Thread: Telstra - can you believe this?

internode hey... this may be of interest to you...

http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php?i...09477&eid=-100

Originally Posted by shorty943

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

Originally Posted by shorty943

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

Originally Posted by p38arover

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.

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

Originally Posted by JDNSW

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.

Originally Posted by Dante

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

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 (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

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 she (on optus) got full signal nearly everywhere around our district (ok a few shadows in the hills but way better than mine ) so I changed to optus also
I know optus is crap in a few places (the whole of tassie for one ) but at least I get coverage at home and I spend more time around there than away
Jase