Telstra today delivered a handful of fixes and updates to its BigPond broadband services to include faster shaped speeds, transferrable email addresses, free customer service calls and up to 15 free mailboxes.

“BigPond customers told us they didn’t want to pay for additional BigPond email addresses, which is why we’re now making them free of charge,” said Jenny Young, Telstra Consumer executive director, of BigPond customer feedback in a statement. The picture above is of a Telstra central operations centre.

Customers can transfer their email addresses “if they changed BigPond products (eg cable, ADSL or wireless broadband services)”, and returning Telstra consumers can reactivate their old email addresses. Additional service augmentations include the fact that calls made to Telstra customer service and enquiry numbers are now free of charge.

Also, a “case-managed movers program” — a dedicated customer service team — has been set up to help customers manage their communications transition when they move house. No additional costs are associated with the moving home services, although moving certain products do have existing fees.

Pre-booked weekend apppointments have been opened up for metropolitan and selected regional consumer and small business customers. The weekend call-outs accrue no additional cost and are the same as weekday service call-outs, with cost depending on the product or service performed.

“Local customer service experts”, are representatives that roam regional communities to discuss consumer issues on a face to face level. “These are on the ground experts in regional locations who can assist customers in-store and on the road,” said a Telstra spokesperson. The representative services are free.

Conusmers who exceed their monthly data allocation on BigPond Elite and Ultimate plans will be shaped up to 256kbps — “four times faster than before,” Telstra’s Young stated.

Image credit: Telstra

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1. Pete
   Posted 07/09/2010 at 3:51 pm | Permalink | Reply

   So I wonder if this will apply to wireless consumers as well since they seem to always get the shortest straw with bandwidth pricing and speed will this be the next part f the straw or will it actually finally gain some relief?

2. Phil
   Posted 08/09/2010 at 5:24 am | Permalink | Reply

   A move in the right direction! Good on you Telstra

3. Darryl
   Posted 08/09/2010 at 2:39 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Oddly enough they are saying they are doing it because thats what customers want. having experienced email issues in the past i find that odd. I worked for Telstra for about 2 and a half years and fought for an answer as to WHY they could not re-provision email addresses. I never got an answer so the only reason i could see for emails that had been disconnected disappearing or not being reusable was because it was a big money spinner. A customer loses their email address and then they would get signed up for a new contract. Dont get me wrong it didnt always happen like that but considering the amount of people who just went “meh, whatever” and didnt bother to complain or work through the issue, it would be a considerable piece of the pie that Telstra earned profit on. Good on Telstra for actually coming to the party and competeing however im still to see how they have been so hamstrung by the ACCC that they cant compete with irpimus and iiNet and their 1Tb plans for $100.00.

4. Tobias
   Posted 09/09/2010 at 9:14 pm | Permalink | Reply

   “BigPond customers told us they didn’t want to pay for additional BigPond email addresses, which is why we’re now making them free of charge”

   Genius business strategy. I guess they’ll be responding to all the customers that don’t want to pay for their internet service next.