East Corrimal resident Loretta de Haan has spent almost a week without a home phone or internet access.
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Ms de Haan was one of a reportedly large number of Illawarra residents who lost access on Thursday night due to a Telstra outage.
It was the fourth network outage for the company since February.
The telco’s Service Status web page stated that home phone services in Corrimal were restored on Wednesday morning – but Ms de Haan said she and her husband were still waiting to be reconnected.
“My husband was again on the phone for two hours last night,” Ms de Haan said on Wednesday morning.
“He got onto someone again and it looks like we have to get a technician out now because it’s either a problem with the modem or there’s a problem between our house and the exchange because of the outage.”
I like Facebook and I’m home most days but now I’m limited in what I can do. It’s very frustrating.
- Loretta de Haan
Ms de Haan could be without a connection through to the weekend – Telstra’s Service Status page also lists “planned maintenance” for the Corrimal area which means “some customers may experience difficulties” with phone and data services.
“We can’t do any online banking or anything,” she said.
“My mobile is with Virgin and I’ve just reached 100 per cent of the data for that. So I’m going to see if Telstra will compensate me for that.
“I like Facebook and I’m home most days but now I’m limited in what I can do. It’s very frustrating.”
While the outage had caused problems for the couple, Ms de Haan said it could have been even worse.
“My husband does band photography for an organisation,” she said.
“Luckily that weekend he didn’t have to because when he does he has to upload all the photos within 48 hours of taking them.”
A Telstra spokesman said they were working with the family on their problem.
“We apologise for the issues the customer has experienced and we are working to resolve this as quickly as we can,” he said.
“We visited the customer earlier today [Wednesday] and we are testing the customer’s lines and services to determine the cause of the fault and are working to restore the connection as soon as possible.”
Telstra customers could find details on compensation claims on the telco’s website.