Telstra - An Australian Disgrace

Nothing to do with windsufing I know but does anyone know anyone that can transpostion my telephone line. I am currently on a pair gain and Telstra won't take me off. I can't get ADSL2+ at home.

(Each house in the street is suppose to be connected to the network via a single cable connection but to save money back in the day Telstra used pair gain connections which basically turns one line into two. Only problem is that it was designed before ADSL came along. If you are connected via a pair gain you can't get ADSL 2+. Telstra is suppose to transposition your line back to a single line connection if requested. Unfortunately, they won't budge. "Nup, we won't fix it, sorry but you can't get fast internet, you will have to ring your ISP and see if they can help you." How far behind are we in Australia? With an attitude like Telstra's it doesn't surprise me.)

Is it possible to get mobile broadband via someone like Virgin? They seem to have reasonable deals now, about $40 a month for 4gb or something like that. Not sure if its available where you are and I am not sure of the speed. Not sure what the networking would be like if you run a home network. Perhaps it would be like the old days of running a gateway on a Windows computer then sharing it out, ICS but that was always a big dodgy.


However it would be nice to cancel all your Telstra accounts including the phone by getting a VoIP account or just sticking to mobiles. When the Telstra rep rings up and asks why you cancelled your accounts. Tell them its because Telstra couldn't be bothered to give you a decent phone line and they suck.

It may not have been Telstra.
Most pair gained connections are usually put in but the land developer.
This has been commonplace for years. Developer buys the land and then has to provide electricity, sewer, water and phone. Pair gaining saves half the cable.
Could be Telstra, but usually the developer.
No I don't work for em either.

The problem is with the telephone connection to his home. Its Pair gain where they divided a telephone line into two or more connections. This is a really ****ty practice as you still have to pay full line rental for something half strength. Even dialup will be slower than on a full line. So Gonewindsurfing probably has to live with bad dialup.

So it doesn't matter how far away from the exchange he is, ADSL will not work, whether its 256/56 kb or 8000/1024 kb. Its physically impossible for him to get an ADSL connection from his telephone line.

Having a dedicated line wouldn't be really feasible. Another possible solution would be to setup a wireless network between somewhere where they can get ADSL and Gonewindsurfing247's home. I did this for my parents and my sister a few years ago. They live on a farm in two seperate houses. The houses are on two hills with a valley inbetween with a clear line of site and approximately 700 meters from each other. My mum applied for and got ADSL (which everyone was very surprised about as they live about 10kms from the nearest telephone exchange). So I setup two directional antennas and wireless access points. pointed the antennas at each other, got signal. Screwed everything in place and its still working fine after about three or four years.

I dont think that is quite right. Most phone connections only use two wires out of the six or eight that are in the cable.
As far as the standard phone is concerned (this all predates ADSL of course) there is no loss of service by being pair gained, just means Telstra (or the developer as Westoz said) didnt have to put as much cable in the ground.

If the exchange is ADSL enabled you will still be able to get reasonal ADSL1 connectivity which is acceptable ... unless your streaming massive movies or something.

It IS a crappy practice if you want to get ADSL2, but then ADSL2 is only worthwhile if you live in eyesight of the exchange (as said before).

the Virgin, DODO, optus etc etc. wireless deals that MobyDisc mentioned $40 for 4Gb etc seem good at first sight, that is wireless broadband anywhere, BUT and this is a big BUT, the whole advantage of broadband is to get access to music, movies, tv etc (all legally of course) you would use up 4Gb in about a day and a half, leaving you with a real monthly bill in the hundreds

Until the govt bites the bullet and pays for fibre to the node, or better yet fibre to the front door you'll never get the TRUE broadband experience we all hear so much about.

Intel are so crappy. I bought a 286 only 15 years ago, and it will not run Windows XP Pro. How rubbish is that? And they wont do anything about it. They told me to go and pay for a new PC. The Feckin cheek of them!

