While Optus has moved to placate its own customers left disconnected for nearly a whole day during the national outage last week, companies that resell mobile services on the Optus network have offered substantially less or made no announcements about compensation in the past week.
Since the 14-hour outage – caused by a routine software upgrade gone wrong on the company’s network last Wednesday morning – Optus has made a number of “goodwill gestures” to customers, including 200GB of free data for mobile customers and small business customers and faster speeds for December for NBN and home broadband users.
The company also encouraged small business owners who had suffered a loss in business due to the outage to contact the company directly, indicating compensation may be on offer for those customers.
Resellers which sell mobile services on the Optus network, typically at a much lower price than directly from Optus, such as Amaysim and Catch Connect, have made similar – albeit substantially less – data offers to customers. Amaysim unlimited customers get an extra 60GB to use by the end of the year, and other customers get free calls and text until the end of the year. Catch Connect is offering customers 50GB of free data from later this month.
Others have not addressed the matter at all on their website or social channels. Brands such as Moose Mobile, Spintel and Dodo have not addressed the issue online, despite some customers raising the matter with some of the telcos.
“Hope you’re passing on the 200GB,” one customer wrote on Dodo’s Facebook page.
“Are we getting compensated for … Optus being down?” another customer wrote on Spintel’s page.
Guardian Australia sought comment from the telcos.
Optus’s offer of 200GB of data was met with a frosty reception from consumer and small business advocates, who described it as a “hollow gesture” and token compensation that would not mean much to people who do not go near their monthly limits while on wifi at home and at work.
The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has advised customers unsatisfied with Optus’s offer to first complain directly to the telco, and see what the company might offer to make amends. If unsatisfied, they can then complain to the TIO, for remedies that could include refunds for the time they were unable to use the service, compensation or a release from contract.
“We will take a careful approach to considering whether compensation is appropriate. The amount of compensation awarded will be proportionate to the extent of the harm suffered,” the TIO said. “It is likely most awards of compensation for non-financial loss will be modest.”
