FED UP residents have slammed “constant” Telstra outages across the region with some experiencing months of internet and landline disconnections.
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Business owners have been rendered “handicapped” and some locals have been isolated from distant family members because of the “dreadful” service.
It is believed some disruptions may have been caused by National Broadband Network (NBN) infrastructure works.
Estella retirees Chris Heazelwood and his wife Helen had their Telstra landline disconnected out of the blue, and without reason, days after they refused to have NBN installed.
Mr Heazelwood said it was a devastating blow for he and his wife, who are not well versed with the internet and rely on their landline to keep in touch with relatives.
“Telstra in Sydney had absolutely no idea why our phone had been cut and they transferred us to a call centre in India, looking after NBN, who confirmed it had been cut but didn’t have a clue why,” he said.
“They didn’t offer to fix it either, they just told us it might be back on in a few weeks.
“It looks like it’s time to send the carrier pigeons out again.”
He suspects his landline was cut during botched NBN installations.
“We’re treated like second class citizens because we didn’t have our NBN connected after two high pressure salesmen harassed us,” Mr Heazelwood said.
Small business owner Kaylene Blackburn said she often had to leave her home and her “unreliable” Telstra internet to file accounts.
“It's bad when you can't even pay your staff or accounts from home and you have to go back into your place of work after hours to use the internet,” she said.
“Occasionally you get a $10 credit off you next months bill, but it never fixes the dreadful service issues that they offer.”
The outages have triggered alarm bells across the region as NBN was last week activated in Estella and Boorooma.
The Daily Advertiser attempted to seek a comment from Telstra representatives but were unable to establish contact.
It comes after Telstra Chief Executive Andy Penn addressed past outages to Fairfax Media.
"Over the past few months, we have experienced some network interruptions that have impacted you, our customers,” he said.
“Telstra are deeply sorry for the inconvenience.”
