Sorry I read the use of “service” to mean the actual install of the nbn™ equipment and the lack of such. I now understand you to mean the Telstra Customer support service in all it’s myriad forms and how that fails.
In this regard you should email a written complaint to Telstra at this page https://say.telstra.com.au/customer/general/forms/Email-Complaint, also make sure to ask for some compensation for the missed appointment as this should be covered under their CSG. Take a screenshot of your complaint before pressing the submit button. Phone call complaining is next to useless, @PhilT refers to this as “idle chit chat” which seems a very good description, always make your complaint in writing (an email counts as written). If you use Twitter you can Direct message them at their Twitter account, their username is @Telstra on Twitter.
As well as this leave your feedback with ACMA at info@acma.gov.au in regards to your problems re Customer Support, compensation offers or lack of such, installation delays and missed Appointments. ACMA will not act on your feedback in all likelihood but they do have to keep stats, they have to report to Parliament about the stats, and if enough complaints are made they may take action.
Further to your issue of missed appointments you should also lodge a complaint with the TIO after lodging your complaint with Telstra if you receive no adequate response from Telstra (give them about 7 days).
I can attest to ACMA being an opaque black hole for complaints about the NBN. I sent in one on 3 Sep and promptly got an auto-acknowledgement and ticket number.
I am not confident whether they added it to a list, ignored/deleted it, or put it into a real but circular file, but I am 100% certain they never responded to me further.
That could be the case, dependent on definitions of ‘enough’ and ‘may’
The legislated proposal included two low cost plans,
25Mbps for US$15 per month
200Mbps for US$20 per month
The Verge suggests the average monthly cost of internet to NewYorkers is US$50 pm and twice what Europeans pay for high speed broadband.
Some of the issues re equity of access and service will be familiar to many Australians. The USA has more in common with Australia in what it defines as high speed broadband. 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up. While there is more than one provider in the USA monopolisation of the market is also a shared concern.
To quote the article: Based on that metric, the most recent broadband deployment report from the FCC has found that everyone, everywhere in America has broadband . Mission accomplished; we have solved all the problems of Internet access, right? Obviously, no. No one thinks we have actual universal broadband in the United States today. The needs of Internet users have long ago surpassed the FCC’s 25/3 metric. It’s possible this metric was out-of-date from the moment it was established.
I wonder if our 25/5 was derived from that same 25/3 that is so out of date in the USA as well. It would then make more sense where such a dismal figure came from in the first place.
Latest news is that in a month or so there will no longer be backup battery units supplied with FTTP. NBN Co will no longer supply them, and the installers are probably running out their existing stock.
TPG from about 2018 no longer allow the request for them to be supplied and it is in their terms and conditions.
I don’t know if other RSPs are or have already removed that option.
What this means is if you want continuous connection for telephone service you will have to supply your own backup power system.
Fit for purpose system? My opinion is that it isn’t, and definitely a bad decision to remove this option.
Shades of telling people they must have a mobile for when land lines fail (which maintenance neglect leads them to do more frequently), then neglecting the backup batteries in the mobile network. It seems to be a pattern.
A substantial number of NBN services cannot meet minimum standards. Which leaves me to question whether the standards, which were set some time ago, are good enough for the present day.
Another bit of education how good NBN is and will probably always be.
NBN HFC down about 02:00 but the tech was not on site until 06:54. It took him about 50 minutes to fix whatever broke. An exchange with AussieBB revealed that NBNCo does not perform restorative works in hours where conditions impact safe working conditions which I can respect when conditions are unsafe, but.
Conclusion, NBN services impacted from essentially sundown to sun up are ‘so sad too bad’ and nobody needs a functional internet because it is only entertainment, right? Lighting equipment is rocket science, right? They added if I was not happy with the above I could go to the TIO - no comment.
My mobile coverage is often unusable (Telstra and Optus nets equally bad) but let that not get in the way of ‘the official line’ that makes it all good for both government and NBNCo.
