Outage SA

[whippee]

Hello,

I have a general enquiry about the cable/foxtel outage current in the SA, northern suburbs.  This occured after the storm on Wednesday night.  I called up about it yesterday and was told the services should be back by on or before Monday.  Does anyone know exactly what happened, and why it takes five or so days to get the services back?

Thanks

Andy

PS, real handy for the AFL grand final!!

[DrQ]

Major storms, blackouts, infrastructure damage... there is only so much they can do around the weather and conditions they have to deal with in Adelaide.

They are keeping a list of areas with services affected here: https://crowdsupport.telstra.com.au/t5/Announcements/Impacts-of-Severe-Weather-amp-Power-Outages-in-...
and you can check for details on the service status page here:
http://tel.st/status

[tellgio1960]

Hi

What number did you call. I'm finding it real hard to find a number for them.

My last advice was late Monday. I can get a new service in less time. In fact, someone else is looking very attractive. I doubt they would miss my $500 a month, but it would make me feel good. I always swore by Telstra, until the outages here earlier this year. The premium we pay for one of the worst services in the world, should see us getting a better deal than we are getting. All I want to know now is how long, and how much to pay out my contracts.

Of course, the Adelaide CBD is perfectly fine and catered for. Big business might sue. Us little fish can wait. Right?

Cheers

[DrQ]

Tech support are on 133933
nbn services are on 1800 TFIBRE (1800 834 273).

If you are in an area with issues on ADSL or NBN, changing providers is unlikely to make any difference because infrastructure issues will be the same regardless of the RSP because it is mostly being caused by network level issues.

If it is a cable outage, that may be different because ADSL may be ok where there was network damage to the HFC network -- as they are two different technology types it can mean different outcomes...

With your contracts, if you wanted to find out the contract end date and any termination charges if you were to leave early, you can check for most services in Telstra MyAccount or you can speak to the dedicated Disconnection team on 132200 and say "disconnect" (ACST 9am-9pm M-F)

Also with the CBD, funnily enough, with the storm not hitting it as hard as other areas it didn't have the infrastructure damage to deal with that other areas had...

[tellgio1960]

Hi

Currently waiting for the Accounts department now to finalise my accounts. I've always let my wallet talk for me. I know what you mean about the infrastructure thing, but for me it's about the fact that Telstra themselves have a bit of a careless attitude to customers. Individually, the support staff are wonderful, but the undercurrent of blase indifference to individual small pocket clients, like myself, is deplorable. This is just the final straw in a series of straws going back over 25 years of loyalty.

I'm taking my bat and ball and going home. I'm going full wireless. I get better speeds on my wireless than I have ever had on my so called 'ultra speed' cable anyway.

Yes, I am on a wireless dongle now, with someone else, I should add, I cant even get a half decent wireless signal from Telstra and I am only kilometers from the CBD, not in the boonies.

Of course, I have been on hold over a half hour already, and I expect it will be at least a half hour more yet. Yet another tactic to 'hope I will go away'.

I will do my homework, again, and this time I will support a company that supports me. I know that sounds greedy, but It's about time I was.

I say "Never mess with old people. We didn't get old by being stupid."

Perhaps I'll be back here. It depends on how they stroke my 'principle' nerve.

Cheers

[whippee]

Hello,

I called 131999 (foxtel) and they were able to check with telstra too.  As I have both foxtel and cable broadband and neither of them work.  

FYI I spoke to the tech support and they were more than happy to offer me a discounted fee, due to inconvience..

Regards,

Andy

[DrQ]

That is your prerogative. If you don't feel that they are providing a service which meets your expectations, I completely get that.

If you call 132200 and say "disconnect" you should get through pretty quickly. They are usually pretty good at timing, if you go through to one of the standard account teams they will end up just having to transfer you through anyway so would be quicker to just call that team direct.

If you are looking at going full wireless, I will just say to be wary of wireless speed limitations. A couple of providers have 'home wireless plans' that are limited to 12Mbps download (or over half of a standard cable service) and one limits it to 5Mbps in most areas (which is slower than most ADSL services), and others have no restrictions but their network just can't provide fast speeds. My work phone is with VF and even in the Adelaide CBD it is lucky to run at 20Mbps as a maximum.

I hope you find the satisfaction you are looking for, sadly my expectations for telcos is pretty low, from experience with the big 4 (Telstra, Optus, Voda and TPG group) is that it really doesn't matter who, it depends on who you get on any given day...

My personal biggest disappointment with Telstra is that they CAN do better, I have seen them do better but then they seem to take two steps forward and a huge leap back...

[emibel]

I'm affected by the cable outage in Adelaide too. What I don't really understand is why the HFC network should be affected so badly by the severe weather we had, since it's underground. Is it due to flooding of the cable ducts and insufficient protection of the cable (as I have heard with the old copper network and some of its joints)?

[emibel]

My cable came back this morning, although the service status for my postcode still says 6.00 pm Monday (or Tuesday in another entry).

[mazinoz]

If you are going the wireless route make sure you have good security programs and configurations in place and ideally look into RADIUS servers. Some are quite cheap.