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JDNSW
13th March 2007, 08:22 PM
Today I had a gem from Telstra that is almost unbelievable. For the best part of a year I have had random disconnections when logged in via dial-up to my ISP, probably an intermittent noise generator either on the line or in the exchange. After yet another series of tests today, I was called and informed that the reason for the problem was that my modem is giving low voltage because it is running on 12v. (They had made no tests on the modem). The modem is, in fact, run from an inverter supplied from a 12v battery, but its plug pack is running on 240v, although strictly speaking the modem itself is running on 9v AC, and presumably its power supply is pretty well regulated seeing that this type of plugpack is likely to produce a pretty wide range of voltage as it is totally unregulated. I fail to see the slightest relevance of the battery voltage on the inverter! Have I missed something?

It is unclear whether they gave this reason for the problem because they are so technically ignorant that they think it is really the reason, or in the expectation that I am so technically ignorant that I would swallow it. In either case, it is clear I am not allowed to talk to anyone who understands how silly it is.

John

mns488
13th March 2007, 08:56 PM
Hi,

No idea if your missing something. But its not surprising or unbelievable that telstra is missing something - quality product and service... :D

My experience is they only know what is on the script in front of them.

sorry I'm no help.

Good luck, i think you might need it.;)

dmdigital
13th March 2007, 09:18 PM
Oh they're good alright...

I remember after we at long last got broadband to town ... and they took 6 weeks to correct my connection...

First thing they did - after stuffing me around for 6 weeks and giving me a very generous credit:D - was ring and ask me to do a customer survey about how satisfied iI was with their wonderful quality of service. Let's just say I answered truthfully and left nothing out!

Then about a week later I got a call from Telstra wanting to know if I was (a) aware that broadband was now available and (b) would like to sign up for it. It's fun to play dumb with Telemarketing sometimes:twisted: :twisted: :angel:

p38arover
13th March 2007, 09:32 PM
John, it sound like they haven't got a clue.

BTW, do you have an old Telstra T200 Touchphone on the line?

They are known to cause random disconnections - as are some other Telstra Touchphones.

Google it.

Ron

dmdigital
13th March 2007, 09:35 PM
Theres also the Telstra Call waiting. You need to have that turned off so the modem isn't alerted to incoming calls.

incisor
13th March 2007, 09:58 PM
fax machines can do the same, anything that may take line voltage to top up its internal memory...

i once fought helstra for 8 months on behalf of a client, who had constant disconnects, poor connection speeds between 9pm and 7am, and could send faxes but never recieve.

if you keep ringing and complaining they have to escalate the problem to the next level, but you need to keep records of everything, who you talk to, time of day etc etc etc and keep complaining till they escalate it to the local area manager, you get no satisfaction from that person, you keep complaining till it escalates to the next manager level...

in the end the problem was water in a pit nearly a mile up the road from his place, it had been inspected 4 times previous without any problem being found.

the poor soul died a week after it was rectified....

abaddonxi
13th March 2007, 10:02 PM
Yeah, friend of mine had the same problem, and their idea of a good day of internet connection was 12kbps:eek: with the disconnects on the top.

I'm guessing that your problem isn't going to include standing water.

Is your line pair-gained or ISDN?

Cheers
Simon

cartm58
13th March 2007, 10:06 PM
In 2005 through to mid 2006, every month by mobile service would be disconnected by Telstra - why ? because somehow they had confused my mobiel number and account with a electronics business in Burswood Victoria that gone into receivership.

Every month l would spend an hour to hour and half arguing with them about the disconnection, that l was in no way connected with the Burswood Company, that l was in Perth etc etc.

Every month they would apologise and say they had corrected the error and it wouldn't happen again.

Once they said it wasn't possible to restore my phone service, even though they admitted it was disconnected in error as it had been placed in a frozen escrow state by finance and would take 30 days to be free. When l asked what compensation l would receive for the inconvenience etc, l found my service magically restored the following day.

JDNSW
14th March 2007, 06:16 AM
John, it sound like they haven't got a clue.

