We had builders about 150m down the road who dug up and damaged the Telstra cable in the footpath. It was pulled and was left about 0.5m above ground. Most of the neighbours between us and the damaged cable lost ADSL and home phone.
Even though the problem was obvious, we had to do the standard isolation test only to be told by our ISP that there was a problem with the line and it was most likely to be between the street connection and our house.
We said rubbish and said the cable was sticking out of the ground down the street and neighbours were in the same boat. They said that if Telstra came out and it was not their problem, we would be up for both the cost of the Telstra visit and our own technician to repair at our cost.
We said this was ludicrous as the cable was sticking out of the ground and we knew what the problem was. It appeared that they didn’t believe us.
Anyway, Telstra did come out 5 days later and fixed the phone lines to every other house but ours.
We complained to our ISP and they said that Telstra was busy and wouldn’t be out for another 7-10 days and hadn’t been out. We flipped and said that others had their phone fixed but us and it was a load of rubbish that Telstra was too busy as they were avialble to fix others phone.
We demanded a months credit on line rental and also ADSL/phone bundle costs and that if it was not resolved promptly, we would be going to the TIO and the media.
Surprisingly, the next day the line was fixed.
Telstra hold ISPs/competitors to ransom and their service is dreadful.
Even when a retail customer, they were expensive and didn’t care about the service they gave us.
We we decided to churn to another retailer, we got a reasonably rude phone call from them asking why we had changed provider and why we hadn’t spoken to them about what they could offer. They got an earful and we threatened to lodge a complaint as we were on the DNCR.