Beware of Telecom’s Big Claims
Continuing on from last week’s article about the false advertising, broken promises and corporate greed shown by Optus we now have even more condemning information. I know these are strong words however documented proof has surfaced which highlights what is in fact a telecommunications scam.
My own experience when shifting from a BigPond Internet connection to an Optus Internet connection two weeks ago has shown a speed decrease to often less than a quarter of original. In fact I went from a minimum speed of 10Mbps (at any time of the day with BigPond) to as little as 1.8Mbps (Optus) during the peak usage times of 6pm to 9pm at night.
In fact the only time of the day that I now get close to my previous minimum of 10Mbps with my new Optus connection is between 2am & 6am – not exactly when I want to be browsing the Net! This was after I was promised a ‘business grade’ connection with Optus and told that I would get similar speeds to my previous ‘home grade’ BigPond connection.
Initial talks to Optus’ representatives had them telling me that beyond any doubt the slowness was caused by the quality and length of my copper line from my house to the Frenchville exchange. This was in fact after Optus had taken over my phone number and the exact same copper pair from Telstra. Obviously I was been fobbed off.
After much probing and been transferred through 4 different parrot fashion fobbers I finally got an Optus representative that admitted my slow Internet was directly due to the limited bandwidth that Optus had on their own uplink from the exchange. I was also told that this uplink was on their list of future upgrades – however this future had no set date!
Thanks to several readers of this column I now have copies of letters written by Optus to disgruntled Frenchville Exchange customers dating back to as early as March this year. These letters admit in black and white that the exchange has limited uplink bandwidth and that it will get upgraded ‘soon’. One of these customers was given a $20 per month discount to try to appease them while this situation exists.
So what has happened since March this year? Knowing full well about these existing limitations Optus has continued to ‘sell’ Internet connections to suckers such as myself on the basis of promises that they can’t deliver. In fact every extra connection to this exchange makes the situation worse for the existing suffers!
Do I think this is a scam – absolutely.
I complained immediately and have be told that I can exit my 2 year contract. So I have already signed back up with Telstra and need to wait until Monday to get a half decent connection back. Telstra has also even slightly bettered the Optus’ price / feature offering to get my business back.
Regardless of my previous article and the Morning Bulletin even contacting Optus and giving them all of my details, I have not heard from any of their representatives. The disclaimer / explanation that they offered last Saturday was typical industry jargon that dances around the exact problem and the real truth in this situation.
I shall document how the new Telstra connections pans out in next weeks’ article.
Until then, future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
For more advice and assistance from Kerr Solutions, like and follow us on Facebook