On the 27 dec 2012 I “went over to the dark side” or “sold my soul to the devil” as my missus put it. I finally caved in and signed up with Telstra for a cable bundle. We technically live in an internet “black-spot” – slap bang in the middle of two telephone exchanges so the copper wires cannot deliver adsl to us. I have relied on wireless broadband for the last 6 years. I tried all of them (except the devil) and only Three worked. It was slow but steady – best of the worst, until late last year when they switched over to the VodaFail network. Then I started dreaming of dial-up !

With 2 kids at uni I finally caved in under the pressure. The technician arrived on 9 Jan as promised but left soon afterwards informing us that the Telstra pit on the road was at maximum capacity & could not connect us. He said that Telstra will have to first upgrade the pit and that he would put in the order immediately.

I live in a small cul-de-sac with 6 houses and as far as I know only 3 houses are connected up. He said my neighbours on either side are already sharing one port.

So what does upgrading the pit mean ? A Telstra engineer comes along and plugs in a splitter/double adaptor? Or does the cable feeding the pit need to be upgraded? The latter, I imagine, would be an expensive exercise. Who knows ?? Telstra can’t tell me. A further appointment on 30 Jan was a no-show by Telstra (they had the cheek to say they did knock but nobody was home).

Countless calls to Timbuktu have proved fruitless . “We have escalated your case and a supervisor will call you” is their favourite pacifying lie. In short there is simply nobody to talk to at Telstra.

yep, it is the dark side…to be sure

Experience from self suggests you will eventually get to talk with the right person.
i.e. someone with a braincell in operation mode who gives a $^x%x takes your call and acts upon it. Then you will set.
When this actually happens?? no-one could know

They retrenched everyone who actually had some idea what was going on and have routed 90% of calls to the Philippines. The poor buggers over there are doing their best but only know as much as Telstra is prepared to tell them;no doubt.
Really can’t understand why they wouldn’t have actually established that Adsl was available at your address before accepting your application .It was always standard practice before they closed our centre down.
They would normally need a cable upgrade to achieve a connection for you if what you say is correct.Not unless there is a spare cable pair they can pull in from somewhere adjacent.Would not rely on this though.

For a while now ive had telstra cable, foxtel anda home phone so i decided to bundle them together. Expecting a cluster @&$()& of bills i was amazed at how swimmingly it went.
And when i contacted them to discuss something later on, much to my surprise the operator could in fact speak english and better still had reasonable comprehension skills. So its no surprise to me their share price has recovered, at last they have realised human capital is equally important as replacing the copper network

Telstra Lying Bastards

Telstra …... got to love them.

Telstra Lying Bastards

Telstra …… got to love them.

http://www.golflink.com.au/...
2012 Rotary Ambrose Champions “All Star Team” Member.
LD Champion – Growling Bog ’11, A Grade WV ’12, Bendigo ’12.
Albatross – 3rd hole Par 5 Beaconhills 19-11-2012 3W-6 iron.

So you’re redirecting traffic to your old thread.

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

Good news: someone actually came out and gave you a valid, reasonable and technically correct reason why you cant get connected to ADSL or Cable.

Bad news: unless you are part of the proposed NBN roll out for dark fibre, you are never going to do better than wireless.

Roll on NBN…. eventually

Telstra saga update :

Telstra eventually emailed me to say that it would be too expensive FOR ME if they had to upgrade the pit and I should find a contractor to do it for me at my own cost.

The facts :
I live in a cul-de-sac with 6 houses with no more than 3 connected to the Telstra broadband cable.
The technician informs me the pit is at maximum capacity.
The conclusion:
Telstra under-designed the pit.
The result :
I must pay to fix Telstra’s incompetence.

I spent 1hr 15min on the phone on Sat to cancel the order (placed on 27 dec 12).

So it’s back to expensive wireless broadband. I’ve filed a complaint with the TIO but am not holding my breath.