[TelstraClear] Telstra faults: up to five days for a technician to visit

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freitasm

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Topic # 6841 26-Feb-2006 23:39

Sunday, 10pm - called TelstraClear to hear "We're busy and your call is in the queue - please expect 20 minutes wait"...

After 14 minutes the call was answered (ok, they delivered earlier). I then explained that my cable modem stopped working at 7pm. The person on the other side says "wait another hour and see if it comes back".

I did wait another hour because I had experienced a couple of outages (over the last 12 months) that lasted about 4 hours - but there was always a problem on their side.

Called them again at 11pm, confirmed the modem had the On-line light off, Send was blinking, so it was obvious my side was trying to communicate.

I was told the earlier I can have a technician here is Tuesday morning. That's two days away!

I explained I work from home and this was a very important tool. The person on the other side said "Sorry, but since this is a home connection the contract estipulates up to 5 days for a technician is ok".

Wow... Five days!

Lucky I have my Vodafone 3G and Telecom Apache Pocket PC around here and I can connect via Bluetooth - no LAN at home for the other computers, but at least I can work.

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bcourtney

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Reply # 29408 27-Feb-2006 00:29

I had something similar happen to me 2 weekends ago. My cable modem stopped working and after getting rather frustrated with the techo on the phone (don't you hate having to explain THEIR technology to THEM?!) i finally got put on to someone that was able to help over the phone (i refused to wait for a tech to come onsite to diagnose the problem).

It ended up that my IP had "fallen off the network" after 18 months of not having a single issue...

As an aside, at the same time i got them to change my plan and my whole package to one of the new triple service packages (another long story behind this that i won't go in to). SO they were supposedly going to asign me a new IP that next Monday and all i'd have to do is restart my modem and obviously reconfigure my router. But no, this hasn't been done (2 weeks on). I just haven't found the 20 minutes to half an hour or so to put aside so that i can sit in their queue and then re-explain how THEIR network works to another one of THEM in order to get it sorted!!

freitasm

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Reply # 29418 27-Feb-2006 08:39

Hmmm. In my case the person on the other side was quite nice, checked the MAC address on my Motorola cable modem, checked some other stuff (I suppose he did check my static IP address) and asked me to power down the modem - which I explained I've done before a couple of times.

He then proceeded to arrange for a visit - which is fine, but waiting two days is a long time in Internet time.

Let's see if it works and if the visit happens. I would hate to be working on 3G the rest of the week because the technician showed up here without a replacement modem or something similar.

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freitasm

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Reply # 29422 27-Feb-2006 09:02

Hmmm. I think this cable modem is not well. Trying to browse to 192.168.100.1 gets no response.

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bcourtney

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Reply # 29426 27-Feb-2006 09:59

I'd hate to attempt to diagnose the issue myself, but it does sound very similar to the issue I had. Power-cycling did nothing and I couldn't ping 192.168.100.1 with it either...

Wouldn't it be frustrating to have waited 2-5 days just to find out that it was something that could be fixed over the phone... :P

freitasm

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Reply # 29428 27-Feb-2006 10:07

It's alive again! 14 hours to come back alive, but just now I checked my POP account and it was empty (my Exchange server collects some emails from other domains from a POP account).

I then logged into my box and sure enough it's again on the Internet.

Unlike the previous time I won't cancel the technician visit though - I want him to come and check all cables. And if it's not a fault here then it's certainly a very long outage that they simply decided to ignore when I reported - or decided not to tell me about when I called.

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bcourtney

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Reply # 29430 27-Feb-2006 10:10

craziness!

freitasm

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Reply # 29441 27-Feb-2006 11:02

On the bright side that gave me hours of inactive time so I could do a complete backup of my Exchange server in one of the machines here, plus a full disk image with Norton Ghost...

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Mutly

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Reply # 29501 28-Feb-2006 11:21

freitasm: On the bright side that gave me hours of inactive time so I could do a complete backup of my Exchange server in one of the machines here, plus a full disk image with Norton Ghost...

