Having heard nothing at 4pm and the line still being dead, I called the Faults helpdesk. I was told that a technician went to the exchange today and found that it was a fault affecting multiple customers, a cable had been damaged in the storm and required replacing. After asking for more information, they said that it would be fixed by Thursday, making total downtime a week.
I then asked what could be done to provide connectivity as a week is an unreasonable amount of time to be left without a connection. I was offered a free diversion from my phone number to my mobile so that incoming calls could get through, and a credit for the time without connectivity. While useful, I still have no way to make calls that aren't horrendously expensive (compared with a landline) or a reasonable ability to connect to the internet.
When I first asked about a data addition to my mobile, I was told that it is possible to have data added to a T-stick, but he didn't think he was able to do it with a cellphone (not really sure what the difference is, but oh well). As I was unable to find my T-stick at the time the representative told me he would put me through to the department that was able to put on credit and if I found my T-stick I could call back and have credit applied.
The call to the other department didn't go through and I ended up back with someone else in the same department, who denied that I could get any credit on a T-stick and that they could do absolutely nothing beyond the free diversion. I quickly asked for their supervisor, who was "unavailable" and could call me back within 3 hours. I said I would happily wait on the line until they were available and all of a sudden the rep was able to find a supervisor and talk to them (magic!). On coming back from their supervisor I was told they could make a special exception and give me $10 credit on my account to pay for usage, which wouldn't even buy me a 150MB data pack. I then asked to speak to the supervisor in person and got the same story (with extra emphasis on it being impossible for them to use their mobile network to help a landline customer that was without a connection), so I asked to speak to their supervisor. Their supervisor is unavailable as it's the weekend so I will be getting a call from them before midday on Tuesday.
I have always been very pro-Telecom as their service has generally been excellent with max line speed virtually 24/7 and good 3G coverage at my home, however this has just left me with a bad feeling about the company as a whole. I don't feel it would be unreasonable for Telecom to offer extra calling on a mobile in the household to cover the lack of free calling along with a reasonably sizable (~1GB/day) data pack so that the internet can be used to some extent while the line is out. Are my expectations over the top or are Telecom being harsh?
tl;dr: Phone/internet out for 2 days so far, won't be back till Thursday. Telecom are offering nothing more than a number diversion, is that fair?
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