iiNet Outage Hits Thousands

The outage set off an online networking storm, with iiNet clients venting their anger regarding the INternet connection outage with some saying it has affected their businesses over the busy Boxing Day deals period. Some have just been disconnected for a brief period while others, those mainly on its NBN service, claim they have been without Internet connection since Christmas Day.

It was initially believed more 45,000 WA-based clients were affected by the outage; however, iiNet customer service general supervisor Mat Conn said this figure was off base as it was the general limit of the line which has been affected by the issue. He said not all clients on that line had been affected.

Mr Conn said the company was doing all that it could to settle the issue but conceded there were still no concrete time allotment on when the hundreds still affected would regain connection. iiNet updated its fault page around lunchtime to say it anticipated that the fault would be fixed in a day.

Mr Conn said there was still no sign on what the reason for the fault was. Numerous web providers offer core infrastructure such as bigger subsea cables; however, other web providers such as Telstra and Optus in WA appear to be largely unaffected.

It requires time for engineers to re-route around a fault, and for the most part, it causes slower Internet speeds if or when a client is reconnected. Though clients in suburbs such as Hamersley, Doubleview, South Perth, Mount Hawthorn and Butler have been the most vocal on social media, the outage seems to have affected numerous suburbs across WA.

The company, once known for its openness and engagement out in the open forums, now has no Perth-based media agents after a wave of redundancies taking after the $1.6 billion takeover in June. It has additionally endured a social reaction over a perceived drop in customer service standards since the takeover; however, there has been no drop in client numbers to go down with the case. Before the TPG takeover, iiNet had around 1 million broadband clients Australia-wide and a reliable local following in Perth.