Telstra disaster

[Arohanui]

i did have one of those battery packs. theyre great, but the samsung batteries(well the older samsungs) are easily removed. they cost $20 and ive got 3 . So i charge all those batteries up before going on a big sail and i dont have to worry about doing any charging while underway. Im using navionics, playing music etc through the phone so it chews through the juice.
It seems that every new bit of tech that comes out , be it computer operating systems, new phones , computers, nbn - they come out less and less user friendly.
I use an older os version on my mac computers . os10.6.8. snow leopard. I did upgrade to the latest a while back but simple features vanished. the os became unusable to me so i reverted back. Now the problem is browsers/programmes superseeding my os so im limited by this.
Ive just had no phone for the last 3 days. it is possible. what a great feeling. my clients all email me and i can call my message bank from skype to check any messages. It can be done!

[Troppo]

Update: I am using my Optus smartphone to post this so guess how things are progressing with Telstra fixing the problems they caused.

Have had no Internet and one-way phone (landline) for over two weeks and a promise that it will be fixed in a week. But out of every 7 promises, 6 turn out to be lies so I am not expecting a good result.

My wife is bedridden and relies on the phone and internet to connect with friends and family. Enormous stress for her. Health care workers, doctor's surgery etc have had problems getting hold of us. Telstra knows and is working hard to restore service. However the harder Telstra works, the worse things are getting.

Troppo

Oh, I tried to blog the whole story so far but with very limited internet on phone, not so good. Just made a basic start, got the first month up, lots more needs doing on the site. Also, even a condensed version of the first month is an epic length. Now in the 5th month of Telstra trouble, the story is book size.

Check: http://www.telstraexperience.wordpress.com

[lockie]

i did have one of those battery packs. theyre great, but the samsung batteries(well the older samsungs) are easily removed. they cost $20 and ive got 3 . So i charge all those batteries up before going on a big sail and i dont have to worry about doing any charging while underway. Im using navionics, playing music etc through the phone so it chews through the juice.

I use a cradle for my iPhone. It plugs into a cig lighter and has a connection for an external antenna.

That way the phone stays safe and dry inside the cabin, is always fully charged, and has far greater coverage if you fit an antenna.

Post-note: re the "dry" bit, one day on my last cruise I left the phone on a shelf and not in the cradle, salt water dripped on it from a tiny window leak, and it died. The hardware was not to blame, just the dopey skipper (me).

Thread highjack over.

Cheers, Graeme

[Troppo]

Update: On the 52nd day with no Internet and the 14th with no phone, Telstra has finally fixed the problem (which it created in the first place). Phone is working both ways, which is great, since before it died two weeks ago, it was only working one way.

The various letters I wrote (had to use paper and envelopes and stamps) and sent to politicians seemed to move things along a bit. Problems been going on since 30 December. Did not matter how many hours I spent on my Optus mobile to Telstra technicians, did not matter how many times they promised me the landline and Internet would be fixed, nothing was happening.

Then, Roger from Telstra Country Wide in Bundaberg rang me and sent free of charge a mobile broadband wifi to use until the Internet was working again. I was very grateful. My wife has been bedridden all year with illness so she relies on the Internet to give her a window on the world and stay in contact with friends. But he only rang because my local member for Keppel, Brittany Lauga, contacted Telstra about my situation. It was not part of Telstra's problem solving.

And I had Jason, a senior executive in Optus customer relations phone and chat with me since one of the problems had been porting over my old Optus number to Telstra. He was great. He checked the Optus side of things just in case there was a problem there and gave me feedback. That was in response to other politicians I had written to who were trying to get Telstra to sort it out.

So today, a technician arrives at the door. Two days early. But hey, I am not complaining. He checked inside, did some stuff down the street and fixed it. Also another technician was at my house last Friday for 2 hours. Didn't find any problems at my end. I guess many hands make phone work.

troppo

[Phillip]

Oh dear Troppo,

I've got my own problems here where I live in that while we have a signal where the width of the band is very small so that when you get a few mobiles on, the internet drops out. We know its a Telstra equipment problem, but they keep coming back to my equipment.

With Telstra the story is after explaining the problem and getting the start of the run around, ask for it to be "escalated". The call then goes to a higher level where hopefully the person knows a little bit about phones etc.

Unfortunately Telstra is the only server who has almost full coverage along the east coast.

Well I've had a result too, well sort of. The problem in my area should be fixed LATE this year which I will believe when it happens.

In the meantime I received $480 in compensation

[Troppo]

Hi Phillip, good to hear you are getting some compensation. Hopefully things will be fixed for you late this year or earlier, not late some other year like 2020.

