Telcos and lack of courtesy : Yes you Optus

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This is about big telco Optus
not the employees who do the best they can with what the Company orders them to do.
I know this because I’ve talked to the employees off-premises

Earlier this month March 2023
Not everytime just often enough to notice the changes when going online the page loading and download speeds dropped a huge amount under 5 Mib per second,

OK could any number of things including and not limited to our local bandwidth bandit ( my nickname for him)

Then four/five days ago on the friday the modem completely threw it in, under 1 yes one Mib p s WHAT
saturday other things to do go to Optus local shop ( 5 minutes away), later after work is done.
I get told that all complaints and repairs have to be reported online,
drive up to bigger Optus outlet shop 30 minutes, helpful and polite much better than the local shop,
I explained, they assure me that it’s the modem that has reached End of life
Easy Fix

So here is the latest modem and you need to sign up for NBN
Didn’t really want that nbn uughh ok where do I sign.

This the is it funny part or is it mm ?

Take this new thing ( modem ) home
Same problem so slow under 1 one Mib per second.
A few choice words and
back to the shop 30 minutes each way

They test it yep not working another cup of coffee ( 20 minutes ) they find the fault.
The sim card wasn’t inserted properly,
Get home (again) 30 minutes and the little darling modem doesn’t work properly still again.
right I said back to the Optus shop 30 minutes,
Ahh still doesn’t work another cup of coffee for me, cappuccino no sugar (I’m sweet enough) :rofl:

We are soo sorry here is a free wifi dongle to get you though until the Optus Technician arrives next yes next week.
Get home (again) 30 minutes and the little wifi dongle doesn’t WORK
same as before less than one Mib per sec download speed.

Really in a mood now and not a pleasant one
Have had enough of this
Pack up all the Optus gear new modem, old modem, wifi dong, wires cables , packaging.
Loading all the stuff into a BIG plastic bag and into the car
Well I bump into the husband of the house six doors up the road

This bit LOVELY this

He has a small online giftware business, his wife does retail in the big shopping center.
The wife is with Telstra ( another Telco in Oz) , he is with Optus same as
His internet has been dropping on and off for about five days and today it’s almost dead same as,
tells me that his wife has good internet and he is going up on monday to switch to Telstra because Optus won’t or didn’t bother to tell him that
this bit

‘Optus be doing service/repair work on the local tower from the 10th March to the 28th March’

so the customers get no messages, no text no emails, only a small notice on their website somewhere.
Just not good enough.
SO I go back to shop and
yes it’s another 30 min drive

Yes they knew about the tower repairs all along
and in fairness to the employees,
It was the Company Optus instruct to them to not say anything about it until the customer talks about it
and why am I not surprised.
and yes I had to force them, I had to ask three or four times to send a text message noting that all contracts are cancelled due to lack of providing a decent internet service.

Vodaphone couldn’t find my residential address, Hopeless Numbats

Telstra took all the details nothing was a problem and book in for the next day to finalize commit
Then went home (again) What a long day,
A Sunday that wouldn’t end.

Next day went to Telstra signed up ( yep another 30 min each way)
and it 's working out of the box(for now :)) :joy:

Joke for Aussies
as Derryn used to say “Shame Shame Shame”

This is far longer that I’d hoped though need to be said, sorry if your over it I know I am ! !

The point of this
this is what
IF and only if Optus had forwarded that a disruption to service was imminent then Optus customers would have gotten a temporary solution until service was back to normal,
Doing things the way they did Optus has customers ( good long term costumers ) leaving them and finding another Telco (internet provider)
When Optus chooses to what they did and how they did this, customers DO leave and very very rarely ever go back !

2

We have always been with Telstra… like about 40 years.
Our recent switch from landline to fixed wireless went smoothly. I did not have to drive anywhere… organised it all on their chat/help service thru a Telstra app on the Samsung tablet. The switchover cost nothing… same bill … same bundle.

Did you get one of the new Telstra modems that automatically switch to a mobile phone connection if the landline is down? That guarantees reliable connection. Ask for it if you did not get it.

Use the Telstra app on your mobile or tablet. Saves a lot of driving. You get notifications on the app of any outages.

NBN is invisible. Its the supplier that matters.

