CONCERNS have been raised some parts of Morwell were contending with slow and interrupted connection speeds.
Morwell resident John Ellingham has expressed frustration that, despite confirmation from his downstream internet provider that Telstra’s Morwell exchange was suffering major congestion, Telstra has refused to address the problem. Mr Ellingham said his home internet access had slowed to a speed not much faster than dial-up broadband.
“Just recently it took me 29 hours to download a five gig file,” he said.
Mr Ellingham said he suspected parts of Morwell’s Bridle Estate would be experiencing similar problems, but despite numerous attempts to “seek explanations from Telstra” he had been unable to secure a response.
Written correspondence from Mr Ellingham’s provider confirmed the service was “listed under Congested DSLAM” but subsequent efforts to obtain a “restoration” timeframe had been unsuccessful.
In a letter to Telstra, Mr Ellingham said he understood the Morwell exchange required “additional hardware in order for it to function at anything near a reasonable speed”.
Mr Ellingham was directed to his downstream provider but pointed out to Telstra he had already approached the provider and was advised the problem lay with Telstra.
Telstra Country Wide area general manager Loretta Willaton denied the Morwell exchange was congested but said “what we do find from time to time is we will see peaks – or high volumes of network traffic – where customers will experience a slow down”.
She said peaks were recorded at different times of day but the problem was not related to the exchange but rather excess demand on smaller networks within the wider network.
