While customers again took to social media to complain about service problems, Telstra states that its mobile network “performed strongly” yesterday during its free data day, held by the telco following a data outage in March.Mike Wright, Telstra Operations group managing director of networks, today advised via a blog post that customers had downloaded the most amount of data ever over a 24-hour period (25 hours for those living in states where daylight saving ended) on Telstra’s mobile network.
“By the end of Sunday, our customers had download 2,686 terabytes of data, which is 46 per cent more than the amount downloaded on free data day in 14 February, and equivalent to 3.4 million HD movies,” Wright wrote
“The previous record of 1,841 terabytes reached on our first free data day was surpassed at 4pm AEST. We reached the peak network traffic level of the previous free data day by 8am and stayed above that level until midnight.”
Wright, however, acknowledged that some areas had experienced congestion, noting that there were a “few hot spots where heavy users caused localised congestion”.
Telstra has suffered a number of network problems in recent times, provoking a strong response from customers via social media, having also held a free data day earlier in the year in February.
“Mobile phones and other mobile devices have become critical parts of our lives and our customers rightly have high expectations of us,” Telstra CEO Andrew Penn wrote via a blog post ahead of yesterday’s data day.
“We invest billions of dollars a year to meet and exceed these expectations and provide our customers with the best mobile experience in the country. That is why it is so disappointing for us to have let down our customers.”
