Despite offering another day of free data on its mobile network, some Telstra users have reacted angrily to the offer. Users complained of serious congestion as others made the most of the free data, collectively consuming over 2,686 terabytes. This was almost 50% more than the 1,841 terabytes used on the first free data day in February.
@Telstra yep well done. Insult to injury. pic.twitter.com/8myXB5N9q6
— Sam (@ShooterS80) April 4, 2016
Telstra made Sunday a free data day on its mobile network following its latest major outage on March 17. The telco also addressed reports of congestion on the day by saying any issues were isolated.
"We are also glad to see the underlying strength of the network demonstrated despite a few hot spots where heavy users caused localised congestion. Overall, the majority of customers continued to experience a reliable level of service."
Other customers again complained about the method of compensation itself, which was free data on a Sunday. They argue it was inadequate, particularly for business customers, when the outages occurred on weekdays and also affected calling and texting capabilities.
However other Telstra customers gladly took up the offer. The user who last time downloaded 421 GB followed up on this day by going through 994 GB of data. He told ABC News (AU) that he was able to download the significant amount by downloading the entirety of TV shows Mythbusters (359GB), The Simpsons (191GB) and the Wikipedia database (15GB) among other things.
Telstra has largely not explained the cause of the more recent outages to the network. However it did say having so many devices attempt to connect to the network at once is the reason why the outages tend to last for several hours. Telstra said it is currently conducting a "thorough review of the network" to find out the root cause of the downtime.
Source: Telstra via ABC News (AU)