Telstra woes on Maggie Island ahead of school holidays
Take cash and expect patchy reception if your school holiday plans involve Magnetic Island. Telstra has blamed “vandals” for an internet outage, and 4G has collapsed too.
Townsville
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Several Magnetic Island residents are without home internet after “vandals” cut a Telstra cable - and hotspotting came to an abrupt halt for everyone when 4G collapsed too.
The double-whammy comes right as the Queensland school holidays kick off, and it’s sparked the creation of Facebook group ‘Telstra Magnetic Island residents are fed up’ which gained over 200 members in 48 hours.
A Telstra spokesperson told the Townsville Bulletin a “small number of customers” are being affected by home internet outages after “vandals” cut and removed a section of cable on the island, taking out several landline phone and internet services.
They also acknowledged a “hardware issue” affecting 4G mobile service in Nelly Bay this week.
Nbn and other broadband services are not affected, the spokesperson said, and encouraged residents to use their nbn connections to access wi-fi calling and run their EFTPOS machines.
Magnetic Island does not have fixed nbn - only the expensive and limited Sky Muster.
One unlucky resident currently being hit by both outages is Pilgrim Sailing co-owner Clare Ley, who said her home internet cut off on August 30.
“I thought it was just us so I made do, but when I started talking to others I realised a lot of people in Nelly Bay were having issues,” Ms Ley said.
“There was nothing on the outage finder. Everybody was wasting hours and hours on the phone thinking it was their issue.”
Ms Ley runs her business from home, and has been without wifi for 15 days.
Initially she continued to run her business by using her phone’s 4G connection and hotspotting to her computer, but that service collapsed too on September 11.
“It started going on and off. We’d go from 3G to 4G with one bar, to SOS, to 3G again,” she said of the mobile connection.
“I cannot send messages, and when calls come through I sit there saying ‘I can’t hear you, you’re breaking up’,” Ms Ley said.
“The school holidays are starting and I cannot run my business like I normally do, I don’t know how many people have booked and how much food I have to prepare.”
As a temporary measure, Ms Ley is now working from a friend’s home and using their Starlink connection.
Ms Ley said most people on the island were either Telstra or Starlink customers, due to the area’s remote nature.
The business owner said Telstra never informed her the internet outage was due to cable damage.
“For a communications company, they sure don’t communicate much. At first they said a technician would be out on September 4, then it became September 6, when I chased them up on September 6 they said it won’t be fixed until September 20,” she said.
“The whole time they didn’t acknowledge there was an actual issue. It wasn’t listed on their website as an outage. All I want is a bit of information about what’s going on.”
Ms Ley became so frustrated after her mobile coverage cut off she contacted the Townsville Bulletin.
Telstra told this publication about the cable damage and apologised about the 4G outage not being listed on their website because of a “glitch” and rectified the issue immediately.
“We are working to get everything back online as soon as possible and thank everyone for their patience,” a Telstra spokesperson said.
Testimonials on the ‘Telstra Magnetic Island residents are fed up’ Facebook group shows business owners are battling no reception and voicemails appearing days later on their phones.
“Tourist have left before I receive messages, which then appears like we are all sleepy island residents,” Julie Noy said.
“If it wasn’t for Starlink our business would not be able to open”, Janie Brooker said.
“Installed Starlink, expensive but the only option if you want to stream,” Ron Hocking said.
“I have missed calls and texts from work and only getting them when leaving Horseshoe Bay towards Arcadia. Sometimes even days later I get the texts or notification of missing calls. Not happy,” Mia Sweedie said.
“No ATMs worked yesterday... We will need to send up smoke signals next week. Get cash when you go to town (Townsville) if EFTPOS goes down next week everyone will only be taking cash,” Tracey Diane said.
“Council dug up the Telstra cable at the front of my house on 29/08/2024, the bloody council worker said I had to call Telstra,” Blade Pearce said.
“I’ve been chatting to them this morning as well and getting no where!!! They tried telling me it’s my device not the network! They are saying its specific to my property only. It’s a joke,” Kate Nugent said.
“I’ve been here eight years and have never had any service where I live in Horseshoe. Zero phone service in my house, so rely completely on wifi for calls etc. When the ADSL recently went down I drove over the hill to ring them. They couldn’t understand why my modem wasn’t using mobile service as a backup,” Annie Winkler said.
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