IMAGINE if Australia’s largest telecommunication’s company had cut off its network in the heart of Brisbane for the best part of three weeks.
You don’t have to think too hard to know there would be hell to pay, and in fact that it would never happen because of the subsequent outrage.
But Telstra clearly doesn’t mind what the hinterland and its tens of thousands of households and small businesses think.
For days now people connected to the Telstra network in Beerwah have been in a big dark black hole. No service, no chance.
In fairness, we were warned: twice. Both times with different advice and if it were to be taken on face value, would be straightforward, mildly inconvenient rolling outages for eight or six days, depending on what message you believed.
In reality it has been an ongoing debacle, almost comical but mostly a slap in the face to the area.
From Maleny’s Wood Expo and Show that brought the network to its knees (and cost stallholders thousands in lost sales let alone the inability to make a stock standard phone call) to three weeks of outages in Beerwah.
Our story this week (p4-5) shows the debilitating impact this has had and the over reliance we are forced to have on technology.
Those thinking that cash was a safe haven were sorely disappointed as ATMs failed and Woolies stopped allowing cash outs.
For those who wanted to tap and go or transfer cash to another account to make a payment, guess what, you couldn’t do either.
Last week’s survey undertaken by Glasshouse Country Chamber of Commerce underscored the very real and immediate impact the outage had on small businesses.
Whether for the reliance on Telstra’s network for WH&S or because it’s simply the most cost-effective way to make a sale, for Telstra to turn around and say, in effect, ‘whoops’, isn’t good enough.
On another tangent it exposes us all to the terrifying consequence of our reliance on technology.
Telstra’s advice is to call and explain your losses. Our advice is to stuff ’em and move to Optus.