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Yeah when it’s all connected up next week, if and when the NBN loses it the modem reverts to 4G, it’ll be same as the three other neighbours households on Telstra, very cool feature.

It’s a Cobra XH and first things done was change the factory password.

I would have done but I’ve always found hardware difficult to move online, sorry Neville I’m trying to be funny yeah I know ‘very trying’ :laughing:

I thought I’d forgotten something ‘the app’ for the phone. :upside_down_face:

Thank You
Neville

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Dont move it, they can test it remotely.
Things have got enormously better in about the last 2 years… especially the app

We have landline phone and internet on the modem… thats why we have a bundle.

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That would have proved to be difficult wouldn’t it considering the internet connection was down to almost zero -1Mib/s

6

Well it may have forced them to admit that the connection was the issue.
1Mb/s is not imposible… we lived with 4Mbps on our adsl landline, and before that with a dialup modem we had 56K. Now on our fixed wireless link we get a minimum of 50Mbps download and 10Mbps upload, and it is more reliable than the landline ever was.

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At the time never knew that, that testing remotely could be done though, learning all the time.

Yeah looking forward to final fix next week,

That forced me into another carrier and so it ended up all the better from their behavior,
Win/Win (not doze) :money_mouth_face:

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I used to work for Optus - part of a team that did ‘managed service’ for a few customers in Perth (i.e. outsourced IT and we were the system admin boffins)… But some of my colleagues did stuff all over WA, and a couple of my managers (multiple levels of management) were based in Sydney…

Anyway - their internal systems were GARBAGE! I wasn’t surprised in the least when I heard about that data breach… Some of these HUGE corporates are worse than government departments!

All that aside, I was with iiNet since 1997 (dial up), brief trial of Telstra as ISP in 2001, only because they were the only game in town and I wanted ADSL - but was able to switch back to iiNet for ADSL in early 2002… But they got bought out by TPG, and I kinda loathe TPG… and iiNet’s service started to slip…

So in early 2018, we cutover from ADSL+ with iiNet to VDSL (NBN) with #MATE (#LETSBEMATES). I’m paying for 50/25, and getting 35/8…

That “8” bit is what shits me - 'cause I need better UP speeds for when I’m WFH (which is more often, than not).

I’ve logged tickets - the latest one - they want me to jump through hoops one evening so Telstra can test the line… #MATE are claiming it’s not their fault, it’s Telstra’s… But I really can’t be ARSED doing IT stuff (i.e. doing THEIR job for THEM) in the evenings after a day of it myself!

Also - my LAME ARSE local member of government made a huge announcement patting himself on the back that more areas, in his local area, including the NAME of my suburb, would be gettting FIBRE TO THE PREMISES (which was how the NBN first started - but then Rupert Murdoch had his quislings elected to power and KYBOSHED fibre to the premises, with some BASTARD hybrid called FTTN [fibre to the node] on the basis of “cost”, but their bastardization based on ideology, ended up costing the same anyway - hence why downunder we still have 19th century communications tech) - but - the link the gobshite (I hate BOTH sides of the 2 party system we have here) sent showed my address WAS NOT INCLUDED and I’m stuck with f–king copper shite for the forsee-able future…

AAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!

Note : also - Optus are know for CRIPPLING the rebranded routers they foist on their customers. My mum has CABLE internet, and the Optus supplied (rebranded Netgear) device has been crippled / hamstrung, by Optus…

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Thanks for the reply as usual alot to take in with your post(S) compliment not criticism.
I appreciate all the info ( Big bucket load Dude)
I actually like reading your stuff if I avoid every third word :rofl:

I hope you never change

The thing is I was able to forgive them (cyberattack) we all stuff up after all the best of systems are reliant on human input yeah.
If Optus would care they would have two maybe three levels higher up in IT Tech check these things on a reg basis so that a cyber-attack was less of a risk, Most Linux user are well aware of these issues are keep the security of /Home as a big priority.

Lets not bring Gov Dept into this, most are paid by the hour.
Good work ain’t cheap and cheap work ain’t good !

The thing is Daniel it does matter if it’s Government, Banks (leave that one alone also please). Telcos or any larger than mid sized company they don’t care, They just don’t care !
They just don’t care, they get you to do all (their) the work and have the audacity to charge the average user the FEES for their service, It’s an insult !

