The phone message said, "Welcome to Telstra, where you can get more out of the NBN." My experience of NBN has been the reverse.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
We got a letter urging us to sign up for the NBN. I was greeted at the Telstra shop by a man who offered me various discounts. He was eager for me to provide feedback about his performance, which I said I would do when our NBN was up and running well.
I still haven't filled in his form, because our NBN connection, when we have it at all, is erratic, and often too weak even to bring up Google. I have spent hours on the phone, going back to the Telstra shop, and getting nowhere.
To get Wi-Fi, I have to take my laptop to the living room. When I take it back to my study, the connection dies. It's like the way I used to listen to Radio Australia in New York in 1989, when I would hang the radio on a coathanger out the window.
From Telstra I got a succession of explanations. Then I read an article about the current outrage in the United States, where Obama's Internet Freedom, which provides all web users with the same speed at the same price, is in danger of being overthrown by a policy that will reward those who can pay for faster internet and deprive those who can't. This, I realised, is what we have in Australia, and no one is saying anything.
Then a young woman from the Telstra shop rang to say they had a Telstra WiFi modem for our holiday house, ordered months ago. We were paying for a service we didn't have.
I told her my problem with NBN. She got it at once. The next morning a technician came. He said, if we paid to upgrade from 25 Mbps to 50 Mbps the service would be fine.
How many of us are suffering in silence? At least, Telstra should change its NBN promotion to say something like "You can get more if you pay more and wait long enough."
Alison Broinowski