Vodafone Australia apologizes for network problems

­Vodafone Australia has issued a public apology to its increasingly irate customers over the quality of the network over the past few months. There has been a spate of complaints about network outages, dropped calls and network congestion – culminating in an attempt by a legal firm to sign up enough customers to launch a class-action lawsuit against the company.

According to Vodafone CEO, Nigel Dews, their aim is to provide their customers with an excellent customer experience and the best possible value, but recently their network and customer service performance, particularly in December and January, fell well below the standards they have set for them. He was truly sorry and apologised both personally and on behalf of everyone at Vodafone.

The company blamed the problems on growing its customer base faster than it upgraded its network to cope. The company also didn’t hire enough staff to deal with the increased customer base, an issue it expects to resolve by hiring 300 extra customer care staff.

The company has outlined plans for a major network overhaul, including the construction or upgrade of some 2,500 base stations over the next twelve months and a reported replacement of its entire Radio Access Network with Huawei supplied kit.

The company expects to spend around $1 billion on the network upgrades which will also include a provision for HSPA+ services.