You have a few hours of spare time and you use it to backup your Exchange server?!?!? You sure are in the right place :)

freitasm

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Reply # 29502 28-Feb-2006 11:53

Hmmm. Ok, not like that - bring down the server (which runs on a Virtual Machine) and then start a full Norton Ghost. It takes a full hour, so I just leave it running and go about my own stuff.

Back on topic: the connection came back Monday morning, after 14 hours of nothing as I posted. Then it worked the whole Monday, until 10pm when it died again. Called TelstraClear and the person on the line said that intermitent faults are hardware related.

I asked "Are you sure there's no outage reported somewhere?", "Perhaps my IP address is being blocked or duplicated somewhere on the network?" and other questions, but he refused to check anything else.

Skip to Tuesday morning, the connection came back alive at 6am (8 hours outage). The technician has just left and I now have a new Motorola Surfboard modem. It's working, and he says there isn't anything wrong with the cable and other houses in this area. If not, and if it happens again then TelstraClear will have to escalate.

Let's see the results.

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freitasm

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Reply # 29613 1-Mar-2006 23:32

The technician came here, very nice and friendly, tested the signal and it was all ok. Replaced the modem with a new one (same Motorola Sufboard model) and left everything working.

So far so good, it's been up for a couple of days now...

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wtf

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Reply # 29654 2-Mar-2006 13:52

Well, while we are moaning about telstra Clears fault handling let me tell you my little saga...

My ADSL used to be with Telcom for the physical part with Paradise for the ISP... it is supposed to be in the process of changing to telstra for the whole deal, including the phone. So on Tuesday it stopped working. Rang to log the fault, took a couple of calls and after much hassling got the response that since the ADSL light was up on the router it should be working. I was having trouble telneting to the router at that stage so they told me to ring Nokia support, which appears to no longer exist. So having found the piece of paper where I had written down the correct password, I was finally able to Telnet to the box and establish that in fact although the ADSL was up, it was not succeeding in establishing a PPP session. So rang telstra Clear again, and this time got someone who actually understood that it was possible to have a connection at the ADSL level while still not being able to work. However, this was still really no help, since his opinion was that the connection had been cut off by telecom. Apparently telecom cutting off a telstra customer is not regarded as a fault by telstra, and it is up to me to sort it out by talking to telstras accounts people. Unfortunately I have not so far been able to manage to get hold of a human being there yet. Maybe I should be talking to telecom if they cut it off.

If anyone from telstra is listening, I'd like to suggest that if the cusotemr is not receiving service then there is a fault, and it is your problem to sort it out. "It's the putting it right that counts".

So someone, either telecom or telstra, owes me for two days and counting of access charge. meanwhile I am starting to think about ways of eliminating fixed lines from my life altogether....

wtf

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Reply # 30771 15-Mar-2006 14:07

hmm, well, I'm getting about as much useful help here as I have had from Telstra.

It is now two weeks and one day, I have made IIRC five calls and now have the entire repertoire of their muzak on hold system memorised. "New York State of Mind" was a great tune until they got hold of it.

It does seem pretty definite that what has happened is that telcom cut off my ADSL prematurely...Telstra had stuffed up with the works order, but since I had not reached the end of the time that I had paid for with telecom they should not have cut me off. OK, but my Paradise service was not working...the Telstra faults people should have the means to figure out why and do something about it. It is telstra that is going to lose business if they don't get it going soo...I have no ongoing business relationship with telecom now so can hardly threaten them with much. I suppose the commerce commission should in theory be interested but telecom seems to own that.

So anyway, yesterdays call resulted in an assurance that they have the matter in hand and it will be sorted. They even took my mobile number so they could ring me back. No call yet.

