iiNet has shut down its Sydney office and most of the staff have been made redundant. The Internet service provider (ISP) was acquired by TPG over a year ago. Here are the details.
iiNet moved its Sydney operation from its swanky new office on Market Street in the CBD to a smaller premises on George Street nearby.
Lifehacker Australia understands that there were around 30 employees at the George Street office. Most iiNet staff have accepted voluntary redundancy, after only a handful of roles at TPG were offered to the remaining employees
We also understand that the Sydney team had been gradually shrinking over the past year as a large portion of customer-facing roles were off-shored to South Africa. Recently, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) released figures showing customer complaints against iiNet had skyrocketed in the past year.
iiNet was founded in 1993 in Perth by Michael Malone and Michael O’Reilly. Malone left his role as iiNet’s managing director in 2014 but remained a shareholder of the company. He was vehemently opposed to the acquisition. Malone joined the board of NBN Co earlier this year.
TPG was contacted for comment but did not get back to us at the time of publication.
Stay tuned for more developments on this story.
Comments
26 responses to “iiNet Shuts Down Sydney Office”
Not surprising.
Are you ever surprised?
Typical… For once I was actually nice to the Technical Support guy who was supporting me setting up my BYO Belkin N900. Obviously he was using a walk through he found on google but NOT once was I told because it is not the supplied modem by them that they wouldn’t support me. Alas nothing worked and now I am waiting for their stupid modem!
iiNet actually had a pretty decent internal wiki for 3rd-party modems, with decent click-throughs for a lot of them. It’s normally just more of a disclaimer to advise that they aren’t going to know the product back-to-front.
At least that was true when I was there until 9 months ago.
I was responsible for that wiki
Internode had a much better one which was meant to be migrated to iiNet
It should be obvious that you may not get full support for a modem manufactured by a different company and not sold by iiNet. It’s like buying a Toyata and expecting BMW to service it. How does that make any sense???
No, it’s nothing like you described. iiNet aren’t a modem manufacturer, they’re a service provider. How is iiNet anything like Toyota in your analogy?
Same thing happened to us when TPG reversed the B Digital/Soul Communications take over. They got some Perth staff to travel to Maroubra to train a new call centre, then a year later made everyone in the Perth office redundant.
In April this year (Announced a few days after I resigned) they closed the Camberwell office in Melbourne & made everyone there move to TPG’s Richmond office instead- far less convenient location!
Actually, the Camberwell office is still up and running. For now. There have been repeated delays on the move to Richmond. Many believe, and are hoping, that we will be next to close. No new hires in 12+ months, despite a mass exodus. Cape Town and Manila continue to expand.
Ah, I stand corrected! Like I said, they announced it right after I gave my notice, stating it would happen soon, but I didn’t follow it any further
Give it 2-3 more months and Camberwell will be closed.
The Camberwell office is still open (for now) redundancy and forced Richmond relocation hasn’t happened.
Ahhh, considering I was working at iiNet in Camberwell today, no that didn’t happen. Not to say that it won’t happen at some point.
As for less convenient location, meh, Richmond is a lot closer for me, depends where you live.
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/05/whatever-happens-the-iinet-brand-isnt-going-anywhere/
Irony.
the Sydney office were outsourced to manilla
We had a good run with most of us having been there since the Level 4 233 Castlereagh St days. Some even from Ozemail. Farewell drinks for iiNet Sydney tonight Friday 2nd December from 5pm onwards at our old haunting grounds at Sharkies and maybe Straths after.
Stratts* brah
Well it’s correct, their service is getting worse…. been with them for 10+ years.
I feel sorry for the irish guy in the ads. What will he do now?
According to an advert I heard yesterday, he is picking up hitchhikers. Maybe an Uber switch is forthcoming?
Last I heard, he was picking up strangers when they run out of petrol – how kind of him…
Does that mean internode will also leave Australia?
Been meaning to leave for some time but now they’re Australian in name only – who would you guys recommend moving to?
Any recommendations for alternatives to iinet? Been with them for years because of the customer service and now it’s terrible…
The whole takeover from tpg caused this. Likely we still have a few iiNet representatives in Cape Town that follows Malones advice to serve Awesome customer service