| Type | Product of Telstra |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telecommunications / Media |
| Founded | 1996 as Telstra Corporation |
| Headquarters | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
| Key people | Greg Winn Group Managing Director |
| Services | Internet service provider News Online Television |
| Employees | 10,500 (2007) |
| Parent | Telstra |
| Website | bigpond.com |
BigPond is an Australian Internet service provider and is a product of Telstra. BigPond is Australia's largest ISP and based in Melbourne.
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In 2007 a survey of 14,000 people by PC Authority magazine found BigPond users rated poorly for customer service, and less than a third considered their service value for money. However, BigPond argued that the survey's structure had encouraged people to provide extreme opinions.[7]
The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) reported 14,692 complaints against Telstra BigPond for the period 1 January 2009 - 31 March 2009.[8] This reflected 47.5% of all complaints against all internet service providers reported to the TIO in Australia in that period. Customer Service, Complaints Handling, Faults & Provision accounted for 8,103 complaints in that period.
BigPond uses offshore call centres to provide most of their technical support. The Technical Support 133933 number connects through a VoIP line to support staff mostly based in The Philippines.[9] Technical Support officers have limited ability to resolve issues and cannot refer any issue to a Complaint Handling Officer or Customer Advocate. If the support call relates to network issues the Technical Support team cannot take any action to resolve the problem.
In November 2009 Telstra chief executive David Thodey promised a "new Telstra" which will be much more responsive to its customers in a bid to improve the telco's corporate reputation, stating that the new mantra at Telstra would be "customer service, customer service, customer service", and announcing increases in speed and data allowances for BigPond customers.[10]
Telstra BigPond owned and operated a number of virtual islands in the online game Second Life[11] for approximately three years. Bigpond closed its Second Life presence in December 2009.[12]
GameArena is the name of BigPond's free online games service, previously known as Wireplay. The service is managed by Mammoth Media and based on the east coast of Australia. Use of the file library, public servers and booking service is freely available to anyone, but provides specific advantages to Telstra customers such as preference in downloads and unmetered usage, as well as various bonuses in competitions. In order to gain access to a majority of game servers, the client The Arena, must be installed to connect through the firewall. This means that GameArena administrators can ensure troublemakers are consistently dealt with.[13]
The site provides news, downloads and servers primarily for the PC, and Mac, though it has recently also branched out to include console sites. GameArena also provides an online game shop GameNow, which again sports various benefits to BigPond customers.[14] GameArena recently went through a new shift with the merging of GameNow and Gameshop into itself. The new name is simply BigPond GameArena.[15]
GameArena currently operates over 100 gaming servers, which are monitored by a volunteer force of administrators, known as GameOps. GameCreate is a service offered free of charge where users may book a server for a specific game for a 2 hour period of time. This server is private and can be used for either ladder training or social events.[16]
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