Originally Posted by
travelrover
Hi all
I thought after years of fighting Telstra I had actually a solution that worked sort of 'ok' and in fact it did for about a year. I now have a mobile broadband solution via a fixed directional antenna pointed at a cellular antenna some 10 kms away which provides mobile coverage in the house so I dont need to stand on the veranda in the middle of winter to get a signal (first time since the AMPs network shutdown in the late 90's) and also a 4GX WiFi Pro which is a sort of wifi booster that takes the signal from the Mobile Smart Antenna base station and I can connect all our IP devices to this. I could even stream shows for the first time. So much better than my ADSL.
Well this 4GXWiFi pro (a quality Huawei product - not) started having power related problems almost straight away, (and after Googling them, discovered they were crap) and I again spent hours on the phone to Telstra, their customer service people didn't seem to know anything about them so I visited a Telstra shop which are supposed to provide them. Turns out they went obsolete pretty much as soon as I got mine.
Out of frustration I contacted the Telecommunications Ombudsman (which was also the advise from the manager of the Telstra shop) I sent them my 54 emails and copies of all the various 'chat' sessions I had with Telstra customer service and they acted very promptly late last year and within a week or so I was contacted by a member of Telstra's Escalation Complaints & Resolution team. She was very helpful, and after plenty of discussion and some weeks delay was able to provide me at no charge a replacement for the 4GX WiFi Pro, a 4GX Hotspot. This arrive mid December and following her instructions I set it up, which was essentially taking the SIM out of the old unit and putting it in the new one. However as soon as my devices were visible to the new 4GX she was happy it was working and that was the end of our communications. Turns out it was not working, well not properly, while I can see all my devices connected to it there is virtually no data going through it. So again find myself paying for a Telstra 'service' I can not use. I attempted to contact the woman I was dealing with, I had all her contact details but nothing. After three emails and a couple of voice mails I was no longer going to give Telstra the benefit of the doubt and decided since I had such prompt response from the Ombudsman I would go down this avenue again. My original case was pending closure so I had it reactivated and submitted all the required supporting information. This was last week and I received a reply yesterday which I thought was promising. Well that was until I read the email, the key point being...
Unfortunately, because of the current volume of complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, we anticipate it will take up to seven weeks before your case can be allocated to a case manager.
So what do I do, fight Telstra every day and hope I actually get somewhere or wait 7 weeks. There are no alternate providers here not even NBN or i would have gone down that route a long time ago. That's a rhetorical question...
Sorry, venting over...