LIVID residents who blame “botched” NBN installations for their ongoing Telstra outages fear the city could plunge into turmoil when the service is fully rolled out.
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Mixed-up landlines and fickle internet connections have become commonplace for Estella and Boorooma locals since the highly-touted broadband network was officially turned on.
Estella resident Gavin Arnold accidentally “adopted” the phone number of Chris Heazelwood, who was featured in The Daily Advertiser last week with his Telstra “horror story”.
Mr Arnold worries about the potential for emergency landlines to be “misplaced” as more and more installations are carried out.
“What’s going to happen when they roll this out across Wagga and you have local businesses – possibly even police and hospital lines – all getting mixed up,” he said.
“If this affects any emergency services, it could cause a great ton of stress.
“I’ve seen it first hand after becoming the new owner of several local landlines, where we’ve even had government agencies start to disclose peoples’ personal information to us.”
The frustrated Telstra customer said he has also lost access to his internet since he flagged the issue over mixed-up landline numbers.
“Every single time I call Telstra to try and get my internet back online, they express their sympathies but just seem confused and have no idea why it’s disconnected,” he said.
Charles Sturt University’s Marg Chris, who had the NBN installed on June 9, said the outages she experienced afterwards threw her studies into jeopardy.
“We had no internet for a month as there was an issue from their end and then they cut our phone,” she said.
“We even made a complaint as I’m a uni student and we do 70 per cent of our work online.”
The Daily Advertiser contacted Telstra in regards to Mr Arnold’s complaint, who then investigated the issue and gave the following statement.
“We have diverted Mr Arnold’s services to his mobile so that he now has a working service and we are working with NBN Co to resolve the issue as quickly as possible,” it said.
“Unfortunately when Mr Arnold’s services were migrated to the NBN the incorrect number was assigned.
“We do not have reports of any broader issues but if there are customers experiencing any problems with their services, we ask they contact us.”
