Telstra assistance package for northern NSW customers affected by flooding

Telstra today announced an assistance package for its residential and small business customers in the Northern Rivers region who have lost services as a direct result of the current severe weather and floods.

Telstra Country Wide Area General Manager Sue Passmore said it had been a challenging time for Telstra technical crews, with services impacted across Queensland and a large part of Northern NSW.

“We understand this is difficult for everyone affected and hopefully this package will go some way to help,” Ms Passmore said.

In NSW, Telstra’s assistance package is available to customers in affected parts of the Tweed, Byron, Kyogle, Clarence, Lismore, Richmond and Coffs Harbour Local Government areas.

Customers are encouraged to call Telstra on 132 203 (press option 1 and enter their full home phone including area code) to report a fault and register for the assistance package if they have had to evacuate their home.

Telstra's relief packages are determined by the nature and scale of the specific event and include:

• Free call diversion from an affected Telstra fixed phone service to another Australian fixed or mobile service of the customer's choice, regardless of the carrier
• Customers who use the free call diversion service to divert their affected Telstra fixed phone service to their Telstra mobile service, can also make local and STD calls from that mobile service at fixed line rates, in accordance with their selected HomeLine or BusinessLine plan
• Affected Telstra mobile customers who do not have a Telstra home phone can receive a one off credit to the value of $100.00 inc. GST (limited to one mobile phone per Telstra mobile account) – this includes Telstra pre-paid mobile customers.

The above offers are applicable until network damage in the area due to the natural disaster is repaired, or while customers remain evacuated, for a maximum period of three months from the date of the natural disaster. 

Ms Passmore said that due to flooding and safety exclusion zones, Telstra technicians had been  unable to access some areas to maintain back up power and it was still uncertain when services could be restored.

“Our crews are on standby to act as soon as it is safe to do so. We will continue to monitor the situation and provide the community with updates via local media, through social media channels and via the service status page on Telstra.com,” Ms Passmore said.

“Telstra apologises for any inconvenience to our customers and assure them that we are doing everything we can to get them connected as soon as possible,” Ms Passmore said.