Telstra has borne the brunt of an Australian Consumers Association (ACA) broadband satisfaction survey which supports its view that ADSL providers haven't been delivering on promises.

More than a quarter of about 200 respondents to Computer Choice's recent online poll, 70 percent of whom subscribe to cable through Telstra or Optus and 26 percent to Telstra's ADSL, said they were dissatisfied overall with their broadband Internet connection, with significant differences between the two technologies and providers becoming apparent.

ADSL subscribers are significantly more dissatisfied with their Internet access than cable users, with almost half saying they "often" experienced technical problems, whilst 43 percent of Optus cable respondents said they never experienced any difficulties. Almost half of participants with ADSL also said they were "very dissatisfied" with the technical phone support they had received, with one respondent commenting, "I tried for three days to contact Telstra's ADSL support team without any luck".

Twenty-two percent of ADSL users said they were "very dissatisfied" with the speed of their connection and 30 percent said they'd experienced billing problems "often" or "fairly often".

"Telstra's ADSL broadband Internet service is billed as its 'latest exciting high speed Internet technology [that] allows you to experience the mind-blowing Internet performance you have been waiting for'. With hype like this it's not hard to see why people might be disappointed when the service doesn't live up to its word," the Australian Consumers Association (ACA) said in a statement.

Although -teething problems" may account for ADSL's technical glitches as a new technology, they don't explain the higher levels of billing problems and dissatisfaction with telephone support, according to the ACA.

"There has been a lot of promise," ACA telco analyst Charles Britton told ZDNet Australia, -but I certainly don't think they've [providers] been living up to their expectations in the eyes of the users".

-It's not only Telstra, the whole broadband industry has oversold and under-delivered to date...they need to get their acts together," Britton added.

Telstra dismissed the survey as a -very, very small sample of customers taken from a base of about 100,000 broadband users".

Telstra blames its network problems on a third-party supplier and in an about-turn last month offered customers an ex-gratia credit of 100 percent of their July bill and 50 percent of August and September's. -We really are working around the clock with our supplier to make equipment more robust," Telstra retail public affairs manager Kerrina Lawrence said.

Lawrence also pointed out that Telstra has recently installed a dedicated BigPond technical support telephone number (13 39 33) in an attempt to re-route some of the incoming calls to its general BigPond inquiries hotline. In this way -I think we've acknowledged customers' concerns," she said.

As to whether or not the telcomms giant has hyped up a service it has been unable to provide, Lawrence said: -I understand customers might see the advertisements in this way."

Bearing all this in mind, the ACA's Britton says DSL is a -very big ask" and it's a wonder it works at all. -It's marvellous technology in many respects but it's pushing the envelope of what the copper can do," he said.

Consumer products need to -work out of the box" he said. -The bottom line is people don't want compensation or a helpdesk, they want it to work," Britton said.

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