Asked whether they had been affected by an e-mail or Internet service glitch in the past year, 78 percent of respondents said yes, while just 22 percent said they had experienced non-stop service continuity.
The result, garnered from more than 500 responses, comes during a relatively bad year for the ISP community - vendors and users alike. ZDNet Australia alone has reported on almost 50 Internet and e-mail service problems in the ten months to October.
No single carrier, however, can wear the blame for what the industry watchdog calls a -major problem", with Telstra, Dingo blue, Optus@Home, OzEmail and iPrimus all experiencing technical glitches during the year.
This is little comfort to the user community, however, with many ISP customers vocally expressing their anger at what some have described as -constant dropouts and network failures".
-Dingo Blue's customers are leaving. An associate had had enough of signal drop outs/ kick off's - sometimes 25 a day," one user told ZDNet Australia. -So he rang DB to cancel his Internet service to be shut off at midnight that day. Well DB excelled themselves and shut him off early. Well at least they are efficient at cutting off clients' accounts. Well let's be honest, they have had plenty of practice."
-Telstra cable Internet speeds are comparable to your conventional 56K dial up modems or in other words, slow. I've had nothing but constant dropouts and network failures," another user said.
According to Australian Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, the organisation charged with receiving telecom consumer complaints and helping resolve related disputes, the growing incidences of ISP service failures during 2001 have led to a rash of complaints.
-[ISP service] access has been one of the major problems for Internet users who have complained to our office," a TIO spokesperson said. -And it's definitely an issue the Ombudsman will be paying close attention to in the coming year."
Official figures on the number of ISP service complaints made in Australia during the past year will be released by the TIO on October 25.
I find that hard to believe that 22% experienced no outages.
Are the 22% employees of Telstra, Dingo blue, Optus@Home, OzEmail and iPrimus or any other ISP, by any chance?