NBN puts blame on service providers as internet outages continue to frustrate locals

Reactions tend to range from a loud groan to a burst of expletives that draw an odd look from anyone around you - until they see what the problem is and do the same thing themselves.

It used to be the service provider who would cop the blame straight away, but in recent years the National Broadband Network (NBN) has jumped to mind as the likely culprit.

However, according the NBN co itself, thats often not the case at all.

In the past three months, there has been two unplanned NBN outages in the Tamworth area.

On both occasions, the problem was discovered and then fixed in approximately three hours.

There are, of course, planned outages which appear to be making up most of the disruptions, with 15 taking place in the past three months.

But if there's an outage scheduled, then why aren't customers told about it? Well, that's a question NBN co. is also asking.

"NBN Co alerts retail service providers to all planned outages in advance of the work being carried out so they can alert customers that their service may be impacted, with additional detail on the approximate timeframes," a spokesperson said.

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"The company does its best to minimise planned and unplanned outages.

"We apologies to customers that have been inconvenienced at any time in recent months as we have undertaken these essential upgrades to the network."

NBN has said service providers, which include but are not limited to telecommunications giants Telstra and Optus, do not always pass on information about the planned outages to their customers.

While 15 seems like a large amount of disruptions to the service in such a small amount of time, the company has said it is necessary to keep connections running smoothly in a time where demand is high.

"As we did last year when COVID lockdowns occurred, we have paused all non-essential maintenance on the NBN network to minimise scheduled, planned outages and to maintain network availability as much as possible,"

"Continuity of service is of the utmost importance during this time and, as a result, we need to continue with essential maintenance work to improve capacity, fix performance issues or resolve incidents in the network.

"Wherever possible we seek to schedule these necessary upgrade works at times that will minimise disruption to customers, however some work will need to be conducted during daylight hours for occupational health and safety requirements."

Not all outages are on NBN's end either, with some problems spawning as a result of an error with service provider equipment.

Telstra and Optus were approached for comment, but are yet to respond.

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