This is not so favourite news:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-18/nbn-complaints-to-tio-surge-in-last-financial-year/9058336
Included among the services to my house are electric power, water, gas, garbage collection, sewage, and internet access. After electric power, water and sewage, internet is the most important, ahead of garbage collection – I could just take it to a dump myself from time to time – and gas – I could cook on a hotplate. But there is effectively no substitute for the internet.
NBN HFC was installed a few months ago promising untold bandwidth. Until early October I couldn’t complain. Its speed was more or less as promised and was able to deliver two simultaneous Netflix movies – what more would you need. Then it all came to a grinding halt on 10 October. Nothing! Several phone calls later I finally managed to persuade the ISP (iiNet) to contact NBN and arrange for someone to come out to my house. They don’t do things fast at NBN (apart perhaps from the internet) and the earliest available was 2 days later – imagine being without electric power for that long. Incidentally they don’t start work until 8am, so I was told, and finish at 5pm. I drive to work often at 6.30am and the road is full of tradies – plumbers and electricians. I sometimes catch the train at that time and I stick out like a sore thumb because I’m not wearing an orange or lurid green jacket. Clearly NBN’s maintenance staff are more like public servants (after all it is a government owned company).
The NBN guy (not wearing an orange or lurid green jacket) was not exactly imbued with social graces, none of this sinful eye contact for him, but after an hour he had done the job, which involved changing a component “in the pit”. This was a new expression to me but it is now happily absorbed into my vocabulary.
All went well for 3 days but after that time it stopped again – in exactly the same way. Again after several (well three) phone calls over 24 hours and an email to my ISP (its call centre is in South Africa btw so I get to hear those wonderful South African accents) I obtained a promise someone from NBN would come again and the first possible was Friday. Since no-one can be home on Friday that meant Monday would be the first opportunity. This is already almost two weeks after we lost internet access. The NBN guy arrived in the morning and left having “done his best”. The internet lasted less than two hours before dying again. I called them again when I got home that evening (one hour delay on callback). We went through the same routine – lots of phone calls without action.
The ISP seems to have no way of making it easier. It could, for instance, have increased my mobile phone data allowance (I had two mobile phone accounts with the ISP) to permit me some level of internet access at home? I asked and was refused that.
This is a great business model. Imagine a restaurant where you order main course of lobster. When it arrives at the table it is off and inedible. The waiter offers no substitute so you order fish and chips instead. You are then charged for both the lobster and the fish and chips!
I decided to switch internet providers. That in itself was a nightmare. I had, apparently, a 24 month contract with 20 or so months left. It seems to be acceptable for the provider to renege on the contract by not providing internet access but not for the customer to get out of the contract when the provider fails to deliver. There were threats of exits fees and forcing me to pay for no access until the contract expires. After I complained to the Ombudsman the ISP relented and let me out, though it took several days to deactivate the line and without that the new provider was unable to initiate a connection. Never was there any attempt to mitigate the problem.
Now I have been connected with Mate for 3 days, except that I haven’t. On the rare instances when I manage to connect at all, I can get no more than a few KB/s speed. Occasionally I can see the ABC front page but more often I just see text with no images. Yesterday – Saturday the new ISP said that it would raise the issue with NBN. Of course, that will not be till Monday, and as Tuesday is a public holiday (for a horse race) it is unlikely that there will be any action before Wednesday. That will make it 4 weeks and 1 day without internet.
My Netflix account is unused now for a month. I have spent $250 on internet access via a prepaid sim in the last month to give the occupants of the house (including two students with imminent exams) some access to the internet.
PS. Now 9 months later and I can report that Mate turned up trumps. Good internet speeds (close to but not quite the promised numbers – still I won’t complain about that). On the one occasion I have had to call them I was treated politely by someone who seemed to care about my predicament. No this is not an advert for Mate. Since I tend to be critical of bad service I should also praise when praise is due.
A Dog's Breakfast 