Telstra says sorry to Warradarge farmers

Warradarge farmers John and Judy Brown had their December phone bill refunded after a nearby Telstra mobile tower failed to work for 17 days over the festive period. “It was only after I’d mentioned I had rung Ombudsman and Telstra complaints — it was almost a one-hour phone call to Manila,” Mrs Browne said. However, they said the lack of service put lives at risk as people living in the 3000sqkm area or travelling the 60km of Brand Highway had no capacity to make emergency calls. Warradarge Bushfire Brigade captain Ben Plozza said he was unable to contact all of his volunteers when a pole fire broke out at a wind farm. “I was unable to notify the normal people within the coverage area of the Warradarge tower,” he said. “Luckily, the fire incident was right on the edge of another tower’s ability to pick up; we were getting some of the Eneabba tower’s signal. “That time of year is likely to be our very highest risk area. There are not so many people around, plus there is a heightened risk of fire.” Mr Plozza said despite the presence of a nearby Optus tower, even emergency calls were impossible because the Telstra tower could receive but not transmit. “Your phone would have locked on to it but you could not do a 000 call,” he said. “If Telstra had turned if off, we could have had 000 service from the Optus tower or I could have driven to the top of a hill and used another tower.” Telstra regional general manager Boyd Brown apologised for “a series of complex technical faults”. He said the problem started with a mains power outage that made equipment overheat and caused a “hardware issue”. “The fault did not totally shut down the mobile service, which was still providing service for close proximity users,” he said. “However, if a customer was not in close proximity to the mobile base station, then a call could not be made.” Mr Brown said this had an impact on all calls. “Our crews tried a number of options to restore services at Warradarge with remote resets and activations, on-site visits and replacement of equipment,” he said. “Unfortunately, it was a complex technical issue that proved very challenging for our teams. “As soon as we’d sorted one issue, then another issue occurred.” Landline users could still make 000 calls during the outage.