BTW, do you have an old Telstra T200 Touchphone on the line?

They are known to cause random disconnections - as are some other Telstra Touchphones.

Google it.

Ron

They certainly do not have a clue, or they think I haven't! Probably the former as I don't think they are bright enough to try and snow customers. There is nothing else on the line and the call waiting is turned off. It is not pair gained or ISDN, just a plain phone line. Actually, it is a very good line - usually connect round 45k at 9km from the exchange. This is a legacy from when we first got the internet ten years ago when they used to be out working on the line about once a week to try and get the speed up to the then statutory 2400. Since the problem was the exchange or more likely the aerial pairs into Dubbo from there, it was not very effective. The exchange (which was second hand when it replaced the manual one in 1973 - said to have been taken out of a museum) was replaced in 1997 with a fibre optic line into Dubbo, giving an immediate tenfold boost to performance, with no attention to the line from the exchange to here.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone though.

John

BigJon
14th March 2007, 08:32 AM
the poor soul died a week after it was rectified....

Probably from shock that the problem had been fixed:p .

shorty943
15th March 2007, 01:23 PM
Good old Telstra eh? Can them, ditch them, ask Ted Bulpit to blow them up.
In my region, we now have wireless broadband, from Agile Comms and Internode,
via our local ISP "Bridgeonline" in Murray Bridge. This was a local council innitiative, because of Telstra and their goof off attitude. Even have a wifi access point on the council chambers, in the main street of Tailem Bend, for casual connection.
If you have the ability to ditch Telstra, do it, do it now. They never have a problem their end, do they? It's never the el-cheapo "pair gaining" they use, is it. Telstra will even try to tell you that you can't use Linux on the internet. Linux only runs about 60-70% of the worlds internet servers, but Telstra will try to tell you Linux won't work. But, they are tied to Bill and MS, big time, aren't they.

Shorty.

incisor
15th March 2007, 01:43 PM
internode hey... this may be of interest to you...

http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php?id=1720409477&eid=-100

JDNSW
16th March 2007, 04:18 PM
Good old Telstra eh? Can them, ditch them, ask Ted Bulpit to blow them up.
In my region, we now have wireless broadband, from Agile Comms and Internode,
via our local ISP "Bridgeonline" in Murray Bridge. This was a local council innitiative, because of Telstra and their goof off attitude. Even have a wifi access point on the council chambers, in the main street of Tailem Bend, for casual connection.
If you have the ability to ditch Telstra, do it, do it now. They never have a problem their end, do they? It's never the el-cheapo "pair gaining" they use, is it. Telstra will even try to tell you that you can't use Linux on the internet. Linux only runs about 60-70% of the worlds internet servers, but Telstra will try to tell you Linux won't work. But, they are tied to Bill and MS, big time, aren't they.

Shorty.

Bit hard to ditch them - too far from any large town for anyone to consider setting up a local wireless network (or anything else) - even if the council does, I am well over 100km from the council town. Satellite might be a possibility. The other possibility is ISDN, but this would still be on Telstra lines and exchange.

John

p38arover
16th March 2007, 04:25 PM
Good old Telstra eh? Can them, ditch them, ask Ted Bulpit to blow them up.

In the case of mobile phones, I don't believe, for anyone who travels, that there is a better carrier in Australia. There coverage is second to none and their international roaming is better and cheaper than anyone else.

I made the mistake of joining Orange (now 3) when I left Telstra because it was cheaper. Well it was - until they prematurely closed their CDMA network (which had roamed to Telstra's) and I had to buy a new phone and car kit. We took one of their phone offers. By heck it's been exxy on international roaming costs.

My daughter had an Optus mobile phone in Sydney. No coverage and no roaming in Derby so a new phone and service required with Telstra.

My next mobile phone will be back with Telstra and I'll stay with them.

Ron

BigJon
16th March 2007, 05:25 PM
In the case of mobile phones, I don't believe, for anyone who travels, that there is a better carrier in Australia. There coverage is second to none and their international roaming is better and cheaper than anyone else.