Sound familiar? You have a telephone line into your house, nothing more. Does your telephone work? Then the infrastructure is working just fine. Why do you believe it should do any more then it said "on the box" when you got it? ADSL was not around when your telephone infrastructure went in, so I dont think it is reasonable to expect that it will be supported throughout the network.

It pains me to do so, but I am on Telstras side - it is up to you to either pay for an upgrade to the cable, or find an alternative. Will an ISP pay to upgrade your cable? - no they will turn to Telstra to fund it for them.

Stop whining and get on the water.

JB

PS - there is a limit to how much porn you can consume - irrespective to how quickly you can download it.

you can console yourself in the fact that there are some people here in Sydney's suburb Ultimo smack in the city that are on pair gain as well... to rub more salt into the wound some of these folks are living $1.5 million + penthouses and can't get ADSL broadband.

These days I always check for the availability of broadband before I move into a new property or even sign contracts. Since I work in New Media and a fast connection is essential.

I am currently on a 24 Mbit Annex M and get about 9 Mbit downstream and 1.5 Mbit upstream. It's certainly not even close to the 24 Mbit advertised. As I said, I use the connect for work and regularly shift somewhere around 50 Gbytes a month.

So have you considered moving house? Do you have Foxtel Cable TV? If so you should be able to get Broadband via Cable... crappy upload speeds but the download speeds are ok. The only problem is that you are stuck with the very expensive plans.

BTW, Optus was going to roll-out a WiMax / ADSL2 solution to areas currently not serviced by broadband. They already go the contract worth $900 million and started the project. While WiMax isn't ideal it would have been better than nothing and would certainly be a possible option for folks with pair gain issues.

Well, Telstra and the federal government announce that ADSL2 would be available in all Australian exchanges... a week later the federal government announces they are retracting the Optus contract. Anyone else think there is something fishy going on there? Well, to cut a long story short Optus is now suing the government for compensation on money they already sunk into the project. Somewhere around $30 million last time I heard. Can you blame them?

The reality of it is that Telstra has a monopoly in many areas of telecommunication in this country and shamelessly abuses it were they can. Until the the network infrastructure is decoupled from Telstra and offered on similar terms to all operators things won't change. Oki doki... i'll now get of my soapbox.

Are you able to get ADSL1 at al or no ADSL 1 or 2?

As others have said, ADSL2 only really gives you a huge increase in speed if you live right next door to the exchange. I am about 3kms from the local exchange and managed to get 11Mbps down and 2? up. ADSL 1 can do up to 8Mbps down and a couple of hundred kbps upstream (800kbps?). One thing they don't often tell you is that ADSL2 is backward compatible with ADSL 1 modems, so you can use ADSL 1 modems on an ADSL2 service. The only restriction is that you are limited to the 8Mbps/800kbps that ADSL 1 is capable of. My ADSL2 modem died and I have been using the ADSL1 one instead and the difference is negligble.

Are you on a pair-gain system or on a RIM? I have heard that Telstra support ADSL1 via RIMs. I'm guessing that you can already get ADSL1, as Telstra generally like to provide it, as they use their ADSL DSLAMs and resell the bandwidth to other providers. If this is the case, check with other providers to see if they can offer faster speeds over ADSL1.

In the past, if you were on a pair-gain system you could order ISDN and as it didn't run across a pair gain system they would re-route you to a line capable of data. You could then cancel the ISDN service and hope they don't reroute your copper line.

I know that areas around Safety Bay get Virgin Broadband and 3 broadband coverage, but I think that is more around Waikiki. Towards Rockingham the coverage drops. I have used Telstra NextG broadband there, but it is not cheap. It is pretty fast though on the right plan, but they get you on excess downloads unless you download stuff from their sites.

As for Telstra's attitude, that is what you get when you privatise the industry. There is no incentive to provide competition in poor revenue areas. Guess where you are?

