[plug] Telstra rort

[Michael Collard]

You should have done the work yourself. If you can find the local
exchange (not a RIM pillar) and its not more than 3Km from you, and if
Telstra advise that there is no Pair Gain (they can tell you over the
phone) then you'll be right. Worked for me :)

Otherwise you can grab your next-door neighbours phone number and
address and do a free service test with whatever provider (takes about a
week).

You are still right about the idiocy of Telstra not being able to
provide this information without all the run-around.


Regards
Michael Collard


On Tue, 2004-01-27 at 16:38, Ben New wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I think this might be another case for the ACCC. 
> 
> We are in the process of moving, and found it impossible to determine 
> whether ADSL is available before accepting the lease.  We are now stuck 
> with a 12 month lease on a property which doesn't support ADSL.  The 
> stupid thing is, this place is in Rivervale, not 10km from the centre of 
> Perth.  The story goes like this:
> 
> 1. Lease required before phone connection can take place (I don't think 
> connecting a phone line before accepting the place is really an option).
> 2. Phone connection required before Telstra can determine whether ADSL 
> is available.
> 
> Yet every day on the TV we see more and more ads promoting ADSL.  We've 
> had it in White Gum Valley for the last couple of years at least, and 
> this is much further from Perth city.
> 
> If we had have been able to test the line for ADSL compatibility 
> /before/ connecting the phone, we would have found a place that 
> supported it.  All I got from Telstra was "more Australians require a 
> phone (voice) line than require an Internet line, so if Telstra doesn't 
> have a reason to install an ADSL capable line, they wont", or something 
> along those lines.
> 
> This is basically the straw (quite a heavy one, though) that broke the 
> camel's (my business') back.  I think I'm going to find it a little 
> difficult to provide web development and especially hosting with a 
> 28.8kbps connection.
> 
> Has anybody else been stung like this?  I'd be very interested in any 
> other stories like this, or if anyone with more experience of the ACCC 
> has any ideas how this could be approached.  Basically this is just a 
> scam by Telstra who can't be bothered making a service sufficiently 
> available before they advertise it, or making it even possible to tell 
> whether the service is available before it's too late.
> 
> Regards,
> Ben