I made the mistake of joining Orange (now 3) when I left Telstra because it was cheaper. Well it was - until they prematurely closed their CDMA network (which had roamed to Telstra's) and I had to buy a new phone and car kit. We took one of their phone offers. By heck it's been exxy on international roaming costs.

My daughter had an Optus mobile phone in Sydney. No coverage and no roaming in Derby so a new phone and service required with Telstra.

My next mobile phone will be back with Telstra and I'll stay with them.

Ron

These are the reasons why I have been with Telstra for all of my communication services for years and years. Even more so living in Alice and doing the occasional Adelaide or Darwin or Brisbane drive. All other mobile providers are pretty much hopeless if you leave Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane. Perth and Adelaide may be okey, but I am not going to try. Telstra all the way if you are serious about connectivity.

JDNSW
21st March 2007, 06:39 AM
Latest Development.
Got back from five days away Monday night. On Tuesday found that the phone line used for dial up had changed from intermittent disconnections to no connection at all. Previously it connected at 45333 - 48000 with occasional disconnections. Now connects at 4800 but fails at the authorisation step. The other phone line connect without problems.
While I was away I got a call from a Telstra tech on the mobile asking for directions to find my place and later a call from higher up saying that the problem was being escalated. On my return I see tyre tracks stopping at each junction box all the way to the house.
Called Telstra in the afternoon after trying everything to make sure it was not something I was doing (can't see how it could be as just swapping the plug to the other line connects reliably (but at only 28800- never had all the fine tuning before the exchange was fixed)- and that line has three phones on it as well!). After being swapped from one person to another ended up with one that told me that since Bigpond was not my ISP the privacy act prevented them from doing anything on the line, I would have to get my ISP to request Telstra to investigate the problem. So I called the ISP, they told me that since it was obviously a phone line problem, they could not call Telstra.
Back to Telstra again. Tried to get hold of "Complaints" - the listed number for this gave me (eventually, after the usual runaround with voice recognition or non-recognition) a bloke who said I had the wrong number but he would transfer me to the right one - who told me it was now ten past five and they shut up shop at five, so please call again tomorrow between nine and five Eastern Time, but as a concession, they will call me.
By this time I had steam coming out my ears, so spent the next half hour explaining the situation on the "Contact Telstra" and TIO websites.
My guess is that the bloke checking the line while I was away disturbed something at one of the junctions that changed the original intermittent problem to a permanent one. You would think they would jump at this opportunity to fix the long term problem for good instead of giving me the runaround.
John

Dante
21st March 2007, 06:52 AM
Today I had a gem from Telstra that is almost unbelievable. For the best part of a year I have had random disconnections when logged in via dial-up to my ISP, probably an intermittent noise generator either on the line or in the exchange. After yet another series of tests today, I was called and informed that the reason for the problem was that my modem is giving low voltage because it is running on 12v. (They had made no tests on the modem). The modem is, in fact, run from an inverter supplied from a 12v battery, but its plug pack is running on 240v, although strictly speaking the modem itself is running on 9v AC, and presumably its power supply is pretty well regulated seeing that this type of plugpack is likely to produce a pretty wide range of voltage as it is totally unregulated. I fail to see the slightest relevance of the battery voltage on the inverter! Have I missed something?

It is unclear whether they gave this reason for the problem because they are so technically ignorant that they think it is really the reason, or in the expectation that I am so technically ignorant that I would swallow it. In either case, it is clear I am not allowed to talk to anyone who understands how silly it is.

John

Just saw this one ... the cause Telstra is pulling out of their a***e relates to the way how AC works. I always imagine it like waves (sinus waves). Normal inverter try their best to emulate sinus waves, but fail. This is not a big problem if you are converting AC to DC, like the average (most but not all) adapter do. In your case, if I understand it correctly your adapter outputs 9V AC. Meaning that, depending on the quality of your inverter, the quality of the sinus waves might not be good enough (similar like teeth missing out of your gearbox). This effects gets worse when the voltage from your battery fluctuates. The power of AC relies on the quality of this sinuswave.

