In an exclusive interview with ZDNet Australia , Senator Alston conceded the national carrier is the subject of a high level of service guarantee-related complaints, but defended its customer service track record.
"I suppose you need to look at it as a proportion of the total," he said. "Telstra has 11 million lines and there are about 11 billion calls a year and it receives about 2,200 customer service guarantee-related complaints a day. So you need to know how many complaints there are as proportion of the total before it becomes a problem," he said.
Claiming that Telstra has made "significant and consistent improvements" in relation to its service levels in recent years, Alston said the Government would wait to see "evidence of systematic mediocrity" before it intervened and took steps to address customers' service concerns.
"I'm not dismissing it. I'm just saying I don't think we should assume that somehow Telstra's service levels are woefully inadequate. They've certainly made very significant and consistent improvements on ordinary telephony in recent years and I think consumers will expect high standards from broadband. If we see evidence of systematic mediocrity we'll be doing something about that. At this stage though, I think it's a bit premature to suggest that Telstra is not up to scratch".
Alston's comments preceded the Government's announcement that it had postponed the sale of the remainder of Telstra due to the company's falling share price.
Keep visiting ZDNet Australia to read the full interview with Senator Alston, in which the Minister discusses broadband pricing, Australia's cyber-terrorism initiatives, anti-spam legislation, Internet censorship and his future in the Communications & IT portfolio.
The only reason Telstra ever pulls its finger out at the moment is because they are under ideal, carrot and stick incentive conditions, i.e.: they want to go fully private, so they are bending over backwards (or getting their heads kicked in by Captain Fels and Co.), and yet they are STILL getting 2200 complaints per day.
Imagine what it would be like if they were ever actually privatised, and they could just give the government and users alike the bird with near impunity?
Half of my city friends can’t get broadband, let alone my country cousins trying to get dial-up speeds above 400bps (and stay connnected for more than 5 minutes). Even those who *can* get broadband are slugged blind when they try and use it (Senator Luddite thinks it’s all just porn and games, two lame industries worth a paltry USD$10,000,000,000p.a., BTW).
Who else could get away with such beathtaking hubris but our bloved, tin-pot Telstra?