Not in command – Grove business battles phone issues

AFTER going more than six weeks without a landline across April and May, The Mex Ocean Grove finally has a landline, sort of.

Owner Aaron D’Arcy said he’d heard horror stories from businesses and homeowners as they transitioned to the National Broadband Network (NBN) and was now living the nightmare.

“We’d had a couple of emails saying we were
migrating to the NBN. I’d heard all these horror stories so didn’t want to and that was the last I heard of it,” Mr D’Arcy said.

“All of a sudden we came to work, and our phone line was disconnected. We obviously called Commander (our provider) and they said it’s going to be a week or two to get it transferred over.

“They said they’d divert phone calls to my mobile which would take another five days, so were left without a phone at all. Customers could order and book online, but a lot of people don’t check, they just make a call and if they can’t get through then that’s it.

“It’s frustrating for us and customers too, they’re getting annoyed because they can’t get through.”

After being reduced to Facebook and a call diverting system to take orders and bookings Mr Darcy lodged a formal complaint to the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsmen (TIO), in response Commander said they would attempt to rectify the situation by May 22.

“We have a phone line now, but it keeps dropping in and out on a daily basis. Prior to switching over to the NBN we never had any issues with our phone,” he said. “We are in a living nightmare with this crap and we’ve already gone through an ombudsman once to finally get connected and now we’re faced with having to do it again.”

NBN spokesperson Kasey Ellison said the rollout had been done over an 18-month period where residents and businesses had been advised to contact their preferred phone or internet provider to make the switch. She said the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsmen (TIO) report between July-December 2017 showed only five per cent (1,052) of 22,827 complaints (surrounding retail services delivered over the NBN network) were sent to the NBN to resolve.

As soon as the problem at The Mex was escalated by the provider to NBN on April 11, they sent out a technician April 12 to complete repair works to the NBN infrastructure.

“Since this time there have been no faults escalated to NBN Co by the phone and internet provider,” she said.

Ms Ellison said that if people were experiencing an issue, they needed to contact their phone or internet provider in the first instance.

“The phone and internet provider knows the ins and outs of their customers specific plan and connection and will help fix any issues once their customer has connected to a plan on the NBN access network,” she said. “If the provider is unable to find a fault within their customers premise or on the providers own network, they will escalate it to NBN and NBN will work with the provider to resolve the matter.”

The Mex joins several local businesses that have experienced difficulties including Ocean Grove’s Direct Discount Chemist and The Ruby Room Hairdressers.

Respective owners Matt Pittwood and Nikola Korsten said they’d made 20-30 calls to the NBN and their provider Telstra to resolve the issue.

Commander was unable to redirect this newspaper to anyone within Australia from their call centre in the Philippines, so provided no comment.