Some ADSL customers with 144 in their IP address began notifying Telstra in July this year that they were unable to send data files in a peer-to-peer (P2P) connection to recipients within the same distribution or geographic area.
Only getting a handful of calls a week from affected customers, Telstra said it hadn't been -a significant worry for us to escalate it beyond a low-fault impact" but has been working with its supplier, believed to be Hewlett Packard, on the problem.
The problem has since been identified as a software bug which blocked a router, preventing an IP address from being able to switch and connect to another party in the same geographical area.
Telstra's supplier provided a software solution to the network in Melbourne yesterday, which the telco claims has resolved the issue in Victoria, South Australia, Northern Territories, Tasmania and Western Australia. However, it's been difficult to establish what the issue was because most customers have 144 have in their IP address and only a handful have reported problems, the spokesperson said. "We haven't been able to locate it as a universal problem," the spokesperson added. -It's been a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack."
Telstra is currently overseeing testing of a solution for NSW, Queensland and ACT, where different hardware is used, and its target for the upgrade is next week.
ZDNet Australia was notified of the issue by a disgruntled customer who claims to have been having problems for the last three months and to be seeking compensation from the telco giant.
The dissatisfied user claims that when he contacted Telstra's technical support team he was told it was a "bug" in the Telstra ADSL network, which had in fact been broken for several months. The customer support representative -could not say exactly what was wrong, or when it would be fixed just that...it's 'broken'," he said.
Whilst fairly standard Internet applications, such as browsing, downloading and sending e-mails don't appear to be affected, the Telstra spokesperson conceded that it must have been -an extreme nuisance and frustration that he couldn't achieve what he set out to do with P2P connections".
Telstra, which said it's fairly confident that impacted customers are limited, will consider claims for compensation on a -case-by-case" basis. -How many have been affected I don't know, but it certainly hasn't affected everyone," the spokesperson said.
Although Telstra has had to back out of a fix for the problem made by is supplier once already, due to fears that it could have a -detrimental impact" on the rest of the network, -I believe a fix is in place to resolve it now," Telstra's spokeperson said.
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