The move comes as the nation's dominant carrier, Telstra, counts the cost of damage to its infrastructure in the fire-ravaged Australian Capital Territory (ACT), including repairing a fibre-optic cable damaged by rodents panicked by the blazes.
Both Telstra and the nation's second-largest carrier, SingTel Optus, have offered packages designed to ensure residents affected by the fires can continue to secure access to telephony services. The bushfires, fuelled by searing temperatures and high winds, destroyed at least 368 homes and severely damaged hundreds more over the weekend. Vital infrastructure, including sewage treatment plants and power stations, were also badly damaged by the blazes.
Telstra's corporate affairs manager, Tim Scott, told ZDNet Australia he believed more than 4,500 customers have been directly impacted by the fires.
"We've had around 2,000 people report faults, and another 2-2,500 evacuated from their homes," said Scott. He said the biggest problem faced by Telstra was the loss of power to its base stations. At 6am today ACTEWAGL, which supplies electricity, natural gas, water and sewage service throughout the ACT reported that five percent of residents were still without power.
The relief package enables Telstra customers who have lost their fixed telephone service during the bushfires to receive free call diversion from the customer's fixed line to another fixed or mobile service of their choice, irrespective of carrier. These faults should be reported on 13 22 03.
Affected customers can also have one Telstra mobile per household charged at fixed line rates for local and STD calls, to avoid being disadvantaged by the increased use of their mobile phone while their fixed line is down.
Four caravans have been located at the evacuation points as mobile Telstra offices, and will also provide phone lines for people to remain in contact with family and friends.
An Optus spokesperson said customers who had lost their fixed line can apply for a free pre-paid starter kit and mobile phone, by visiting an Optus store or calling a service line on 1300 300 937. Emergency service personnel and volunteers can also call the service line to avoid being charged for using their mobile during the crisis.
On Sunday the fires had knocked out 18 Telstra mobile phone base stations, but Telstra has fixed all of them and is adding extra capacity to deal with increased mobile traffic, according to Scott. He pointed out that traffic has been swelled by the emergency services effort.
A dozen base stations were taken out when rodents, panicked by the flames, chewed through a major fibre optic cable in a frenzied attempt to escape the fire.
The total impact of the bushfires on the telecommunications infrastructure in Canberra is still unknown, as many places remain off-limits. However, Telstra expects widespread destruction to surface infrastructure, such as telephone lines sharing poles with power lines, in the affected areas.
"We're not going to wait for poles to be replaced," said Scott. "We'll run temporary cables into the homes, then go in and fix it up later. Our main priority is to get the phones restored as soon as possible."
Good on the Telco's for providing help here in the guise of free phone diversions, loan mobiles and laying temporary cabling until permanent stuff can be put in.
I only hope though that in two years time we won't see Telstra advertisements advertising how soon services were restored and what sorts of nice things they did, a la the Katherine floods advertisement fiasco of a few years back.