By Taylah Eastwell
Dandenong Ranges residents are fed up with receiving mixed messages from telecommunications and internet providers, with many still without access to the internet almost two months since the storm shattered the network.
Since the June 9 storm, parents and families in the Hills feel they have been left in the dark by the National Broadband Network (NBN), with lockdown 5.0 and work from home directives only amplifying difficulties.
Sassafras resident Andrew Phillips runs a business from home and has been “fighting” to have his connection restored since the storm hit.
“The NBN turned up this morning (28 July) and even after the ombudsman told them they would need a big truck, they turned up in a little van and proceeded to tell me they can’t fix it and would need to escalate it,” Mr Phillips said.
“I then got a text saying the NBN has now been resolved thankyou – meanwhile, we still have phone lines down on the street,” he said.
Mr Phillips is fed up, having been through Telstra, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and the Minister for Communications to try and have his internet restored – to no avail.
“We run a pre-sale business getting houses ready for sale. The amount of times we have had to go sit in cafes to type quotes and email clients is unbelievable.
“We are actually going backwards with getting it sorted out because now I have to start a whole new claim because the NBN closed the case when they haven’t done anything,” he said.
“They don’t answer to anybody, they seem to be a law of their own. There is no check and balance on the NBN,” Mr Phillips said.
Mr Phillips said the internet at his Alice Street home is “so poor it runs on about 3mg per second” and he does not have mobile reception at all.
“We’ve had kids home for two weeks with remote learning, one in year 10 and one in year six and we could only have one online at any one time.
“Fifteen years ago you could ring Telstra and they’d send someone out to fix it. Now, the NBN say they’ll come so we take days off work and then no one turns up and we don’t get notified,” Mr Phillips said.
Mr Philllips said Telstra suggested putting a “booster” on his house that would set him back $1500.
“I already pay my bill per month and I’m in my home office 60 per cent of the time, that’s 60 per cent of the time I’m paying for I don’t actually have any service, and now they want to charge me another $1500 on top,” he said.
“I go to Bali and have better reception than I do in metro Melbourne,” he said.
“I have two friends who have had heart attacks in the last 18 months, it’s a real worry because we have no way to communicate with the outside world, if we need help, no one will come,” he said.
Fellow Sassafras resident Belinda Young said she had been left no choice but to “pay through the nose for extra data” to work from home and allow her children to complete remote learning during lockdown.
“Some people might not have that luxury, but we fear there is no choice. We are just wanting things to be back to normal,” Ms Young said.
“With Webex and online meetings there are lots of videos and shows that the kids watch as part of their learning experience and we want to keep them up to speed with all their classmates and they want to remain connected, but without the internet it creates even more isolation,” Ms Young said.
Ms Young said she was originally told it would be a month until the internet was restored.
“We were ready for the long haul, but it started getting ridiculous when we realised other places were moving faster [with getting internet restored],” she said.
“NBN had told the council there were around 500 people up here still without NBN, mainly off the mountain. So I put a question out on the Hills and The Dandenongs Facebook page to ask how many people were still without NBN and it was quite clear there were a lot of people on the mountain still without, so NBN did not have a good understanding of how big the situation was,” Ms Young said.
Ms Young said council followed up with the NBN and they put more people on to try and get lines restored.
Ms Young’s neighbour, Jeaniene Spink works internationally from home, with conference calls and a strong internet connection essential in her role.
“It’s just totally diabolical. We had 150 people on our road on one day with vehicles fixing the electricity, that came into play almost immediately after they announced there would be financial compensation to residents without electricity. We’ve had nothing with regards to the NBN response,“ Ms Spink said.
“We are just not getting any response from the NBN, there is no direct line of communication and no clear line of communication around what is a reasonable level of compensation for being completely without the NBN for two months,“ she said.
“At what point are community members compensated for there not being an essential service connected to their area.
“Residents are set up for living in the Dandenong Ranges but there needs to be some clear guidelines of expectations around appropriate response times, what levels of compensation will be provided if they can’t meet that response, and recognition that internet is an essential service,“ Ms Spink said.
In a statement released on 27 July, NBN said its crews were “working street by street” to repair the network and single service faults.
“In some cases, customers have still been unable to connect even though their whole area has been restored. This is known as a single service fault and is reported to NBN by the internet service provider,” the NBN statement said.
With further wild winds hitting the Ranges on 27 July, NBN said it was “assessing the further impact to its network” in an updated statement published 28 July.
A spokesperson from NBN Co said last week’s weather caused further damage to the network and impacted restoration efforts.
“Crews have restored approximately 170,000 services and have been working seven days a week to restore approximately 700 remaining services as quickly as possible,“ the spokesperson said.
“We appreciate the extended loss of connectivity due to these severe storms has been difficult for impacted residents and businesses, particularly during lockdown, and thank them for their patience,.
According to NBN Co, impacted consumers should speak to their service providers in terms of options they might have under their retail contracts regarding compensation.
