Touchy Telstra bullied into ADSL startup

Telstra told the council chairman on Friday it planned to introduce 200 new ADSL ports to Wollongong and the Illawarra region, boosting broadband connectivity to the area, after initially telling business customers they would have to wait until 22 November before hearing about any changes to services to the region.

The information, confirmed subsequently by a Telstra spokeswoman, followed complaints from Illawarra Business Councils' Southern IT Network that wait times for ADSL connectivity were excessive, and Telstra staff unhelpful when approached regarding connection delays.

Telstra is particularly sensitive at present to criticism of mobile and Internet services to non-metropolitan areas, with delivery of adequate service levels in regional and rural Australia named by the federal government as a prerequisite for the sale of the remainder of the nation's dominant telecommunications company.

"How do you pour millions into advertising, and then not be able provide the service, and it is not just Wollongong, there are 46 exchanges around NSW that don't have any ADSL capability," said IT Network Chair, Tim Lewis. "Despite all the advertising don't believe you can make a phone call and get ADSL connected, in Wollongong there is a month-long wait."

In an attempt to bring attention to the plight of the Wollongong business community, Lewis informed regional Telstra staff of his intention to invite senior Telstra executives to spend a day in his offices so they could experience the sluggish connectivity first hand.

"I informed them of my intentions on Thursday, and on Friday they came back to me to say another 200 ports would be available from today," Lewis said. "So for now it is a game of wait-and-see, I'm hoping to get a call today saying my port is ready."

ZDNet Australia   asked Telstra for an indication of whether 200 ports would be sufficient to clear the customer backlog in the Illawarra - however the company was unable to provide any information in the area by press time.

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Amazing how someone with clout ...Keith Styles (A very,very disgruntled user) -- 18/11/02

Amazing how someone with clout can stir the Mad Hatters in the T(H)elstra HQ. Wouldn't do for a rural community to upset the Ludite Minister in Canberra & get his boss mad at him for causing the sale to go bad!!!
Pity there aren't a few more with that sort of major stirring capability in other areas of the network. We could just finish up with an almost decent broadband system!!! If it weren't for the pricing and download caps. Major joke around the world.

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Telstra & Broadband don't ...Anonymous -- 18/11/02

Telstra & Broadband don't go together too well. It is not only regional NSW with an issue. When I enquired about getting an ADSL connection at home, the response I got was "... you appear to have an incapatible card". When I asked what that meant, I was informed that the exchange was not ADSL ready. And I live in a suburb of Brisbane, yet people in the Beaudesert shire (approx 1.5 hours Sout West of Brisbane) can get it.

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An extremly angry User. They s ...Anonymous -- 18/11/02

An extremly angry User. They should think themselves lucky that ASDL will be available ever in their area. Try living in a pairgained estate where even dialup is only 28.8k. Hell at least country areas qualify for a satelite installation rebate. Meanwhile 2 tin cans and a piece of string is better than my connection,.

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This is absurd. Why isn't Tels ...Andrew -- 18/11/02

This is absurd.

Why isn't Telstra spending that marketing money making more exchanges aDSL ready instead of telling us how good their service is? Oops, that would mean cutting marketing's funding and relying on word of mouth advertising - the same word of mouth advertising that's reminding everyone how lacking the Telstra broadband experience is.

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It's not just ADSL that doesn' ...Anonymous -- 18/11/02

It's not just ADSL that doesn't work too well either. Here in Perth our company uses a bog standard business connection of Telstra's. I'm always getting 'your connection to the server was interrupted' messages from the email servers. I of course made sure it wasn't a problem on our computer. Telstra of course insists it can't be them at fault. Ha!!

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keith your a idiot.... if you ...Anonymous -- 18/11/02

keith your a idiot....
if you bothered to read the article you would see that the customers were told 22nd and it is now the 18th,gee thats a great change isnt it..

wake up

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BRAD .... your a pretty crap ...Anonymous -- 18/11/02

BRAD ....

your a pretty crap IT manager if you dont know that if you are off a RIM then all rims will be upgraded to CMUX and hence will have adsl capability.

im in it and i know about it.

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Mr. Anon - if you're going to ...andrew -- 19/11/02

Mr. Anon - if you're going to call someone an idiot, get the metal to put your name up. There's no relief for RIM peoples until Q2, 2003.

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To Mr.Anon, Do stop hiding beh ...Keith Styles (A very,very disgruntled user) -- 20/11/02

To Mr.Anon, Do stop hiding behind your security blanket of anonymity. If you are going to criticize others, at least be honest enough to let us know your identity.
Please stop defending the indefensible. T(H)elstra has had over 2 years to get it right. They screwed up and it is still far from an acceptable product. There deployment of a technology which has been around for over 4 years is deplorable & almost childish in its endeavour. I am just one of many thousands who have had to bear the brunt of T(H)elstra's mediocre and monopolistic endeavours, so please don't try to tell me how good they ARE(n't). NO commercial organisation could have survived such amateurish attempts to deploy & market a product the way T(H)elstra has attempted to do it. Monopolies always think they can do as they please!! and to hell with the customer.
Their management, marketing and commercial organisation pales into insignificance compared to their engineering incompetance. Their billing system is a joke. It isn't even compatable with the rest of T(H)elstra and they can't even organise a BPay facility.
T(H)elstra is supposed to be our largest commercial organisation in the country...HAHHHAAAA Its only the largest because our feeble Feds protect it. It's a monopoly, protected by the government until they can sell it off. Meanwhile WE have to put up with their incompetence.

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Indeed Telstra BPay is a farce ...Anonymous -- 21/11/02

Indeed Telstra BPay is a farce to the millionth degree [And I wonder who Anon works/??? for?].

Every Single Month(bill) they change the "Customer Reference Number". How stupid! No other Biller I use does that! And they do it annoyingly as well: In the email they send to online billers, the give the text as:

Telstra Bill No.: T123456789-0
Acct No.: 1234567890

to convert this to the required bpay code, you then need to take your account no, and append then billno to it. The remove the 't' and the '-', and it should be ok.

Now you have to go off to the Telstra site with it's sily authentication to get the amount you need to use.

But there seems to be a good Commercial (ie in Telstra's favour) reason for amking it so hard. If they make it so difficult to pay by Bpay, they force ( *encourage* )consumers to use their own online billing method, for which we might presume they get a kickback somewhere, not to mention no charges from BPay.

But I prefer to be bloody minded and pay by Bpay, and just schedule it so the money stays with me as long as possible - Ha - Telstra, you won't get my 5c in interest! Or lack of Bpay charges!

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