I have been offered compensation for the 52 days no Internet, 37 days of one-way phone and 15 days of no phone. Compensation of $600. Wow! Sounds great! But then, Telstra has overcharged me hundreds of dollars by using a very expensive temporary phone plan I DID NOT authorise and various other overcharging things like I had to pay a full month when the service was dead for half of it. Consequently, taking out of the compensation the money Telstra has overcharged me reduces the compensation down to $331. Telstra rip off.

One of my mobile phone bills was 620% of my normal bill simply because I had to use it heaps more than I should have. So heaps of extra costs.

Oh, before the phone and Internet went dead, I had asked the Telstra technician if there would be disconnection problems. If he had said yes, I would have gone elsewhere. One tech said no disconnection. Another said a maximum of 3 days which I thought I could live with so gave him the okay to proceed. Just shows me when it comes to lying and deceiving, Telstra rates highly. It is a shame because some Telstra workers are great people.

troppo

[Phillip]

Couldn't agree more Troppo

[Troppo]

Update: Final one hopefully. Could not stand it any longer. On Monday morning at about 8:20 am, I submitted an on-line form to move from Telstra to Aussie Broadband.

At 8:27 am, the Internet and phone died. I swore at Telstra. Checked to see if my form had gone through, looked like it had. Started fiddling with stuff. Internet came back on at 8:49 am. I didn't want to phone Telstra about the fault using my mobile as the cost would likely be high. Used Internet chat and
Telstra phoned me. However, they just phoned to put me on hold for a technician. While waiting, I checked a few things.

I realised I had some emails from Aussie Broadband. One was welcoming me, one was saying I could access my new Aussie Broadband account when connected. Just as an experiment I tried getting into my new account. I could. Hmm, I checked in it and could see my Internet was truly with Aussie Broadband. Suddenly it occurred to me that Aussie Broadband was the reason the phone and Internet dropped out. The internet came back on but porting my phone number will take time. Oh, I was sorry I had blamed Telstra for the outage when I had done it to myself. When the Telstra technician finally came on the phone I said it was all okay now, thanked her and hung up. She seemed very surprised. Probably the strangest call she has ever handled.

That change from Telstra to Aussie Broadband was unbelievably fast. I am used to things taking weeks or months. Or longer.

Today the phone started working again with my old number ported. Because I supplied my own nbn modem I had some setting up problems. Spoke with Aussie Broadband support twice. Fast response, 5 minutes wait was the longer one. Both times when I phoned they helped me solve the problem I called about. I just can't get over the difference between dealing with them and with Telstra. I had 6 months problems with Telstra and most times felt I was getting nowhere. Not saying Aussie Broadband is perfect, it is not. Just so much better I feel stupid for trying to hang in there with Telstra. I tell ya, I am feeling very relieved tonight with everything shifted over and working well.

troppo

[Phillip]

Well our mobile phones sort of dropped out to SOS early last week then came back on around Thursday.

The good news is we now have a real wireless service running at 1mb/sec, in fact its faster than in town half an hour away

Only hope now is that it stays that way.

Note to self: take deep breath and hold!!

[Homestar]

Troppo I share your pain and frustration.

I switched to Telstra in December 2019 and ever since I have had no working email. Telstra has over that time changed my email address four times, and issued me with a temporary email password. The last time they gave me a new email address and temporary password I decided not to change the temporary password until email was working as Telstra had decided the problem must be my not changing the password correctly. Using the new email address and password Telstra supplied still no working email.

I have for years used Apple computers, an iMac desktop current model, iPadPro, again current model and an iPhone X. I never had any issues when I had Optus as my ISP. Telstra last week told me the problem was due to Apples last operating system and I would have to contact Apple. I asked Telstra how an operating system upgrade some three weeks ago could stop me getting working email since December 2019. The Telstra person I was speaking to shouted “I told you talk to Apple” and terminated the call.

I did contact Apple who explained that prior to rolling out their current Operating System had contacted every ISP in Australia and explained the changes in detail and even included step by step instructions on what ISPs sexed to do.
It was nothing more than changing some settings at their main exchange in each State. Apple told me it was a five minute job at the most and the only problem reported to the is with Telstra’s email accounts ending with @bigpond.com.

In order to receive a lower internet plan price I, like you, agreed to a two year contract.

If it is on any help to you a former business colleague who is a Barrister said in his opinion Telstra are in breach of their own contract as they cannot provide the service they agreed to.

However the problem is the cost of going to court against Telstra who I was told have a rather sizeable in-house legal team.

Best of luck..