A Telstra spokesperson said this morning "there may need to be some extra work" done to retrieve less than 100 Web sites still unavailable as a result of the rebooting. The carrier had originally said all Web sites involved would be available by 7am today, with only those of its dial-up customer base outstanding as of Wednesday morning. The spokesperson declined to provide details of the extra work involved or confirm that all Web sites being worked on were those of its dial-up base.
The inadvertent deletion has capped off a disastrous couple of weeks for the telecommunications heavyweight, which is continuing to wrestle with the impact on its BigPond e-mail client base of a traffic surge which has driven e-mail volumes up to 20 percent higher than normal.
The Telstra spokesperson confirmed yesterday there had been some issues reported with some Web pages on Tuesday, prompting the reboot.
"Virtually all the Web sites were deleted," said the spokesperson yesterday. "We're in the process of reinstalling them from a back-up that was completed over the weekend." The reinstallation process was commenced within an hour of the deletion, according to the spokesperson.
Telstra also confirmed yesterday morning there was no change to the status of its position on the e-mail difficulties after telling ZDNet Australia last night service levels may not be fully recovered for a few weeks.
Broadband community site Whirlpool earlier this week posted what it claimed to be the script provided to Telstra's staff when responding to customer queries about the problem. The claimed script says Telstra now had the capacity problem under control.
"Telstra is increasing capacity on the e-mail network to put the traffic load issues behind us," the purported script states. "A number of manual approaches have been put in place so that customers can continue to send and receive e-mail.
"Telstra's technical staff have been working around the clock to ensure that mail is delivered".
Only 100 Web sites still in trouble? Yeah! & pigs might fly! I'd lay odds it's more like thousands. When have T(H)elstra EVER admitted it's problems truthfully to the press or public? They lie in their teeth & unfortunately no one can contest their statements, because no one ever has access to the true figures which would clearly demonstrate their miserable performance.