Internet Outages

Generally, the TIO will not pursue a complaint from a residential customer about a brief, one-off outage. However, for prolonged or recurring outages determined to be attributable to the provider's equipment or actions, the TIO will usually expect a provider to reimburse their customer for the cost of any access fees paid while the outage was occurring. Additionally, the TIO will seek an explanation for the outage and, where the outage is ongoing or recurrent, find out how the provider intends to rectify the problem.

In determining what outcome is fair and reasonable in the circumstances, the TIO considers the following types of factors:

• frequency and duration of outages;
• the financial impact on the customer;
• set-up and/or ongoing fees;
• any offers made by the provider or other attempts to conciliate;
• any service level guarantees offered by the provider, such as Telstra's Customer Service Level Guarantee.

For compensation claims for alleged business loss, the TIO takes the same approach as it does for other types of complaints. Refer to Compensation for Business Loss.

Next: Mass Service Disruptions