Telstra's ADSL network suffers several outages

Bigpond Cable has also been flakey over the last week. I have seen several outages lasting sometimes several hours and one lasted over night. When speaking with Tech Support; "oh, we've been having problems on that router, it should be ok by the morning" or "I thought that router was fixed yesterday."

Nick

Nick Hently February 27th, 2001

we're a web development company and have just installed ADSL. on our third day, it was out for several hours. you could imagine what we thought and did... switch to trusty 56k backup modem! hummmpphhh! surely a compensation would be in order.

Howard Tee February 27th, 2001

Telstra's ADSL is a commercial nightmare. I am a home user, but would not under any circumstances have ADSL for business purposes.
The authentication server was down for almost 12 hours last weekend & GUESS WOT, Tech support had all gone home! How long will it take Telstra to realize the internet is a 24/7 service.
Even after the problem had been rectified it was not possible to logon until tech support had been contacted & then cleared individual users.
I cannot believe this sort of behavour from the biggest telco in the country.
The above is not an isolated incident. Hardly a week goes by without suffering network interruptions.

Keith Styles February 27th, 2001

Not only authentication is not working, but the drop outs are very frustrating. i think that with the premium price that we are paying for ADSL, the service is not worth it. I am happy to know that ACCC is looking into Telstra's monopoly of the technology. I hope other ISPs will be able to enter the market asap.

Anonymous February 27th, 2001

Well at least there are people who can get ADSL. Since the launch of ADSL we have been patiently waiting.. we were told end of February early March. Well it finally arrived.. Miller NSW exchange was finally comisioned as ADSL ready. GREAT! we thought.. we contacted BigPond, gave them our number, they ran a test.. and said youre good to go. Days later we get an email saying, sorry but due to ythe state of your accounts, Telstra / Big Pond cannot issue you with an account. After contacting Telstra, we found out that there is nothing wrong with our accounts. Then Big Pond said.. sorry, but it seems you are on a "Pair Gains" system. Since its a new estate we use this system to split lines.

We'll thank you very much Telstra. I didnt ask or wasnt given an option for this "Pair Gains". So that means that they are only giving me part of a line? So why do we pay for a whole line? When I contacted Telstra again, and asked for a direct line to be installed without using "Pair Gains" system.. they said.. sorry we cant do that.

Mind you, my neighbour in the street parallel to mine can get ADSL. So where is the logic in that.

Marek Samulski February 27th, 2001

Well for the past 2 months I've been hooked up to Optus cable and has not dropped out once. Speed has never slowed down and between my brother and I we have never experienced a problem. Maybe telstra had better get their act together real soon. I for one wouldn't put up with paying $70 plus a month for this kind of shitty service. Any idea when other telco's will be getting adsl ??

Dave February 28th, 2001

I am a cable subscriber and there have been some very long and frustrating down times...
I have also been looking forward to getting an ADSL service for a small business but I need a static IP address... there are several other companies that offer this... (Pacific Internet, Primus) but Telstra cannot tell me when it will be available.
Not to mention the fact that if you are an ISP Telstra's ADSL ISP Connect service is more expensive than what they charge their own customers directly!

Anonymous February 28th, 2001

The same can be said of the Telstra cable network, response time is poor - unless used in the early hours of the morning. Down load speed has droped from upto 170kb down to as low as 4kb/sec in the last twelve months. Tesltra's response is that the number of users has grown over the last twelve months and I must expect some slow periods, but that is not my problem, they should have grown the network with it. Some routers on the network appear to be overloaded and taking upto 8 times longer to pass thru. The same will happen to the ADSL network. Support is poor I waited 28 minutes today with no answer.

Anonymous March 11th, 2001

Tesltra 's ADSL service is shocking, I have been having problems for the past month with Authenication errors and the system been as slow as a dog. Now I cant even get a 2kbps download it just goes so slowly it drops the connection. Dont even think about ADSL service its shitty. Dont even worry about trying to call for Tech support you wait for 45mins and then get told that the system is down which I already know... and then the stupid tech says keep an eye on the system status page....yeah great if I could actually access the bloddy thing I would......All I can say is GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER TELSTRA AND STOP RIPPING PEOPLE OFF......

Shane March 12th, 2001

I have had Telstra Adsl connected since 3rd May and if I had done my homework more thoroughly I would not have gone to the expense of having an internet system installed which in most cases is slower than using my old 28.8k modem.
If this is the type of service Telstra is going to provide then I think all the shareholders should sell up before the Australian public wake up to Telstra and everyone pulls out "en masse"
Telstras ADSL service and Tech support 'SIMPLY DO NOT EXIST'

Anonymous May 9th, 2001

Bigponds ADSL and Cable internet services suck!
Their high pricing and poor metro coverage make it impossible for other people to get either services
WA should invest in another private internet company where the public would be involved in supporting the Cable and Adsl services.

Lance Cuijpers July 14th, 2001

Have had ADSL for 2 weeks. Many outages. Dealing with Telstra is unbelievably bad. They treat the customers like dirt by blocking access via technical support to other areas excepty by email or fax. They don't return calls in a timely manner. They wont give stats on downtime. They claim to be not responsible as they claim to not guarantee any particular level of service, yet this is what they are selling. I have a log of call 7 pages long and identifying all these claims with dates, times, some estimates of down times. My kids are all frustrated (a large usage is for university assignments and contacts)

Anonymous July 19th, 2001

I here there is a class action against Telstra regarding their ADSL service, can any one tell me where and haw I can get in touch with this.

The service keeps going down an me, and last week, I contacted Telstra tech support, knowing my computer is was not the problem. They insisted I reinstall the software on my computer before they would lodge a report to check the problem at their end. I have a network and I did now want to reinstall the software. After 3 days I relented and reinstalled the software, and what a supprise, it was not my computer that was the problem, so they lodged a report to have their end checked out. The problem was found and eventually repaired. They had to have some one come back out to check my end as well. Eventually it was all up and going again. This was 6 days with out the service. My network was stuffed up and I had to have someone in to repair this problem that was a direct result of Telstra.


The world standard for users per hub at the exchange is 40. Telstra has up to 200 users per hub.

Just get it going Telstra.

Morrison Polkinghorne July 21st, 2001