This is actually a common problem for which the industry created "True sinuswave inverters" which use a more sophisticated (= expensive) way of inverting DC to AC.

In addition this creates noise from the powersource (your inverter), similiar to the noise you hear from your alternator when you were to connect a radio straight into the 12V from your battery (you can get filters to deal with that).

I don't know really how this all applies to you. As you correctly pointed out ... they haven't seen your setup, so how can they say that this IS the cause. Just wanted to provide the big picture, not saying that Telstra has a point. They rarely do.

JDNSW
21st March 2007, 07:03 AM
Just saw this one ... the cause Telstra is pulling out of their a***e relates to the way how AC works. I always imagine it like waves (sinus waves). Normal inverter try their best to emulate sinus waves, but fail. This is not a big problem if you are converting AC to DC, like the average (most but not all) adapter do. In your case, if I understand it correctly your adapter outputs 9V AC. Meaning that, depending on the quality of your inverter, the quality of the sinus waves might not be good enough (similar like teeth missing out of your gearbox). This effects gets worse when the voltage from your battery fluctuates. The power of AC relies on the quality of this sinuswave.

This is actually a common problem for which the industry created "True sinuswave inverters" which use a more sophisticated (= expensive) way of inverting DC to AC.

In addition this creates noise from the powersource (your inverter), similiar to the noise you hear from your alternator when you were to connect a radio straight into the 12V from your battery (you can get filters to deal with that).

I don't know really how this all applies to you. As you correctly pointed out ... they haven't seen your setup, so how can they say that this IS the cause. Just wanted to provide the big picture, not saying that Telstra has a point. They rarely do.

Yes, I know all about this - and have "true sine wave" inverters - but in any case I doubt very much whether the power quality to the modem would have any effect - don't forget it goes through a plug pack and a power supply and has to be designed to tolerate switching transients on the power line. And in any case this does not explain why the problem is on only one of two lines!

John

jase
21st March 2007, 07:34 AM
John's Right it's sine not sinus (sinus is up your nose)
the plugpack may output AC but the modem would most definately run on DC and internaly rectify the AC (as well as miost probably drop the voltage to 5V and it would be regulated)
so I HIGHLY doubt your modem input violtage has anything to do with your line fault, only way it could have anything to do with your disconnection is if it's simply yopur modem dropping out and niothing to do with your phone line (I doubt it especially if it works on the other line)

Don't get me started with telstra :twisted: (truckin telstra)
every time it rains (ok not very often lately) we loose our phones :twisted: (have 2 lines) we call in the fault, go through thier crap :twisted: unplug this, check this ect (I know it by heart and normally check B4 I call anyway)
after half an hr on the phone they say they'll send someone to look at it and quote somethig like 5 days :twisted: , every time before the get there it drys out and phones start working again :twisted:
I've explained this over and over (come while it's still wet or raining) but they don't get it, some of my neighbors have same problems, it's obvously water getting into something but they are to hopeless and can't be bothered to find it, so we just know if it rains more than 10mm no phones for a few days :twisted: makes it hard to work from home :(

and for mobiles I'll agree telstra is sometimes better but when we moved out here (country vic) I had my mobile on telstra and the wifes on optus, I never got siganl at home or anywhere around / near home :mad: she (on optus) got full signal nearly everywhere around our district (ok a few shadows in the hills but way better than mine :mad: ) so I changed to optus also
I know optus is crap in a few places (the whole of tassie for one :mad: ) but at least I get coverage at home and I spend more time around there than away
Jase

Dante
21st March 2007, 08:12 AM
John's Right it's sine not sinus (sinus is up your nose)
... violtage ... ...Jase

Jase, thanks for your correction. I used "sinus" as it is the original version of the word coming from Latin. Assuming that we are talking here about technology and not anatomy I can't see the difference.

But talking about corrections .. it is voltage ... not violtage.

:twisted:

Now before you come over and kick my butt ... I am not taking above serious ... just joking around.

