Being the series of tubes that connect my internets, not my bike tyres.
I bought a house (well, got the bank to buy it for me) a couple of months ago and discovered that it does not have a phone line connected. It did once upon a time, there are sockets in the house and phone cables in the roof space, but they don't connect to anything. I found this out when I tried to get a connection set up almost a month ago, the ISP sent out the Telstra phone tech who said there was no distribution cable.
I've done enough research to work out what a distribution cable is and a lead-in cable is (2 of 3 ISP people tells me it's the distribution cable, the 3rd tells me it's the lead-in cable), and that one way or another it's waiting on Telstra to sort out. My research on Whirlpool forums tells me it's not the first time it's happened, but nobody on there that I can find talks about the time it took to get it resolved.
My questions for the wisdom of this forum are:
- Does anyone here have any experience in this, and any clues how long it might take to reconnect a distribution cable in an established suburb?
- Does anyone here have any leverage with Telstra, either from within or without, which I might be able to borrow to get some answers or action?
Select to expand quoteGreenPat said..
- Does anyone here have any leverage with Telstra,
My mother in law has a few shares.
I cant help with contacts anymore [sister used to be not far from the top of Telstra, but now is in the land of the free working for the bloke that used to run Telstra]
but....I have to ask a dumb question........what happened to your old telephone wire thingos?
stephen
I don't know if you have tried this already, but maybe you can get Telstra to 'connect up the phone'? In my experience at least, they seem to work by a process, and if you leave it with them, they seem to get it done. Again, in my experience, no amount of 'I think it works like this' seemed to help, and they just got on with their process and got it working.
I am assuming that you have already tried to get them to do this, but as far as I know, a phone line is a basic requirement as far as the government are concerned, even if you aren't necessarily entitled to fast internet over it.
Give IInet a call
I've found it's quicker (and often cheaper) to get another provider to get the telstra people to do something
@sn, the theory is that a subdivision in the area pinched the line when it was found to not be in use by the residents at the time. This is apparently a commonplace occurrence.
@Formula, they can get around the Customer Service Guarantee requirement for a phone line by offering us a mobile phone number at landline rates. I know this because they did it last week.
@elmo, IInet just happens to be the ISP in question anyway, and I already have a contact near the top of the tree there. They're saying they can't get any joy from Telstra either.
It's a common problem in the older suburbs.
It is because a lot of the bigger blocks are being cut up for duplex or triplex or apartment housing.
Years ago they would have run a bigger main bus to cater for the increased lines required, knowing that even if they didn't have customers for all at the time, it was always an increasing market so the lines would eventually be used..
That no longer applies.
It's old technology and it's on the way out.
So,.. what they do is, when someone cancels their service, they use the line on the main feed bus to connect up someone else in the area.
They are not going to waste money putting in any more copper service lines because it's about to be made obsolete,.. one day,.. soon,.. maybe,.. later,..but they think soon.
If you request a service you will go in the que and wait for someone else to cancel their service so you can have their line.
If there's a hundred people in the Q before you then you have to wait for 101 people to cancel.
It may take some time.
Not much you can do about it except claim you are on deaths doorstep and need it for medical emergencies, or are an important diplomat or something and the line is required urgently in the national interest. They may require proof. 
Or make friends with someone high up in telstra.
I'm having the same problem getting a phone line installed in a new but established suburb. Iinet/Westnet aren't having much luck with Telstra. It's not helping that fibre optic was laid when the suburb was built and NBN is slowly being rolled out in the area. I don't actually need a phone line as such but shouldn't be forced to go with Node1 simply because they already have fibre running by, nor should I be forced to wait for the NBN juggernaut to roll by too.
Select to expand quotepweedas said..
make friends with someone high up in telstra.
Yeah, I'm thinking a reversion to 3rd world bribery and corruption might be in order, it seems to work for the lobbyists.
You're in a free market now, free to choose any company, the market will perfectly adjust to meet your demand so don't worry
Select to expand quoteLittle Jon said..
You're in a free market now, free to choose any company, the market will perfectly adjust to meet your demand so don't worry
I love the sarcasm!
I think Greenpat was one in favor of the NBN, so its not fair. It would be better to see this problem with anti-NBN types. Although if you were Malcolm, you could afford a direct link to your house, wherever you live, so its all good.
If Greenpat was really good friends with his neighbours, he might have to resort to sharing their internet connection, which if done right, is probably not a bad way to go... if you have good neighbours.
Select to expand quoteFormulaNova said..
I think Greenpat was one in favor of the NBN, so its not fair.
Yep, ignored the 'moderator sits on the fence' guideline there. Definitely supported the idea. Do it right properly the first time, catch up / overtake the rest of the world and invest in our future as a country which trades on "intellectual property", since we can't compete in value adding processes with cheap labour countries and can't rely on raw resources to generate income forever.
^^ trouble is we sold the utility responsible for comm's so we get the kinda sh!t referred to in this thread 
Select to expand quoteBuster fin said..
Considering we invented wifi, you'd think it'd be the standard for our use...
I am not sure we invented wifi, but more one of the technologies that it uses.
Even if we did, if its not suited for the purpose, why use it? We invented stump jump plows, but I don't think there are too many farmers using those these days.
i have nothing good to say about telsuck.
good luck mate and i hope you don't spend 14 hrs on hold over 2 months for 1 simple problem like we did.
I do have a copper connection to my home in Albany, but the quality is so poor that I can't even get reliable dial-up. No way, after several years of complaining at every level, is Telstra going to fix it. I'm only 5Kms from the centre of town.
Select to expand quotedinsdale said..
I do have a copper connection to my home in Albany, but the quality is so poor that I can't even get reliable dial-up. No way, after several years of complaining at every level, is Telstra going to fix it. I'm only 5Kms from the centre of town.
Yeah, the obligation is only to allow the delivery of speeds at something like 19.2k or maybe slightly higher. Its a pretty poor benchmark these days.
If only we had a national common project to deliver faster internet everywhere, but I guess in your case there must be an alternative, and its probably NextG connection.
As others have said, if there is a market demand for it, then companies will flock to provide it.
So, after finding that Telstra had a job review date in the calendar of another week away, at which time they were under no obligation to do anything at all, I decided to give up on the whole thing and cancelled the application in favour of.... mobile broadband on an unlimited data quota. I'm getting speeds touching 4-5Mbps max, about 1-2Mbps average. Probably better than I could get over copper at 4.6km from my designated exchange anyway. Will just have to live with it and cop a ribbing from the father-in-law every time I see him (he's got cable at 25-50Mbps) until optic fibre comes to the neighourhood. 
I borrowed a 4G Telstra USB modem for a few days last week, it hit speeds up to 22, but their top plan has a limit of 15GB per month at $95 per month with 10c per excess MB. We'd have to be made of money to satisfy our reasonably average household internet usage (maybe 25GB a month - $95 for the first 15 then $1000 for the next 10? I don't think so). The speed isn't worth it, we can survive on what we're getting for a price we can afford.
If I do have to wait until the market adjusts to fill the demand perhaps I should start "GreenPat's Optic Fibre Company" and start laying the stuff myself. <sarcasm> The legals and permissions to install a heap of communications infrastructure around the place can't be that tricky to sort out. </sarcasm>
