no-man's land in the telco wars
Apparently we live in no-man’s land.
I wanted to sign up for TelstraClear’s new residential line rental service, and get fast internet at the same time. We’ve been happy customers of theirs for tolls for over six years now, and it’s been generally a good experience. Their service is fine and their prices pretty competitive. And it’s always nice to support someone other than the main player – generally in any marketplace where service amongst the various competitors is comparable I always like to use someone other than the obvious, near monopoly brand as a way to support diversity. (In other words I go for the underdog.)
But because of some weird-arse decision by the Telecommunications Commissioner, this new residential line rental service and/or fast internet can’t be offered to by TelstraClear to people who live within 100 metres of TelstraClear’s own cable network. People like us, in fact. This evening we’ve been told by TelstraClear that we can’t have it (a week after I thought I successfully signed on to the service).
This wouldn’t be such a problem if TelstraClear wanted offer us their cable service (it’s quite sweet – home phone, cable TV, plus fast internet in one bundle). But for some reason they’ve never quite explained to me (despite my asking on three occasions now), they won’t let us or our neighbours on either side have it. I imagine it’s got something to do with the local topography, but even so, it would be nice to know.
In order to get fast internet then, I must contract with yet another outfit (there are several options). But I’ll end up with three telco bills per month instead of my present two. On the other hand, at the moment Telecom are offering free installation and cheaper plans than most of the market. And it will all be on a single bill.
Guess what’s starting to look attractive…?
Patrick Quinn-Graham
12 November 2004, 02:21 #
I'm very happy with TelstraClear right now - mainly because the move of all our services (2x telephone lines, 3x cable tv decoders, cable internet) will cost us only $59. We are moving across town. This will involve 4 or 5 hours of TelstraClear's installers time. A friend is moving a couple of rooms at a hostel, all Telecom have to do is switch two pairs in their part of the cable room there. They are charging him $150. But then you don't have many options, unfortunately.
Alan
12 November 2004, 06:33 #
I want to stay being a TelstraClear customer - my experience with them is similar to yours. But their call centre people more or less agreed with me that I'd be better off with Telecom! It's nuts.
llew
13 November 2004, 14:49 #
We're Telecom customers. Now it's all going it's quite reasonable. Getting it going in our new house earlier this year was frustrating at times though... First of all the previous owner (so T'com told me) advised them she wanted to keep her number until one month after we'd moved in & so we couldn't get the phone connected. Then, two weeks later after we sorted that out - after numerous visits from their contractor - we discovered most of the phone jacks (and all of them in reasonable places) didn't work & it turned out there had been an extra line into the house (two phones per room it seemed). SO we asked them to come back & put all the jacks onto one circuit. And also asked could we have jetstream installed. Because there was some rule about individual jobs logged requiring individual servicemen, there was one afternoon, when we had 3 separate servicemen in the house at the same time, two fixing a fault each & one installing jetstream. Apparently one guy couldn't do all three jobs. Now, I'm quite happy with the service. Plus the cost of jetstream keeps going down.
Alan
13 November 2004, 22:12 #
Hmmm, I'm just not sure I can bring myself to go Telecom. Maybe I should wait until Gasp arrive over our side of the hill...