Telstra's BigPond managing director, Justin Milne, said in an e-mail to customers -- in which he apologised twice for the highly-publicised difficulties -- "we understand that the last few weeks will have been extremely frustrating for many of you". The carrier's chief executive officer, Ziggy Switkowski, told the Institute of Company Directors in Melbourne on Friday the company would install a new e-mail platform for BigPond by early next year "with the reliability and service characteristics of the world's best Internet service providers".
The Telstra moves come as leading broadband community Web site Whirlpool -- whose forums have proved a lightning rod for bitter criticism of the telecommunications heavyweight over the service "brown-out" -- announced plans to conduct a consumer survey "to head off the spin doctors of broadband".
The Web site's publisher, Simon Wright, said in a statement that more than 3,000 people had filled out the survey over the weekend, indicating that "sentiment was running high" over broadband Internet issues. The survey results are due to be released publicly in mid-January 2004.
Switkowski said the accelerated measures -- many of which were already budgeted --would include the augmentation of specialist help-desk resources, improvement of call-centre resources for BigPond customers and the introduction of a browser-based customer information service "which can communicate to customers at their desktops even if e-mail is unavailable".
Other improvements include simplified and easier billing processes and engines, rationalised technology design and "faster progress towards true carrier grade Internet service".
In the e-mail -- sent out in batches to BigPond customers from Tuesday last week -- Milne informs customers they will be automatically credited with two weeks of BigPond access as compensation. The customer is also offered three months' free access to anti-spam/anti-virus filters and personal firewall software, with charging only reinstated after 17 January next year.
"The swen virus and consequent "spike" in e-mail of about 25 percent was unheralded and without precedent," claims Milne in the e-mail. "We are building substantial extra capacity into our e-mail systems and will continue to expand this capacity so we can be sure that we can cope with this kind of event if it ever occurs again."
Telstra has copped a lot of criticism over the performance of its network, while other Internet service providers claim they have had little or no problem with their e-mail services.
It took 6 hours for my e-mail to reach me!
Good on you Telstra! Even your apologies reflect the lousy state of your network.