VHA sets up task forces for network problems

National test regime.

Vodafone Hutchison Australia has formed an undisclosed number of "task force teams" to resolve capacity issues affecting its network.

The telco's customer service director Cormac Hodgkinson blogged yesterday that Vodafone was also running a national test regime to "evaluate the performance" of the 3G network.

He said that approximately 141 base station sites would be upgraded or added to the network by March, as part of an upgrade announced in October last year.

"A number of task force teams are working to continue to resolve the current network issues which have been affecting some customers and we are monitoring and testing the network across the country to evaluate its performance," Hodgkinson said.

"While signs are encouraging, there are some customers who may not be experiencing these benefits as yet, and we will continue our program of work to ensure that customers see improvements over time."

He claimed that network performance was "improving".

"We're confident that things will only get better as we continue to roll out extra capacity across our network, throughout 2011," Hodgkinson said.

Vodafone initially blamed a "software fault" for weeks of data browsing issues on its 3G network in November.

However, customers have continued to complain about the service on the Whirlpool broadband forums and on a website set up to table the issues called Vodafail.

The telco was forced to apologise for its handling of the situation but has shed little light on the root cause of the network issues.

Vodafone also faces a potential class action from disgruntled customers. About 9,000 customers had registered interest, according to the law firm leading the suit.