“The number you are trying to reach is not available to take your call.”
That was the frustrating message many callers to a number of businesses on the southern side of George Street, Morwell were faced with on Wednesday.
Several business owners told The Express they arrived at work yesterday morning to find NBN Co crews working in the communication pits on the footpath.
The workmen told the owners they were conducting a planned outage, however, the affected businesses said they had not been notified of the works.
Baker and Gordon Accountants office manager Jess Boys said the company had diverted its main incoming line to a mobile but the six people working in the office yesterday were not able to make outgoing calls or access the internet until the works wrapped up about 2.30pm.
A worker for another business co-located with Baker and Gordon was sent home because she was not able to work without phone or internet.
“We haven’t even gone to NBN yet so it [the works] shouldn’t have affected us, but it has,” Ms Boys said.
“We’re with DCSI and Telstra and no one let us know about the works. DCSI contacted us to ask why our internet was down and they said they would have notified us if they knew about an outage.
“I feel like everyone is just pointing fingers at everyone else.”
Trevor Howes of Morwell Curtains and Blinds has experienced repeated issues since switching to the national broadband network with Telstra last year.
He said staff spent a lot of time on hold with Telstra and were then sent to flick switches at boxes inside the store. Mr Howes said it was disrupting everything in their business as they often could not make or receive calls or send quotes to customers or orders to suppliers via email.
The business had diverted calls to a staff member’s personal mobile phone while they waited for a Telstra technician to arrive yesterday.
Kellie Alexander owns Fish Finatics Aquarium and was also waiting on a technician from her provider, iiNet.
She said the business had no phone or internet service and she was unable to place an order with one of her suppliers.
Part-owner of hairdressing salon Shear Perfection, Angie Bomba, said, since switching to the NBN with phone company VoiceTalk last year, they regularly had people coming in asking why they hadn’t answered their phones.
“They think we have closed but it’s the phones,” Ms Bomba said.
Ms Bomba said she could not calculate how much business they were losing because of the issues.
NBN Local media advisor Kasey Ellison said technicians were undertaking planned maintenance work on George Street in Morwell yesterday which had “resulted in an interruption to phone and internet services while this important work is carried out”.
Ms Ellison said NBN was a wholesaler and had notified their customers who were the phone and internet providers of the planned works and outage period with enough time for those providers to inform their customers – residents and businesses.