My comment around this was just trying to answer John's question"Have I missed something?" in his first post. I did not imply that this was actually true for his problem.

And when John's writes "It is unclear whether they gave this reason for the problem because they are so technically ignorant that they think it is really the reason, or in the expectation that I am so technically ignorant that I would swallow it" ... I believe that they are technically ignorant as otherwise they wouldn't have used that line of argument without having facts.

What makes me mad is that they do this in every aspect you deal with them. Broadband, Mobile Phone, land lines, etc

And when you are forced to move to a different provider and you have issues with phone lines they put up they don't want to deal with you.

The fact that John can talk on his line, but does not hear the other side loud enough and Telstra doesn't think that there is something wrong with it just makes you wonder.

MacMan
21st March 2007, 09:24 AM
Don't get me started with telstra (truckin telstra)
every time it rains (ok not very often lately) we loose our phones (have 2 lines) we call in the fault, go through thier crap unplug this, check this ect (I know it by heart and normally check B4 I call anyway)
after half an hr on the phone they say they'll send someone to look at it and quote somethig like 5 days , every time before the get there it drys out and phones start working again
I've explained this over and over (come while it's still wet or raining) but they don't get it, some of my neighbors have same problems, it's obvously water getting into something but they are to hopeless and can't be bothered to find it, so we just know if it rains more than 10mm no phones for a few days makes it hard to work from home

You and I could be brothers.

7 years ago I moved into Fitzroy. The previous tennants had an Optus landline. I wanted to go with Telstra because my boss at the time had the root around from Optus. That's fine, make the calls, "yes sir, we'd be delighted to have you join". I feel all warm and fuzzy. "We'll connect the phone next week".

Then I get a call to say there aren't any spare lines in the street. WTF!!!??? Use the one that the Optus line was connected to I say, but they tell me they are not allowed to connect it because Optus lease it. We end up with a mobile base unit the size of two yellow pages phone books that the normal phone plugs into. For about 10 truckin weeks! Biggest problem was that it was a brick terrace house with tin room so it kept dropping out.

Finally they installed the phone line, and then a few months later I end up starting a business and need another phone line. Luckily they can install one immediately, but as soon as it rains the office line drops out. They fix it, then next rain, BOTH lines go. I end up getting very crabby because I have to make all my calls from my mobile and can't recieve faxes. Initially they suggested I use the neighbour's phone! That was not well received and that was made very clear. They fix it again. It rains, they both go. They fix... You can see a pattern here. Over the space of 5 years I lost count of the number of faults and I ended up with the VIP complaints number that goes to the same person each time and I get faster service to NOT fix the fault properly.

The funniest bit was that after each fault I'd get a survey call to see if I am happy with the service and in the end I just stopped being polite. "Look at the fault history, look at the answers from last survey regarding incapability to supply a stable connection on not one but two lines. I have better things to do with my time than answer your survey again with the same responses (crap service!) KNOWING that next time it rains I'll have no phone.

In the end, we moved, I avoided Telstra like the plague, I set up Optus DSL, landline and mobiles and everything was much smoother. The only issues came from the pimple faced students working at the Optus shop where I tried to get the right plan for the mobiles, but I sorted that in the end. They got their billing wrong two months in a row and I had to call them twice - one of the mobiles was left on the old shafty plan and racked up $90 worth of calls. They ended up scrapping ALL mobile bills for that month and sorted it.

SWEET!

Every time someone from Telstra comes to the door trying to sell mobiles or landlines or internet, I just politely tell them that it's best they just walk away!

STOOOOOOGES!

JDNSW
21st March 2007, 11:51 AM
Latest installment:- This morning just after nine I get an email in response to the web form I filled out last night. Asking for ABN number and date of birth, which I supplied on the webform, as necessary information before they can do anything. But it also had an unfamiliar 1800 number, which I called. Not only did I get a human straight off, but one that can talk intelligently about the problem, and sounds as if he is interested in fixing it. Even got some interesting information from him - the problem with logging on at the slow connection speed is probably that the authorisation dialogue will usually not work below 10k, and he admitted that the reason that the webform data already supplied was requested again is that there is a bug in the software.

