The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman's office told ZDNet Australia today the mediator viewed Friday's settlement offer -- in which the carrier said it would provide two weeks' free access to BigPond users as compensation for the problems, blamed on an spike in traffic caused by a spam-generating worm -- as "a pretty reasonable effort".
However, a spokeswoman for the TIO said "if the problems still continue, we might expect [Telstra] to revisit them".
The comments came as a disgruntled Telstra user posted a notice on broadband community site Whirlpool calling for people to contact him if they were interested in participating in a class action over the service difficulties.
The TIO still has the power to make awards to small business for economic loss suffered as a result of service problems should complainants not reach agreement with the carrier in question. These can reach up to AU$10,000, while the TIO can also make recommendations for awards of up to AU$50,000. However, a Telstra spokeswoman urged small businesses with claims to contact the carrier in the first instance to seek resolution.
The spokeswoman told ZDNet Australia the carrier's accelerated capacity planning had come into effect over the weekend and the difficulties which had plagued the sending and receipt of e-mails had largely been overcome. The large backlog of e-mails held due to the difficulties were gradually being distributed to BigPond's 1.5 million-strong customer base.
However, e-mails sent via other Internet service providers' mail servers were continuing to come through slowly, providing further evidence BigPond was not the only Internet service provider affected, she said.
Telstra convened a press conference late on Friday at which it said BigPond customers would receive two weeks' free Internet access to compensate them for the difficulties, as well as the offer of a free trial of BigPond virus and spam filters -- together with personal firewall software -- for three months.
Telstra's spokeswoman said upwards of 6,000 customers had opted to undertake the trial since it was announced.
The carrier said on Friday it would add around 30 percent additional e-mail server capacity by the end of the weekend to accommodate the problem. By the end of the calendar year, the carrier planned to have doubled the capacity available at the start of this month.
Marketing proposal for tel$tra.
1. Disrupt essential service and blame the bogeyman (Virus).
2. Offer rebate for service (which you couldn't use anyway) and give a 3 months free service for something that should be free anyway.
3. Start charging for new service.
4. See Revenue go up.