Aah well, I have a UMTS card and a SIM, all I really need is a PCMCIA adaptor for one of the desktops on the networks at home. My friends will just have to adapt to the idea that there is no wireline at my place. (OK, the phone still works, but if they can't get the ADSL up I ain't gonna pay for any of it.) I suppose I'll need to propagate a new email address to my contacts too. Might lose some spammers at least briefly I guess.

skykissme

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Reply # 30775 15-Mar-2006 15:36

Well... From what I experience while working in Telco industry. For a commercial premises with Telstra broadband... shifting a premises you will have to wait for a week before the signal can be mux in your new exchange.

And they can never do things right first time.. either phone problem comes after broadband arrived or next company's phone went dead.

When order new broadband, after 2 weeks of waiting. Equipment arrives with no instruction what so ever. Expecting non-technical office people to know what to do. We, telephone and IT technician, have totally no voice in this matter. We can't talk on behalf of client, account holder, client has to fax Telstra questions they want to ask..

We'll never be too old to learn, and we learn at least one new thing every day.

wtf

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Reply # 31597 27-Mar-2006 10:30

I guess it is getting to be time to do something drastic. Although I have had various conversations with people at telstra who claim they are doing something and will call back, nothing constructive has happened. I have had no reply to a formal letter of complaint, sent about three weeks back, neither have I had any follow up phone call as promised by the accounts people about two weeks back. To add insult to injury, I can no longer access my mail via my 3G wireless modem. For a couple of weeks there, I could use the Vodafone smtp server to send and the paradise pop3 to receive, but I can no longer receive. Seems to me they are systematicaly turning my account off...except that they are still taking the direct credit payment.

My conclusion is that telstra really does not want my business. The only reason I have hung on as long as I have is the hassle of changing my email address, but since they have now turned that off, I may as well go through the process of updating all my contacts. So long telstra, it hasn't been good to know you.

suvneet

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Reply # 31600 27-Mar-2006 11:15

I had something similar while moving house.
I am with Telstraclear for Phone and Clearnet and the house I was moving to, had Telecom phone line and ADSL.

I put my Service order in one month prior (15th Feb), understaning that it takes Telstraclear some time to get their act together.
Two days before the move(16th Mar), i called them again to check if eveything was going alright to hear a shock.

My order was cancelled as the Telecom returned the service order (on 5th Mar) saying line was already connected and no service orders were allowed.
The nice lady on the phone asked me if that was the case, I explained yes and the guys in the property were moving our on 17th and I has asked the service to be connected on 18th.. simple in'it?
Nope was the reply as Telstraclear could only send the order after the line was cancelled... bizarre to me.. but thats how Telecom works was explained to me.... Asked why I wasnt called to inform this prior to my phone call.. Not a policy was the answer...

Anyway I was asked that the order would be sent again on following monday and Telecom act on it by 27th... meaning 8 days without phone or ADSL.

No way I could take it anymore.. so I escalated to some Team leader. I was explained the same situation, but he said he would look into this and call back.

18th called them, ran in circles...no phone line...

19th.. No phone call, no Telephone, no ADSL. Made a few calls again.. in circles.. no help..

20th.. No phone call , no Telephone, ADSL.. forget about it...

21st.. i am furiuos, no Phone line in new house, was forced to make all calls from my cell phone.....Called helpdesk again, forced them to give me their team leader's phone number. Called him several times. No answer, no reply back. got in touch with a helpdesk staff, refused to transfer my incoming phone calls to mobile even as had to authorised from the team leader....who was not there!!!

Finally ran out of patience, called telecom, explained the situation, they could switch me in less than 4 hrs.
Called Telstraclear's Team leader again, left a message that I am switching, any costs incurred would have to be taken by Telstraclear for inconvinience.....

21st, 1730hrs, phone call from Team leader.. Phone connected.. no signs on ADSL though, cant do it till 28th.. DAMN IT....he will try

22nd... phone call to helpful Telecom staff, explained situation again, they switched the service on!!!!

Why so much trouble.. part Telstraclear's fault.. part telecom's.. part mine to have switched to telstraclear ( never had any issues with Telecom)...

reminder to myself.. whatever I do, stay with monoply provider......