– Innocents Swindled After Technology Spiel
14 July, 2012
I have just been talking to another good customer and I am furious! Furious because, like so many before them, they have just been swindled by one of the major Telco’s. So what has happened? In this case they innocently walked into a T Shop here in Rockhampton to get a new mobile phone (that is all they wanted). After giving up trying to understand what they were being peddled and deciding to trust the ‘expert’ salesperson, they walked out an hour later even more confused and with a new bundled plan.
Previously they had an ADSL broadband connection at home as well as a home phone and their old mobile. Now the ADSL has been disconnected, they still have a home phone, a new mobile phone and a wireless Internet device (BigPond Mobile Wi-Fi 4G) – which they were told was the ONLY way to go. The net result of this is that their Internet on their home PC is only a tenth of the previous speed when working at all, as it continually drops out, their home phone costs MORE to make a call, they do have a new mobile that works fine AND they are paying more per month overall!!!
So what went wrong? BigPond is really pushing its wireless broadband plans – even when this is a lesser service than the customers’ existing ADSL broadband. So we need to make some points clear. If you only need an Internet connection at your business or home premises then Cable broadband is the best if you can get it. Next in line is ADSL broadband – again if you can get it as you need to be within around 5 kilometres of an exchange. Much further down the speed/reliability track is Wireless broadband and normally for a permanent installation an external antenna is also near essential. Lastly there is Satellite broadband which theoretically should be available anywhere on the Globe; however we only recommend this if none of the above broadband services are available as it is currently very dodgy.
Do not let anyone talk you out of an ADSL broadband service in favour of Wireless broadband unless you have a laptop and want to be able to travel with the connection and spend most of your time away from home. If you spend most of your time at home then I would still keep ADSL and get a prepaid Wireless for occasional use. What also confused the customer is the above case is that they were told that their new smart phone could browse the Internet at their home but they needed the BigPond Mobile Wi-Fi 4G devices to do this. Possibly the ‘expert’ at the shop had limited knowledge as the ADSL router that the customer already had could also have provided this feature.
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