black hole

been a few sales not go through because EFTPOS has been down and then people can’t get cash out ... it interrupts the flow of our orders coming out and can take up to fifteen minutes for transactions to clear”.

Maleny had also fallen victim to poor Telstra service, including the Wood Expo in May and the Maleny Show earlier this month when the network failed. Maleny Chamber president, Spencer Shaw, said stallholders lost tens of thousands of dollars during the Wood Expo alone.

Fisher MP Andrew Wallace was present on both days at the Maleny Show, and said he had a lot of concerned residents come to him discussing the service delays plaguing the Sunshine Coast Hinterland.

“I felt everyone’s pain at the Maleny Show with poor mobile reception and I had many visitors discuss the issue with me on Friday and Saturday at the Show,” he said.

“A project is underway to expand the 4G and 5G at the Maleny base station… these upgrades will commence on 13 June and may take up to two weeks to complete.

“New coverage is also coming in the next few months for Beerwah and Booloumba under the Mobile Black Spot Program.”

Telstra did not respond to questions about the extended outage impacts or when it will be complete, but instead said upgrades could be complex.

“We’ll often do it in stages to keep the disruption time down as much as possible,” Telstra Regional general manager, May Boisen said.

“We always consider compensation on a case-by-case basis, and customers can call our front of house teams to discuss their individual situation.”

“We also encourage business owners talk to their bank about connecting their EFTPOS terminals to their NBN or Wi-Fi connection to prevent delays in processing transactions.”

Ms Boisen added: “The growing demand on our network is why we’re also progressively upgrading our mobile base stations in the Sunshine Coast region to deliver 5G as well as improved 4G services, to deliver faster speeds and higher capacity for our customers.”

In response to the Maleny Show, which suffered from poor service throughout the two-day centenary event, Ms Boisen said she was sorry if it “put a dampener” on the event.

“One-off annual events like the Maleny Show can put extra demand on our existing network and can slow data speeds and sometimes cause delays with connecting calls,” she said.

“We’re always happy to work with community organisations ahead of a big event to work out options and ensure everyone has the best mobile experience possible on the day.

“At many large community events across Australia, event organisers also often co-invest with Telstra to boost capacity by bringing in a temporary mobile base station to improve connectivity for visitors and traders.”

To seek compensation from Telstra, visit cutt.ly/jweNTHkI or visit cutt.ly/rweNYyf3 for outage details.

I drive up to Landsborough & park on the side of the road to ring customers- nightmare & very slow.

Pay staff to work in different roles

Twice the amount of time with each patients doing our job. Never in my life have I had such bad reception and for such and extended period of time