Another big ‘Up Yours’ to those who contrived this abomination on Australia as layers of the rotting onion continue to be exposed.
Research group BroadbandNow estimates that 42 million Americans have no broadband access, while a depressing 120 million people in the U.S. are without any connection fast enough to even call the internet, according to an October 2020 study by Microsoft Corp.
There’s up to a further approx 10% of Australians on FTTN who might also fail a similar speed standard.
There are suggestions an interconnected wireless network is part of the solution for the USA!
A postscript - there was a localised power outage a few nights ago we ‘escaped’ with just two momentary outs but 579 other residences were not so fortunate. AusNet Services, in spite of it being dark out, had them up by 04:30.
My head continues to ponder the different safety concerns of restoring mains power versus an HFC distribution pit in the dark.
They may be relying on the same consultants our current government uses? I doubt two different sets of them could be equally detached from reality unless
are only Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, and a few others, all being part of the USA?
Last night at 18:30 AussieBB sent out a notice I ‘might be down’. I wasn’t. Being curious their outage advice shows a ‘CG-NAT’ (carrier grade network address translation) problem affecting ‘some’ customers, no ETA for restoration as of 12 hours later. AussieBB or NBN? No idea but I suspect this one is on AussieBB.
The RSPs are using CG-NAT to have more IPV4 IP addresses. Maybe IPV6 rollout is not a race? (We heard that before in a different context.) Until it is?
Those experiencing 12 hours down and counting is far from an impressive resolution. Fully charged mobiles are always recommended.
Personally I am happy to remain behind a NAT router, whatever the promises about us all getting an IPv6 address for every device and thus being ‘safe’.
A router that simply dumps any incoming traffic that I did not initiate is exactly what I want
MTM NBN has cost almost as much as a full fibre rollout would have cost us. Costs that the Govt have kept secret for about a decade have been found and released
“The previously redacted 2013 figures detailing the estimated cost of the Coalition’s alternative model – relying on trouble-plagued pay-TV cables and fibre-to-the-node technology – show the true scale of the NBN cost blowout over the past eight years.”
"NBN Co in 2013 estimated the cost of using the hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) pay-TV cable networks was between $800 and $850 per premises. The cost of building fibre-to-the-node was estimated to be $600 to $650 per premises.
…NBN Co encountered upgrade issues with both types of technology, the cost has been up to three times higher. The average cost per premises for fibre-to-the-node is sitting at $2,330 and HFC is at $2,752, according to the latest figures detailed in the company’s 2021 corporate plan.
NBN Co argues the current cost should not be compared to the 2013 estimate because the current methodology is “more comprehensive and includes additional cost elements”
LOL in other words it appears that the 2013 NBN cost figures used were just a ploy to get MTM NBN approved and then left us lumbered with a terrible system.
Hi all, I’m new to these forums but not advocacy. I’m also a local First Responder for emergencies. Just sharing here my recent submission to my Federal MP re NBN systemic safety issues (redacted sensitive info but left in the case numbers). MP (ALP) has taken ownership as has ACCAN and are escalating.
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I present a summary of systemic NBN Priority Assist issues identified locally during a 4-day NBN extended outage following last weekend’s severe storms in Melbourne.
The issues have been documented & escalated to NBN’s Health & Safety area, Telstra PA tech support, Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (Priority Assist) & Council Municipal Recovery Manager.
NBN Case number = 15357001
NBN Incident number = INC600000979399
The NBN is able to fail in such a way that all equipment lights stay on, condition Green, and indicate normal function but all functionality is lost including dial tone for landlines. It affected our entire street in and an unknown number of nearby streets & suburbs following the severe weather storm/hailstorm Sat afternoon and the following 4 days. Borrowing from the electricity sector I’ve termed this outage as an extended ‘NBN Brownout’ as there appears to be no official term or even acknowledgement that this can occur.
