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-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from ZDNet Australia. --------------------------------------------------------------
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Telstra announces BigPond e-mail compensation plans By Iain Ferguson, 0 October 17, 2003 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Telstra-announces-BigPond-e-mail-compensation-plans/0,130061791,120279877,00.htm
Telstra plans to credit its BigPond Internet customers with two weeks' free BigPond service and three months' free usage of its anti-virus, spam filtering and firewall products as compensation for extended e-mail delays attributed to a spam-generating worm. Telstra's chief executive officer, Ziggy Switkowski announced the initiatives at a press conference late Friday afternoon at which he acknowledged the frustrations of customers and the performance of the BigPond service had "not been up to the standards expected" by the telecommunications heavyweight. "Telstra apologises for any inconvenience caused," Switkowski said. Telstra officials said the mail distribution systems had been up to speed over the last couple of days, but acknowledged that customers would see e-mails "dribble through" over the next couple of days. They should be back to normal by next week, BigPond boss Justin Milne said. The carrier said it would hold a new round of discussions with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) -- whose office told ZDNet Australia this week they had urged the carrier to provide customers with a rebate of BigPond access fees and would examine claims by small business customers of economic loss -- early next week. The carrier said it believed the measures were an "appropriate response at this stage" and said it would engage in "active and open dialogue" with the TIO over the issue. Switkowski said the additional e-mail traffic generated by the worm was "in the 20 to 30 percent range" higher than the average daily traffic of around 8.5 million e-mails per day. The carrier would have added 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. Switkowski said in a statement "customers will automatically receive [the] credit and free security services so need not request that of us. Customers will need to visit the BigPond homepage in order to activate the free security services."
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