The outage affected mobile internet and phone reception, with businesses whose eftpos terminals were connected to the Telstra network unable to process card or digital transactions and some residents reporting dropouts during phone conversations.
Caffeine ‘n’ Machine owner Nick Hawtin said at a time when people are being pushed towards a cashless society, malfunctions like this make everyday life difficult.
“Everything is loaded onto your mobiles; your bank cards, your licenses, everything,” Nick said.
“In the old days we could have just paid with cash, but I don't think there'd be 10 percent of the country that would run cash now.
“With no mobile network, you just can't conduct business.”
Some customers, in order to access their stored card information on their phones, had to hot spot off rival networks to be able to pay for things.
Nick said since the network fault had been repaired on the weekend they hadn’t experienced any further problems, but being left without knowing what the fault was or when it would be fixed was crippling.
“It would have been nice to receive a text or something to say they’ve got a fault and can't get the parts until next week; then we can make other arrangements.”
