Regional Internet Service Provider, Austar has suffered a major outage in the Northern Territory, with customers in the Katherine area unable to access email for up to five days.

However, one remote customer claims the service has experienced intermittent problems since the beginning of January, in which time he has only been able to access email four times.

"I have been unable to access the Internet through EISA/Austarnet's top end server at Katherine NT since the beginning of January," an Austarnet customer told ZDNet.

"The email service in the Katherine area "was down for over five days, there were a number of problems with the hardware," a company spokesperson said.

The service was restored on Monday.

Austar acquired full access of the Eisa network in the Northern Territory last October, which is now called Austarnet.

Austar says that since taking over the network, "there has been a number of technical problems," in which it has failed to live up to expectations - and deliver an acceptable service to regional customers.

The ISP says that due to technical problems associated with the POP (point of presence), it's planning to shut it down in the coming weeks and replace it with more "state of the art" equipment.

Customers however, are laying the blame with Austarnet.

"Ever since Austar has got involved, the Internet service in northern Australia has been going downhill at a bloody fast rate. Nobody wants to deal with regional Australia."

Austarnet told ZDNet it is a regionally focused company, which is trying to do its best to provide a better service for customers.

"There will be a waver of charges [to those which have been effected], and possibly one month's free access," the spokesperson said.

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