After another three days of complete mobile black-out in Manilla, the local action group says it has been “forced into a corner”.
The group – made up of residents and business representatives from the town northwest of Tamworth– is set to take the issue up with the Telecommunications Ombudsman.
This latest Telstra crisis comes on the back of seven months of mayhem in Manilla, that has also included a two-week mobile black-out late last year, before another three-day mobile outage a month later.
Then a three-day internet outage earlier this year followed, as well as plenty of other issues in between.
Going to the Ombudsman is one of only two options left to get the town up to speed, according to Manilla Action Group chair Paul Adnett from Adcorp Computers.
He is also demanding that local MP and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce step up to force Telstra into action.
“Enough is enough,” Mr Adnett said.
The latest incident initially saw Telstra estimate the issue would be fixed in eight days, until a frantic call to the office of Mr Joyce saw that reduced to three days.
“We shouldn’t have to go to the office of the Deputy Prime Minister just to get a working phone – it is a basic service,” Mr Adnett said.
“The major fault is in Telstra’s outlook on regional and rural areas and Barnaby Joyce has the power to fix it.
“Telstra aren’t meeting the criteria set out in the rural and regional service agreement.”
A Telstra spokesperson once again apologised for the disruption, claiming it was a hardware issue.
Meanwhile, Mr Joyce has said the issue does need to be addressed, although pulled up short of saying that Telstra have broken the agreement.
“We know this has been a great disturbance to business, we have conveyed that to Telstra a number of times and will continue to do so,” Mr Joyce said.
“I'm not going to make a statement about whether they were in their licensing agreement or not, but what I can say is that Telstra is very responsible for that cause.
“Telstra is a private company and therefore we have a regulatory capacity, but we don't own the company.”