NBN never declared an Outage in the above scenario, and actively rejected acknowledgement of complete loss of functionality. Any NBN website network status enquiries regarding affected street addresses during the 4-day period indicated No Outage. This also meant that any procedural safety measures for an NBN Outage were not triggered.
NBN Providers (RSPs) were not permitted to activate their own outage response either, as their systems and procedures had to fall in line with NBN’s No Outage status.
Priority Assist ¶ customers (ie most vulnerable) landline users had particular safety issues during these 4 days as:
their modems did not switch to mobile network backup since the modems did not recognize the NBN Brownout,
they had no dialtone for 4 days and some did not have working mobile phone as backup or ability to use mobile phone. Medical alarm/pendant etc also wouldn’t work as are reliant on landline.
during doorknock/welfare checks it was discovered that many PA customers still have the pre-SIM-card modems missing the function of auto-switching to the mobile network. This finding was escalated to the Priority Assist area with Telstra who acknowledged the problem, verbally apologized and are currently arranging to send out replacement modems to PA customers who have thus far contacted Telstra. It’s unknown if Telstra is doing an audit to establish which other PA customers are still to be upgraded viz-a-viz responsibility under Universal Service Obligation.
Telstra when asked what customers should do to reinstate dialtone during a ‘NBN brownout’ said to pull out the NBN cable from the modem to manually force switchover to mobile network. This advice is not part of any official communications.
The mass migration of local communications users (voice & data) to the congested mobile tower infrastructure meant that mobile communications was also severely impacted for all in our area, with calls mostly not connecting, dropping out, dialling wrong numbers, etc. And yes, further impacting those PA customers who managed to have mobile backup in some form.
when the potential impact on PA customers was realized the issue was escalated to local council MRM for emergency response.
The Vulnerable Persons Register formerly held by Police Stations appears to now be with Health Dept & Council. I suggested Council use the list to welfare-check PA clients who may have been left totally communications-isolated during the 4 days. Council tried to obtain from NBN a list of areas within affected by the extended outage. I don’t know if they were successful. Whilst Council was very sympathetic & supportive there appeared to be no formal mechanism in place for a managed welfare check reachout like I voluntarily did for my vulnerable neighbours daily during the outage.
Finally, I received correspondence this morning from the NBN Case Manager summarily closing Case 15357001 with no apparent action taken, and another email asking for my feedback. Needless to say I’m not impressed. The continuing severe weather patterns mean that these systemic issues remain a problem.
A bit of humour this morning… we were down for about a minute, but the background as reported by NBN via AussieBB is priceless.
08/08/2022 08:28am AEST - The estimated time of restoration has been updated to 09/08/2022 by 16:00
08/08/2022 07:25am AEST - The estimated time of restoration has been updated to 08/08/2022 by 08:00
08/08/2022 07:25am AEST - The field technician is now on-site to commence restoration activities. Customers may experience a loss of connectivity at this time. Due to the nature of this work, one or more network elements may need to be repaired, and this may also disconnect the network upstream affecting additional customers
04/08/2022 09:55am AEST - The field technician is estimated to arrive to the impacted site by 09/08/2022 by 10:30
They are certainly atop of whatever it is they think they are atop of.
The first notice (not included previously) was on 4/8/2022 at 1:53pm, a few hours after the ‘start time’ of 09:55am from my prior post.
NBN has let us know that your service may currently be affected by an outage. Service affected by NBN outage: [address]. We will let you know once this outage has been resolved.
AussieBB is keeping me informed
The NBN notice from ABB on 8/8/2022 at 07:30 is listed as an unplanned outage. The ETA on 9/8/2022 by 10:30 at least correlates with the ETA of restoration on 9/8/2022 by 16:00.
Edit: I am pleased to advise the fault that began on 4/8/2022 has been formally closed as of 8/8/2022 3:33pm. The NBN has exceeded expectations by finishing their work a day early.
If not for these notices I might never have realised I was down for more than 2 minutes so far. I posted this for lovers of dark comedy.
