience caused.”
Tuesday 10am
It seems Forbes is still offline. The Advocate has this spoken to several of the business people affected by the internet outage since last Tuesday and nobody’s services have been restored.
Telstra has informed Mr McCormack’s office that crews are working in Forbes and Orange and they estimate services will be restored on Thursday, May 4, but hopefully sooner.
Monday 4pm
Frustrated Forbes business people have been assured the internet services they have been without since Anzac Day will be back up on Monday evening.
A number of people whose businesses have been offline since last Tuesday met Minister for Small Business Michael McCormack at a short notice meeting on Monday afternoon.
After their service providers could not say when services would be restored, they were advised by Mr McCormack that Telstra said they should be operational by the close of business that same day.
Business owners said they had already heard that this week. In fact, on Monday at least two of them received phone calls to say their services were up and running … only they were not.
Mr McCormack said there had been a hardware issue that was fixed on April 29, but further hardware repairs had to be made and then there was a programming issue to sort out.
It is unclear how widespread the outage is, but six businesses were represented at the meeting with Mr McCormack.
The Advocate received phone calls from two local businesses on Monday morning and then asked our Facebook followers if anyone else had been affected.
Businesses in Oxford Street, on the Orange road, the length of Lachlan Street, Parkes road (Newell Highway), Templar Street and Union Street commented.
Craig Dwyer from John Davis Motors Forbes said their business had had no phones, EFTPOS, email or internet.
Pharmacist Peter Brown said the outage had affected also affected Medicare claiming and the availability of drug information at the Bernardi’s store location (Rankin Street premises is unaffected).
Matt Hazell, Hazell and Field, said they were running from a mobile broadband USB.
Mick Roylance from Blue Sky, also affected, said it seemed “incredible that it’s taking so long to fix.”
Others added on the Advocate Facebook page that there had been no internet service in Farnell Street, Stonham Street, Windsor Street, Edward Street, Margaret Street, Landrace Road, Bogan Street and Farrand Street since the same day.
A Telstra spokesperson told the Advocate they had technicians working to fix the issue as quickly as possible.
“We apologise to our customers for disruptions they may be experiencing to their ADSL service,” the spokesperson said.
Mr McCormack said he had passed concerns on to Telstra.
“Businesses have to have connectivity,” he said.
