Telstra Boss Recommends Rationing Internet Use As Network Strains Under Increased Load

toung woman surfing the net and feeling angry, screaming and being frustrated of having internet problems.
B&T Magazine
By B&T Magazine



Telstra CEO Andy Penn is encouraging families working from home to spread out internet use as a way to cope with sluggish networks.

Speaking on 7:30, Penn suggested a host of ways to ease internet pain.

“When the family is at home, if the kids are studying at home and the parents are working from home maybe don’t try and all use the internet at the same time and mitigate the extent to which you’re doing that,” Mr Penn said on the program.

“Other ideas are, you know if you want to watch a movie maybe think about downloading it overnight rather than streaming it live,” he added.

Understandably, Telstra is currently receiving an influx of of complaints and customer inquiries.

Rather than jumping on the phone, Penn suggested disgruntled users go online.

“There’s lots of ways that you can actually self-serve digitally, and candidly, right now that would be incredibly helpful because we do have issues across the industry with call centres, because while we’ve got about 20,000 people working from home in Telstra, it is much harder to have our call centre people work from home,” he said.

Telstra earlier this week joined Optus in offering additional data for customers as millions face social isolation.

The increase in Australians working from home is already exposing some of the issues are Australia’s besieged NBN.

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has issued a warning to Australians unhappy with their internet service.

“We recognise and acknowledge that remaining connected through phone and internet services at this time is more critical than ever,” it said.

“We are in regular contact with our members to understand their pandemic related customer service challenges, and working with them to understand how best to ensure consumers remain connected.”

The NBN has eased some of the pain, offering a 40 per cent bandwidth boost to internet providers.

However, this is not expected to create a noticeable change for end users.

 




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