Below is an excerpt from a piece by Suzanne Tindal over at ZDNet where an Optus claims that their recent 3G outages are normal.  This claim by Optus is completely outrageous! 

For several months now, on a very regular basis, I have been unable to use either or both my mobile phone and wireless broadband in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. Mobile phone calls drop out regularly mid sentence.  The wireless broadband disconnects every few minutes if you can get a signal at all.  

And it’s not like I’m in a rural area – the areas where these problems are occurring include:  Sydney CBD, North Sydney, North Ryde, Parramatta, Melbourne CBD, Glen Iris, South Yarra, Brisbane CBD, Gold Goast, Melbourne Airport and Gold Coast Airport.

Only last week I was in the MLC Centre in Sydney and could not get signal for either mobile phone or broadband.  As a consequence I was forced to use the wireless access in the Westin Hotel to participate in an online conference, and using Skype for other phone calls for the rest of that day.

This is a ridiculous situation.  Optus has real problems with their network that I am experiencing daily.  These problems are impacting on my ability to do business and to remain in contact with people while on the move. It is so unreliable that if I was not in a contract I would be going back to Telstra quick smart. It is getting to the stage where just walking away may be the answer. 

One thing is for sure – this is a really bad customer experience and I am sharing my experience with all and sundry. 

Note: I am an Optus customer via their Virgin Mobile brand.  The customer service via Virgin is great and it’s a pity they can’t do anything to fix the network.

Optus this week claimed the 3G mobile outages it had been suffering were normal and every telecommunications carrier would be having similar issues.

Andrew Buay
(Credit: Optus)

“There have been a few incidents — which is actually quite normal for any operator and any vendor — that the new software loads under some conditions or locations don’t behave the way you expect them to, despite having done very extensive testing before you bring them into the network,” Andrew Buay, Optus managing director of products and delivery told ZDNet.com.au this week.

“It’s quite normal,” he added.

He said there had been a lot of negative media recently on whether Optus had a reliable wireless broadband network and the level of congestion on the network, but he believed that the media had fed on itself, making a big issue out of something every carrier experienced.

“I suppose mainly because we have been in the limelight, every little thing that does happen gets a lot more visibility, but you know it does happen with every operator and network in various sizes and frequencies,” he said.