Telstra… you would think after so many years in the game that Telstra would have their act together and be able to realise when they connect a phone that you should test the line to make sure it is working and that it is fault free.

I moved house over the weekend of the 27th and 28th of June.  I asked Telstra nicely to transfer my phone across to my new place of residence and I asked Internode to do the same with my internet on Friday 26th of June.  I figured I would be moving Saturday, setting up the house Sunday and keen to have my servers back online Sunday evening.  This all seemed like a logical plan after all I had had this happen for me last time I moved, however I was silly enough to leave the transfer to the Monday after the move.

Friday lunchtime I received a text message from Internode telling me that my application for ADSL2+ had been rejected.  Upon phoning Internode I am advised that there wasn’t an active line running to my new house.  While on the phone the Internode technician checked the status of the line again and found that it was active so an application was made again to Telstra to provision an ADSL2+ connection.  Depressing news then followed that it would take 4 more working days for this to go through.  Saturday came and I realised that we didn’t have a working phone in the new house, it looked like Telstra hadn’t connected my phone line on Friday.  After a call to Telstra on Monday it was discovered that they kindly transferred my phone number on Friday, however they didn’t think to check to make sure it was working.  During the call to Telstra some guy in a call centre was able to tell us that there was a fault on the line and a technician would need to look at it.  They gave us a time frame for when the technician might call around, between 3pm Monday and 7pm Tuesday.  Also if they need access to our home they would leave a card at the front door.

Tuesday I get home from work still no working phone then I find tucked into the front screen door a card from a Telstra tech.  “I called at 10:45am, I require access to your home.  Please contact us to arrange a time to come to your home”.  We phone Telstra that night and try to arrange a time… Thursday between 8am and 12 noon.  This isn’t good enough I have to go to work between 7am and 3:30pm…  Are Telstra going to pay me to sit at home and wait around for them to show up…?

I got a text message about 7:30pm Wednesday it was Internode… your service has been provisioned and is ready to use… That’s great… now I just have to get Telstra to finish the job and fix the line.

Once I get the line fixed I will be making a formal complaint…  How have Telstra gotten away with such bad service and lack of common courtesy for so long?  I mean how hard is it to connect a couple of wires give it a test and let the customer know what is going on?

Well I have a working phone line and internet again.  The Telstra Tech turned up at 8amon Thursday… WOW.  They checked the phone sockets.  Then left to go to the exchange, the phone rang and we answered.  It was the Telstra Tech, “your phone is fixed now, bye” that was it, done, we didn’t hear from the Tech again.

I followed this up with a call to Telstra to find out what the actual issue was with the phone line.  It turns out that the jumper wires at the exchange had to be replaced… so Telstra really didn’t need access to the house.  It is quite frustrating to think that all of this could have been resolved on the original Friday if the Technican had a little more pride in their work and checked to make sure the phone was working.