Key Points
- Optus has offered eligible postpaid plan customers 200GB of data as compensation for its network outage.
- The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman says it's had an increase in complaints.
- An industry expert says the cost of data for telcos is "minimal" because most data doesn't leave the carrier network.
When Melbourne cafe owner Theo Roussos discovered that Optus for last week’s 12-hour network outage, he says he was left speechless.
Roussos says his business suffered hundreds of dollars in revenue losses as a customer of the beleaguered telco last Wednesday, when .
He says the financial hit would have been much worse if he didn’t have a hotspot to connect to and keep operations going that day to process payments.
Melbourne cafe owner Theo Roussos says he lost about $600 in revenue in one day during the Optus network outage.
"It's a bit of a kick in the teeth," he told SBS News.
"I was kind of speechless, to be honest."
How much does data cost the telecommunications companies?
The cost of data to telcos is "marginal", says telecommunications expert Mark A. Gregory, an associate professor at the School of Engineering at Melbourne's RMIT University.
That's because most of the data is used or transmitted within the carrier network, he added.
"So when we're watching streaming services, most of the large streaming services provide what we call a proxy server on carrier networks," Gregory told SBS News.
"The data is not actually leaving the one company which is the carrier and that means that the cost to that company is marginal. There's only really a cost when the data moves from the carrier network to another carrier network.
"Data moving within a carrier network, there is really a marginal cost, you know - the cost of the electricity and equipment systems used to move the data, but really, that's paid for as part of the customer plans."
He said it’s anticipated that more than 80 per cent of data is retained within a carrier network and the rest leaves the carrier network for another network.
Gregory said in some countries, data itself had no value because it's not part of the business model of the carriers.
"So this is where we have a disconnect between countries that have moved beyond charging for data and what happens in Australia."
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Gregory said the offer of data was "insubstantial compensation".
"For many Optus customers, they already have unlimited plans with unlimited mobile plans or unlimited home broadband plans. So, you know, for those customers the offering of extra data is pointless really.
"The only way that this would actually translate into reasonable goodwill is for Optus just to reduce the cost of the next monthly bill that customers would have to pay."
Complaints to the industry body have increased
The body in charge of complaints for telephone and internet services, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, said it was experiencing a 30 per cent increase in contact to its office.
"We anticipate this demand will continue to grow over the coming weeks and have allocated additional resources to assist with the resolution of complaints," Ombudsman Cynthia Gebert said in a statement to SBS News.
Gebert said her office encouraged Optus to consider what was "fair and reasonable" for customers who contacted them.
"Some people will appreciate the offer, but more broadly, free data won't necessarily meet the expectations of consumers and small businesses who have suffered a more significant loss," she added.
Optus said it had offered customers "some gestures of goodwill" and information could be found on its site.
"We will look at the customer’s specific circumstances and work with the customer on what options we can take to resolve their concerns," a spokesperson told SBS News.
Despite the technical difficulties, Roussos says he will remain with the Optus network because his options are limited and his business has suffered prolonged outages with other networks in the past.
"But if it happens again, I'll be definitely making a decision," he added.
