Australia Blog

More ISP Shenanigans

After the last problem I had with Telstra's provision of BigPond cable internet access, things have been pretty good. Today though, I woke up and there was no juice.

No problem, I thought. These things can usually be taken care of by turning everythign off and starting again. No joy. A call to tech support revealed that there were no major problems reported in my area, but that there was a small problem in New Farm, a suburb far enough away that it should not effect me. This was supposed to be sorted out by 11am.

Eleven comes and goes and still no juice. Meanwhile I'm checking email on dial-up and comtemplating my navel in the waiting time for pages to download. Another call to tech support and after 20 minutes on hold, I find that there's still no problems in my area and that a technician has to come out to check things out. Cool.

Except the earliest one can come out is next Wednesday. A full week away.

Not so cool.

I couldn't resist asking what the hell everyone was doing if there were no major problems in the area and yet no one could come out for a week, but that was met with silence and a repeat of the company line, "sorry, but there is nothing more we can do..."

So I'm back at the cyber cafe on Adelaide Street, enjoying the mixture of languages that I can hear and wishing they'd crank up the air con just a few degrees more. If I'm here for a week, maybe they'l do that for me...in the interest of good customer service and all.