Telstra Wholesale has given official word that it has suspended Veridas ADSL services and is giving customers 10 calendar days to transfer services to another supplier.
"Veridas, a customer of Telstra Wholesale, has formally requested Telstra Wholesale to cease supply of services to Veridas," Telstra said in a prepared statement.
It said the suspensions were enacted to "minimize service disruption to Veridas' customers" and to allow sufficient time to switch service providers.
"To do this, Veridas customers need to contact another service provider within the next 10 days to arrange the transfer," the statement said. "All Veridas services will be disconnected on close of business Friday 6 October 2006."
Veridas provided services for an estimated 90 ISPs and more than 30,000 dial-up and broadband customers. The network failure came as a result of an internal power struggle within Veridas management, according to CEO John Russell in postings made to the Whirlpool forums.
In addition to the management rift, Russell alleged Telstra had removed ADSL line codes, effectively shutting off the Veridas network and prohibiting customers from churning to other ISPs.
"It is quite clear that Telstra, in spite of [its] denials, has put a 'freeze' on all Veridas ADSL tails," claimed Russell in a posting on Tuesday. "As a consequence, I am recommending to all ISPs and customers who use the Veridas Network, to move their customers as soon as possible to a provider of their choice, if they have not started to do so already."
Although Telstra denied allegations of disconnecting ADSL lines, the telco announced it had temporarily suspended them, enabling customers to fast churn to other ISPs with minimum cost and delay.
