bigpong NG

No, still works. Might be the local NG server has fallen over for you.
Don't bother ringing customer service, there isn't any.

It has been failing on and off for short periods lately but has been off
all day now.

don't talk to me about the service from disgusting bigpong
I have had two periods of loss of service recently, one for a week and
one a few days.The problem is not the line breakdown they were weather
related. the first week problem was exacerbated by telstra sending a non
local team of asian people to work on it in a storm who connected things
wrongly which had to be rectified by the local techs.(found out by a bit
of surreptitious detective work)
The main problem is telstras phone method for customers to get in touch
with them. The first instance cost me over $110 dollars to discuss the
fault because I did not realize that 1300 nos. on a cellular phone was
timed calls and their stupid system kept me hanging on for ever, if it
had been a telstra cell phone they would have wiped cost I found out
later but it was optus. They should have asked my if I was using a cell
phone and rung me back.
The next time the line failed I tried to get telstra on the mobile and
was going to get them to ring back but they said I was on a queue and
would be 9 minutes.
So i drove round looking for technicians in a van which I found after
some detective work to find unmanned exchange and they told me there was
a fault they were going to start work on
The next day I drove fourty klm's to the nearest telstra shop and
reported fault from their phone to save costs on my optus phone.(fuel
costs cheaper than phone calls holding on)

I had loads of problems when I originally signed up with telstra
involving stupid billing stuff ups which I involved the ombudsman in.
The one thing that seem to have happened is that they have stopped their
incessant annoying ring backs asking if I am satisfied with their
service (they now give me one sms to tell me what is happening)

I wouldn't touch Telstra or its cronies with a bargepole, but I can't avoid
them in the professional world because my engagers sometimes use them. Had a
case recently that went like this....

We had a connectivity failure at a site that uses a Telstra cellular router.
I called the business support line, and after we'd got a fair way with
working through the problem, the agent put me on hold while he went to check
out some stuff. Music, music, music then a voice said I was in a queue. Then
I was put through to another agent, who asked me what the problem was. I
hung up. Later, I called the line again to try to reengage at the point I'd
left off. I explained the situation to the (new) agent, who asked me whether
I had a ticket number - I hadn't been given one. She then took some details
and asked me to hold, more music, music, music. I didn't wait for the
inevitable queue.

Obvious failures in process.

Where I have moved to telstra is the only broadband option so I am stuck.
And for the last day or so bigpong NG wont connect,it seems to be local
because it works for others.
I don't know how to report it as I am sure every indian call centre
person won't know what a news group is.

All the telcos are as bad as each other. I have had poor support from
all of them and did the complete loop back to Telstra. I consider Optus
to be worse. The so-called 'technical support' people have no technical
knowledge at all and are completely unhelpful.
I wonder who will maintain the copper network once it is flogged to NBN?
It can only get worse, since it will become a legacy system. I suspect
that NBN will be just as bad though, with no possibility of getting
through to technical support at the network level.