Telstra @#$%

[lucus30]

4G which is mainly available in metropolitan centers only? why is 4G so important? so you can look up porn or update your facebook status while your on the loo quicker?

Not for much longer. Will be available a lot more places soon

[rusty_nail]

I don't know mate. Maybe thats the sort of thing Matt is into?? I just thought I'd mention it.
What's so good about it? In a lot of areas it's way quicker than your general adsl2 etc...

My 2c.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Forum Runner

yeah definitely worth mentioning. i guess im old school and dont subscribe as much to that new technology(although i definitely appreciate it)

[clubbyr8]

Hey Matt, not sure if your aware but aldi mobile use Telstra towers. I have a camping number and we use a pre paid Sim from them. Gets reception just as good as Telstra. Also for home internet i use TPG, they are by far the CHEAPEST ISP on the market with a good level of customer service. other ISP such as Club Telco & Dodo cost similar or the same BUT their customer service sucks. Most times having different accounts with different service providers will cost you less than say bundling with Telstra.

For example I currently pay $106.97 for 2 mobile services and internet. it consists of:
Unlimited internet with TPG - $59.99
Heavy Mobile user with TPG - $29.99 ($1000 call credit, 2GB data) with unlimited calls between us.
Medium Mobile User with TPG - $16.99 ($550 call credit, 1GB data) with unlimited calls between us.

Aldi phone costs bugger all but we only ever keep it topped up with limited credit but i know their credit prices are reasonable.

Also, i have dealt with the Telecomms Ombudsman before. Its a convaluted system but eventually it will get you somewhere. most of the time even the threat of the Ombudsman will get you somewhere. One thing that i cannot stress enough is to write EVERYTHING down. Date and time your phone calls, note what was discussed and what was promised in each call and if you can do as much correspondance via email, this way your wording cannot be misconstrued and you have time to form your responses and requests.

Cheers,

Nic

I was with TPG for a few years, found their customer service to be the worst of any ISP I've been with. Not that I've been with many. Westnet were by far the best, but you paid a premium for their customer service. TPG was good, as long as everything was working, but as soon as you had a problem, it took ages to fix. Thankfully I'm now on the NBN at 100Mb connect speed. Gone are the inherent issues with copper (water, noise etc). It's been very stable and throughput is over 90Mb download. Such a shame politics have killed the project.....

[rusty_nail]

I was with TPG for a few years, found their customer service to be the worst of any ISP I've been with. Not that I've been with many. Westnet were by far the best, but you paid a premium for their customer service. TPG was good, as long as everything was working, but as soon as you had a problem, it took ages to fix. Thankfully I'm now on the NBN at 100Mb connect speed. Gone are the inherent issues with copper (water, noise etc). It's been very stable and throughput is over 90Mb download. Such a shame politics have killed the project.....

yeah im not saying they are the best, but its definitely bearable. ive been with them for 8 years now, i have gone to other ISP, but have always had a mobile account in that time. have some horror stories with club telco Dodo and Telstra though i wont go into too much detail.

[Stropp]

Matt as much as everyone says change companies, if anyone has cable there it will be telstra and the others just piggyback on it, i would not do this as it will still rely on telstra to repair and fix anything, i know it can be frustrating but i would persevere

[rusty_nail]

Matt as much as everyone says change companies, if anyone has cable there it will be telstra and the others just piggyback on it, i would not do this.

telstra make money either way is what your saying? I just find it ridiculous they can wholesale it to companies and those companies sell it cheaper than telstra and still make money... thats what gets me. if they are just using telstra infrastructure why would the product quality be any less? and therefore why not go with a cheaper competitor?

[nissannewby]

Matt as much as everyone says change companies, if anyone has cable there it will be telstra and the others just piggyback on it, i would not do this as it will still rely on telstra to repair and fix anything, i know it can be frustrating but i would persevere

This is one of our problems stropp. Our Neighbour has Adsl2 and is further from the exchange than we are and he is with a different provider (father in law lives next door). Now I posed this statement to Telstra as you have above that they own the lines and still can't supply us with an internet connection.

[rusty_nail]

This is one of our problems stropp. Our Neighbour has Adsl2 and is further from the exchange than we are and he is with a different provider (father in law lives next door). Now I posed this statement to Telstra as you have above that they own the lines and still can't supply us with an internet connection.

are they saying they dont have any ports available? unfortunately they have you over a barrel there mate.

[mudski]

don't know where you live Matt but is fibre an option? I have been with iiNet for nearly 10 years now and won't use anyone else. Like Westnet, which is iiNet I believe, you do pay a premium but atleast their service is a gazzillion times better than Hell$tra.
Check here to see if you can get it or not.
http://www.iinet.net.au/internet/broadband/nbn/
and here
http://www.nbnco.com.au/when-do-i-get-it.html

Having said all that i do have a Telstra mobile as I won't use any other service as their coverage is better. Tried Optpus, Vodafail and others and they don't compare.

As for TPG, steer clear of those blokes. The ADSL slows to a crawl during the evenings when everyone else is on. When I had ADSL2 with iiNet there was no difference. Until they decided to run the fibre in the pits up our street and stuffed the old copper line and our speeds went to 1/4 of its usual pace.

Hows this for stupidity.
When we closed our account with Telstra 10 years ago we had a $21 credit owing to us. They wouldn't send out a cheque or refund us and to this day, once a month, we still get a invoice for $21 credit from them.
One good thing about it though is we still have our Telstra Bigpond email account working and we use that account for the stuff where you know you will get spammed with shit emails all the time. Not clogging up our daily home email account.

[nissannewby]

are they saying they dont have any ports available? unfortunately they have you over a barrel there mate.

Nope they are saying we are to far from the exchange. They wouldn't even send a tech out to check the connection in the house the tech would only try from the exchange.