When I was in my mid to late twenties I suffered some life long injuries and found out real quick,
you got problems yeah they will listen (not the same as hearing)
but no-one Fn cares

Back on topic -
As long as this piece of tech connects (Modem) and works = Good

At the moment I am not inna good frame so listening to The Cosmic Dead is as good as distraction and soothing my angst ( further reducing my hearing with Headphones and music at 110%)
Dare not put the speakers on, Last time I did got an eviction warning :rofl:
The speakers are massive .
and now
I do catch up with the small jobs and chores from the last week . . .
Fueled with a bit UH OK Fueled with plenty rocket Fuel.

Changing playlist and listening to Dion Di Mucci - Tank Full Of Blues & The Road I’m On

Yeah me luvs me musik

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The local telco for me has been saying fiber to the premises is coming. Just today there is some fiber being pulled along the street half a block away. It could just be dark fiber for various purposes, but I am hoping it may be for speedy and inexpensive internet. Right now I can’t complain. The cable company charges more than I’d like to pay, but it does deliver about 110% of the committed throughput. For me right now that is 500Mbps down and 50Mbps up. We have two of us working from home and until recently two college students. Lots of streaming.

Competition is good for prices. Hopefully a fiber option comes soon.

In college the resident assistan had Magnepan speakers in his one man dorm room. He had a pretty decent Hafler amp too. I read about some musician I think that had Klipsh corner horns in his dorm room. Super expensive and overkill.

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That is about 5x what the best available systems in Australia would achieve.
Comparing costs is difficult. Our bundle (phone and internet) is $A 90 per month. More than half of that is internet and the traffic is unlimited.

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We currently just subscribe to internet and it’s $69.42 this past month. They doubled our bandwidth twice during the time we’ve been subscribed to just internet. Almost forgot, they also doubled the allowed transfer per month. That was one reason we signed up for the plan we did. We thought we’d run out of our monthly allowed transfer before the end of the month. Now our quota is 3TB per month and we’ve only topped 1TB once or twice.

For the past few decades we subscribed to TV and internet through cable. Phone was supplied separately. These days we dropped phone completely because we each have a cell phone.

That $69.42 may still be a promotional price that will go up by a good percentage. We really should be out of the promotional time now though. If the price goes up too much we can surely get by on the next lower level of service.

I think they’ve doubled the CIR a couple times to try and keep old subscribers and draw new ones. There isn’t as much competition between providers as I’d like, but there is some. Our neighborhood has just our cable provider or DSL from the phone company. Other neighborhoods have two different cable companies and the phone company.

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WOW : 500Mbps down and 50Mbps up : that’s gotta be a typo

Here in Oz Canberra seems to want to take the cheapskate option.

Irrespective on how that might affect businesses that reply on fast internet speeds for work, $$$.

Cough cough complain about ? ?
You should have a holiday here (Oz) and try internet :rofl: speeds of a :snail: pace .

You will have tears and not of joy :face_holding_back_tears:

So what part of the world you in ’ joke , joke ’

Seriously I do hope you are correct and you get your internet upgraded :cool:

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Maybe consider another service provider, AussieBroadBand (ABB) are Aussie through and through, and their customer service is second to none. ABB are darn good for someone out in the sticks like me, with one kilometre of 40 year old degraded Telstra copper to the NBN node, the copper has issues of course, but ABB hammer NBN Co., until sorted.

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Huge areas (mostly upper working, and lower/upper middle class) of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, probably even Canberra - got coaxial cable, ostensibly for TV - but later on for digital networks (broadband) - we got some in Perth - but it was late, and again it was mostly the upwardly mobile suburbs - but we’ve always come out on the arse of any roll out of anything…

Cable Internet is brilliant… for a start - it’s mostly digitial all the way - none of this analog modem rubbish, middle-men getting in the way… Apart from my mum’s router being hobbled by Optus (the ethernet and wifi is woeful) her internet (as of 2017 - i.e. the last time I was there) speeds are 100% what she’s paying for, and getting, and reliable…

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We are 10Km from the exchange. Our copper ADSL was very unreliable and only 4Mbps. We moved to fixed wireless and it is reliable and has a minimum of 50Mbps. No cost difference.
I have heard good reoorts about ABB , but we are sticking with Telstra for now.

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