Opticomm customers lose free-to-air television and face internet outages

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Tens of thousands of residents across the country are set to lose free-to-air TV, with their fibre optic network provider Opticomm decommissioning the service. The company has blamed ageing infrastructure for its decision. And for some customers, the troubles don't end there, with regular internet outages taking whole suburbs offline.

Transcript

00:00In new suburbs across Australia, many residents have lost free-to-air TV.

00:08We moved into a smart suburb. Ultimately it was the opposite of that.

00:13Very, very backward compared to the suburb that I moved from.

00:17Definitely not smart in my view.

00:20Private fibre optic network provider Opticom has told affected customers

00:24free-to-air would no longer be provided via the underground technology that delivers it.

00:29Brisbane retiree Mike got the same letter and says for residents in his retirement village,

00:35the change was a huge blow.

00:37Particularly for those that aren't particularly mobile and can't get out of their units very easily,

00:43free-to-air TV is a vital and important part of their everyday life.

00:48And installing an antenna would require recabling the multi-storey building at a huge cost.

00:54Our general assessment of people we've spoken to would be running to a couple of hundred thousand dollars.

01:00Industry regulators say the rules operators like Opticom have to abide by doesn't cover free-to-air television.

01:07Instead, they deal with complaints around internet issues, which dozens of Opticom customers have told the ABC there are plenty of.

01:15The telecommunications ombudsman is calling for better infrastructure standards.

01:20It's obviously not working well enough for people to be satisfied with that.

01:25Whether or not they're like us and have to wait for four months to be connected,

01:29or whether or not it's the continual dropping out.

01:32Opticom says it's investing in back-up infrastructure.

01:36But until then, many customers are left offline and off-air.

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02:04a multi-storey work of plants.

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