Australia's Telstra hit with $0.5m fine

Australia's telecommunication giant Telstra has been fined 510,000 AU dollars (454,100 U.S. dollars) by the Australian communications regulator for failing to meet customer service targets for timely new urban landlines connections, local media reported Friday. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said Friday that Telstra had not reached ACMA's 90 percent benchmark, with 88.6 percent of timely new connections during the 2012/13 financial year. The regulator said it took into account that the company's network was affected by a number of extreme weather events and Telstra's performance had since improved with a great effort. In a statement, Telstra said damage to the company's network from a string of natural disasters impacted its ability to connect new customers during 2012/13. "We aspire to get this right every time. Unfortunately, sometimes we don't live up to this goal and circumstances beyond our control impact our ability to do so," the company said. "Last year, we faced unprecedented damage to our network from natural disasters. We fixed more than 1 million faults for our customers and a number of events, such as the Queensland floods, Tasmanian fires and Warrnambool Exchange fire, placed great strain on our network and resources across the country."