If you are really stuck without any broadband access, one or two-way satellite is surprisingly good, depending on what you want to do.

Thanks for the suggestions. I am currently with IINET and can get Broadband 1. I have VIOP but I was really interested in their Naked DSL which would work out much cheaper for me giving that I call the Eastern States quite regularly. I could upgrade my Broadband 1 plan but it just gets too expensive compared to the Nake option. Virgin Broadband is probably the closest alternative but I don't get the coverage in my suburb and their speeds are not very impressive anyway.

I suggested to Telstra that I would pay for a new line to be installed but they said it wouldn't make any difference as I would be connected via the same hub/sub-station/pair gain.

I'll just have to sit tight for now.

By the sound of it may be easier to relocate?

ive only read about half the posts so far, but have you enquired about your chances of getting cable? Not the quickest thing around, but you can cut out sh!thouse Telstra and deal straight with Optus, who I have never had a problem with.

Good luck

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FormulaNova said...

The only fault with your logic JB is that the federal government has promised "high-speed" internet to everyone, so there is more than the promise of just a phone line. I think the idea is that someone (usually Telstra) has to provide broadband at a cost effective price almost anywhere in Australia. ....

Sorry but I dont see any flaw in my logic. The feds have said that high speed internet will be available to all. They choose their words very carefully. Telstra will only work to offer high speed internet to areas that are not serviced by any other high speed providor. If you live in an area where any other ISP provides high speed internet (even wireless coverage) the Telstra does not have to do anything at all and the feds will meet the exact wording of the promise. They will not do more then the minimum unless they can make more profit.

GW247, by his own admission already has broadband. He has high speed internet. No promise was ever made saying that everyone could have ADSL2 speeds - just high speed internet.

So while I empathise - I do not believe this is Telstras issue to deal with. In time they will upgrade all of their switchs and will be able to support adsl2, but by then everyone will want adsl3(?) connectivity.

JB

A free market economy is about choice. Telstra doesn't offer any of that. Ever wondered why Optus' slogan has always been 'Yes'?

If you look up Telstra in the dictonary you will find the following:

Telstra [telstra]: monopolistic company, formerly government run, privatized around the turn of the century and now fully exploiting it's long standing with the government.
synonyms: greedy, no, "customer service?", block innovation

You are right in that it's not Telstras' business to deal with... if they don't want engage in it that is. I guess that's why operators like iiNet and Internode successfully sued Telstra to get access to their exchanges so they can install their own equipment. Accept it, people want broadband and if Telstra won't give it to them some else will. The only problem is that Telstra and federal government (both the old and new one) seem to do everything in their power to stop open competition. How else would you explain that entire OPEL regional broadband disaster? There are plenty of people in the bush (like our friend Windwarrior) that are stuck with sub-standard service because of it.

In your original post you were arguing that Telstra only had to provide a phone service and not DSL capability at all, and that was all they had to do. It was before GWS24x7 made it clear he had ADSL1.

I think in some ways you are using Telstra and the government interchangeably, but it isn't so. I think the government lends an ear to Telstra, but it shouldn't be more than that. In theory any telco is able to apply for supplying these services and getting the available rebates. It's then that the politics takes over and you see things like the OPEL deal and then the turn around.

It would be interesting to know if the government offers rebates for broadband in areas that aren't remote. I know with satellite services it was quite reasonable rebates, but I would doubt they would offer those same rebates to someone that can get ADSL1 or 2. It would be also interesting to know at what point a broadband service becomes cheap enough where a rebate is not neccessary. i.e. if you get NextG access, but the charges are $110 a month, is that seen as acceptable?

So wouldn't it then make most sense to have the infrastructure build by a consortium of companies/ coop and give everyone the same level of access at the same wholesale prices and conditions. Maybe I am simplifying this to much.

I believe maccas now does internet delivery, and they own the WORLD!!! Kiss your job goodbye, mister Smugg!!!