So over a year ago, we moved house. Waited a month to find-out that Telstra/Astute couldn’t give us service, and charged us for leaving broadband “early”, after five years service.
So a friendly Telstra sales dude was trawling the neighbourhood a month ago, and we described the problems of getting service last time, and he went away to find a solution. Got to love commission based pay.
Low and behold there was a solution, which involved routing cable via the ground, in the garage, through the garage roof, out of the garage, underground to the house!
So we said okay. He made some complex notes and a few weeks later we had our install day booked.
Install day came and went yesterday, as the installer had an accident en-route, and at 3:30pm it was too late to start the install. Understandable really when all the complex wiring was required. So that was 1/2 a days leave wasted of mine. Sucker Punch #1
Today Michaela freed up her afternoon to be present for install day #2, at 3:30 she was called and told “the installer is still coming…”. Now the quick among you may notice this was the same time that was “too late yesterday”….
I got home at 5:30pm, and still no installation, but our phone had been disconnected. Sucker Punch #2
At 6pm, after 20 minutes on the cell-phone waiting for the Telstra call center to explain what was happening, the installation guys turns up. Cell phone call terminated…
He asks, “where do you want the high speed cable modem placed”, wow he really gets to the business end quickly, this is my kind of bloke. I led him through the house, showing what was desired and talking about all the work to be done. He got puzzled when I mentioned “wire from street”. Turns out Telstra told Astute that the house was pre-wired. This dude was the last meter install dude, we needed the house wiring people, and there will need to be consent to string wire across the road etc, etc.
So 30 minutes later, it’s confirmed that no, we don’t have a pre-wired house. Yes, our phone has already been swapped from Telecom to Telstra (at 4:30pm today). No, it can’t be swapped back until tomorrow.
Sucker Punch #3 and #4
So now I need to work-out if I am prepared to let Telstra try again, or just stick with the evil that is Telecom, after all it has been working, and the bills will be the same, until we move to VoIP via Xnet VFX. But for now, might just be a pipe dream…..