Trusted
We left Vodafone FS/128k 20gb Interleaved for TelstraClear FS/FS 20gb Non Interleaved a week and a half ago. (Notable here is that Vodafone released an almost identical plan to what we just switched to only 2 days after switching and it was significantly cheaper. When i commented on this i was given a general "we monitor the market, stay competitive etc" response.)
However when we were switched to using the TC login, we were profiled at 256/128 with interleaving.
Up until today (1 1/2 weeks) Telstraclear had us recorded as being on FS/FS, but our line capped at 256k.
I dont know how many people here have tried to use 256k with multiple computers, but its hell. One computer is online gaming, someone else starts browsing and the ping shoots all the way up to 500. They click a youtube video, and hey presto, 4000 ping for the gamer.
So to get this fixed we had 5 phone calls, plenty of waiting on hold, being transferred back and forth and a general lack of communication.
For comparison, simply when we switched plan on Vodafone, we were given an email thankyou, then an update that it should have been changed. I even think we got a letter in the mail about it. For Telstraclear, i had to ring up the helpdesk to find out what was going on, since i had heard nothing from them.
Not a good experience at all i must say. We were with Telstraclear many years ago and left for reasons like this im pretty sure.
Yes it might have been a one off, bad luck etc, but its very frustrating when it does happen, and should be shared. Also i am aware that port profiling is done by telecom, so im not sure if full blame can be put on TC, but it shouldnt really be the customer who has to check everything is setup right.
What my issue with this is, is that if i had been a joe public general broadband user, i would probably never known. I would have called the help desk, waited, only to be told about all the various things affecting speed, reset router etc. I would have been logged as being on FS/FS, as that was what was apparently what was on TC's records in our case. And finally i would be paying for FS/FS, yet getting a plan that is worth $20 less.
However, on the bright side, once everything is finally up and running, the speed is great. Pings are cut in half by non interleaved/full speed upload and download speed is still quite good during peak. Also they have good Australia routing and so theres no annoying optus problems that people are getting.
In summary, bad start, but now it appears to be all good, and runs better than Vodafone did.
Im not keen on their customer service though, too many departments means too much transferring which means more holding. However one very good CSR called back twice to ask about the progress on how it was going, and actually made enquiries and checks that faults were apparently meant to do. I was also told that they had another caller just before me with the same problem.
So after all of this, i might still recommend them based on raw performance, but on customer service in our case, except for that one CSR, i'd say no.