We will see what happens from here.

John

MacMan
21st March 2007, 12:37 PM
I think you've now got the VIP basketcase customer complaint number!

Kicking goals!

noddy
21st March 2007, 01:31 PM
John - have you spoken with your local Telstra Country Wide office????

JDNSW
21st March 2007, 05:56 PM
John - have you spoken with your local Telstra Country Wide office????

yes, they went off at me for not using Bigpond, and implied this was the reason I was having trouble with the phone line. Totally unhelpful, not worth the ten minutes on hold.

JDNSW
21st March 2007, 06:05 PM
Update tonight:-

None of the Telstra people who promised a call back have done so. TIO said when I phoned them that they would have to lodge a complaint against the ISP who would have to prove Telstra was the problem. I told the consultant that was ridiculous and asked to speak to her supervisor, who turned out to be not available but would call back. The supervisor called back at 5pm and agreed with me, and gave me a complaint number and a number to call at Telstra, which I did. They said it would be referred internally but don't expect any action for ten days or so.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day I called my federal member's office - he has a full time staff member dealing with Telstra complaints! She promised swift action - we will see.

John

George130
21st March 2007, 06:20 PM
This is why we are now with westnet. Very happy with their service and customer care. When Telstra calls these days I will switch if they give me the following
1 12 months internet free
2 Monthly connection at half my current price
3 Cast of calls at half the current price.


I know they cannot even match my current service so for now that means they don't get my service. Dred they day someone tells me yes.

Jamo
7th May 2007, 02:01 PM
I've been with westnet for several years now. No problems. Their phone support tech even walked me though a solution to a problem I had with the gateway software once, even though they neither supplied nor had responsibilty for same.

Disco_owner
7th May 2007, 02:30 PM
g'day all;

AnyBody experiencing drop outs with their PSTN ( Public Switched Telephone line ) can request telstra for a Molds test =>
Modem On Line Diagnostics test , you will need to be registred with Molds Database and can dial in using own modem to a 1800 number , test usually takes about 10 minutes and it test SNR = Signal to Noise ratio of the Line + Modem diagnostics Also, If you need more Info please email me and I will send you more into !:)

p38arover
7th June 2007, 10:09 AM
John,

Obviously you need to switch carriers - see http://www.glumbert.com/media/switch

Ron

wovenrovings
7th June 2007, 11:05 AM
To continue with Telstra, my dads phone is the so called radio phone where there is a HF radio connection to the exchange about 20ks away. While he was away they change the equipment because they found they weren't licenced for the frequency it was using. To check it was working they called his number. Which was diverted. Phone was answered, explained that the call had been diverted and was perfectly clear, as it was a phone in town. The tech, who should of have know better thought that the radios were working. But it never used the radios as the call was diverted. Anyway they didn't work and still aren't working. How ever he must have stirred them up because they have given him a sattelite phone to use until it gets fixed. Good thing he has sattelite internet.

Ever used a sattelite phone? They have one hell of a delay.

WR.

JDNSW
7th June 2007, 11:24 AM
John,

Obviously you need to switch carriers - see http://www.glumbert.com/media/switch

Ron

Problem with switching carriers is that the basic problem is the hardware - and I would still be using this, with another layer of bureaucracy insulating me from the people who actually work on the hardware. Plus everyone I know round here who has switched carriers has had such appalling trouble with their billing they have switched back.

John

p38arover
7th June 2007, 12:21 PM
Problem with switching carriers is that the basic problem is the hardware - and I would still be using this, with another layer of bureaucracy insulating me from the people who actually work on the hardware. Plus everyone I know round here who has switched carriers has had such appalling trouble with their billing they have switched back.

John

But did they get the offer made by MCI?

Ron

p38arover
7th June 2007, 12:24 PM
This is an oldie but it's still a goodie! : mjstill.com/files/telstra.mp3 (http://mjstill.com/files/telstra.mp3)

Ron