RSS feedSo we moved house, fairly successfully, and with all the crap that I cart around from place to place because I’m too sentimental to dump it all.
We’re keeping the same telephone number, but of course Telstra need to install an ADSL modem at the exchange on the new line, which according to my ISP will take up to two weeks. On top of that, it can’t be ordered through Telstra’s database until the telephone is actually switched over. So here we are, knowing we’ll be off the (Internet) air for up to two weeks, knowing which day the move will be, knowing which day Telstra will physically change the phone line over, yet not being able to warn Telstra until the new line is in place!
The irony of course is that if I was instead using that 20th century technology, a dial up modem, there would be no delay and we’d have Internet access the same day. Isn’t new technology supposed to make things easier, more flexible or cheaper? Well, ordering the change is more complex, waiting up to two weeks is not flexible, and of course we get charged by both my ISP and Telstra for the privilege.
On the day we had the telephone switched over, I had to report that the phone wasn’t actually working. So out comes the Telstra guy, late the following day of course, and finds that the Optus technician who installed the previous resident’s lines, dumped the Telstra copper under the house, before rewiring all the internal phone extensions to ride over Optus’ network instead. And of course the ADSL can’t be switched over until the line is working…
Anyway, six days without Internet access, and four days of sickening flu later, and I finally get our network set up at the new house and manage to dial in to my ISP via 56K. It aint broadband, and several machines all sharing the line isn’t very speedy, but at least I was able to download my 600 odd emails. One of which was about an expired domain name, which nobody thought to phone me about.
Telstra. Anyone who tells you that public ownership has improved Telstra, is simply full of it. Ziggy Distrust has spent the last 10 years investing in failed Internet start ups and ignoring Telstra’s core business and customer base. But of course he has, that’s what shareholders want, which sort of conflicts with their raison detre. They’re a telco for fuck’s sake, that’s what they should be concentrating on.
Public ownership of all government utilities is dumb for this very reason, even if there is a core mission statement locked up tighter than a nat’s chuff. Some utilities will be less profitable by nature of their business, which directly conflicts with the capitalist nature of stockholding. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s not right, just that they’re incompatible models.
So why am I still a customer? Good question. I’m off to ponder that one myself… making good use of the two weeks I have without an Internet connection…