Telstra want to replace my Phone & ADSL Landline with Mobile Phone Technology

**OSIRUS** · 15-09-20, 01:45 AM

Thanks for all the input, believe it or not they have only just fixed my landline Phone and ADSL last week (early September) and I posted the first post above in late June

I had about six case numbers and they sent out about six different technicians (and sometimes the same tech coming multiple times) they all kept telling me because you are the only one on this cable they will not want to do it (apparently I had my own cable all the way back to the exchange) and what was once farmland with my cable running though it was now a lot of house backyards with my cable running though it and the owners of the houses had broken the cable multiple times and fixed it multiple times and now there was one or more joint that had been repaired that was causing the problem with water in it or something

They also said it was a problem because the cable was owned by NBN and they could not offer me NBN because I was too far out (about 4km from the exchange & out of town)

I kept telling them that we had a medical priority certificate on this line & that we had been a Telstra customer for sixty years (first connected in the late 1950's or early 1960's) and that I was a big Internet user with four routers and using three VPN's and the other member of the family was a big Telephone user talking on the phone for hours at a time)

The static on the line varied between not too bad to unable to hear anyone talking, causing people to hang up saying .... "I can't hear you I better go" and the internet would drop out when the static was bad always popping up "no internet ... re-connecting etc ..."

The techs would ring and say they fixed it when they thought the static was not to bad .... but then it would get bad again so I reported it again .... they would also just send a txt saying your phone line has now been fixed .... but a short time latter it was obvious they had not fixed it ... the techs would also say they cannot come out to fix it for a week .... hoping for some dry weather when they hoped the problem would be gone by then .... but it didn't

One tech told me that they would not replace the faulty cable unless the phone line was dead .... so he did me a favor and made the phone line dead and then told me he had done the paperwork to replace the cable .... only to have another tech come out and fix the dead phone line (but not the original static & internet drop outs problem) also killing the paperwork to replace the cable ....

I just kept ringing up and reporting the fault as being not fixed yet (to the call centers) telling them that the techs are telling me that Telstra do not want to replace the cable

I also said to the tech "how much would it cost me to get me connected to the Fibre Optical cable about 100m from my house" but he said they would not do it because it was a "Network" cable .... I also asked him "how much would it cost me to get something good" fearing I would get sometime worse than I had, but he said don't say that to them .... they should fix it for you at their cost

In the end they short cut my phone line to another phone cable under and on the other side of the main road (eliminating the section with my cable running though all the backyards) it is supposed to have some smart technology on the phone line to make it better than before and they also had to remove some "gadgets" from the phone line before my ADSL would work again

The line is now good .... no static and internet is good instead of about 3.5mbs I now get about 4.0 mbs so I am now happy but could have done without the run around and all the politics of the experience

**shred** · 15-09-20, 07:26 PM

Some years ago (pre NBN), I had a bit of a saga getting my copper line repaired. An electrician drove an earth stake through the line. The result was mains hum on every call and ADSL going up and down like a yoyo.

Telstra refused point blank to make an appointment for the technician to visit. I was working full time and studying full time, so I couldn't stay home and wait - and Telstra couldn't even say which day the tech would visit. From video surveillance and my old analogue modem recording incoming call time, date and CND, I worked out what happened. On several occasions, a contractor would turn up, stand on my doorstep and phone my number. He'd hear the phone ring and would close the job off as complete and then leave! When I called to complain that it _still_ wasn't fixed, they usually "couldn't find" the original job to re-open it (or as I wanted - to record a black mark against the lazy, incompetent sod who had closed it), so then I'd have to start the whole process again.

In the end, it was only luck that I had the fault fixed. I just happened to be home when the technician came around and they just happened to send an experienced, employed by Telstra for 30+ years liney. He very quickly worked out where the fault was, asked if I had ADSL and then chose to run a whole new cable in from the street so the repair didn't degrade my ADSL. In the process, he found that there had been a previous repair on the cable. The result was everything fixed and an even better ADSL speed than before. If I hadn't been home, who knows how long it would have taken to fix it!

**OSIRUS** · 08-10-20, 09:45 AM

Another Update on this

After only a month since getting the landline fixed and I have been getting speeds of about 4.0 mbs for the whole month (something I was very happy with)

My ADSL broadband speed is now reduced to between 0.5 mbs to 1.5 mbs since last Saturday when I first noticed streaming videos were not playing properly

The steaming videos now buffer or are too blurry to watch for the first 20 minutes of the stream

I thought this may only be fluctuating load on the line but it is consistent every day now ..... what happened to my 4.0 mbs download speed that I was happy with ?

Anyone have an idea what has happened & can it be fixed .... (It is not my equipment (I don't think) I disconnect everything except the comupter and the modem and get the same result ?)

could Telstra have slowed my speed or turned something off at their end ?

**RFI-EMI-GUY** · 08-10-20, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by OSIRUS

Another Update on this

After only a month since getting the landline fixed and I have been getting speeds of about 4.0 mbs for the whole month (something I was very happy with)

My ADSL broadband speed is now reduced to between 0.5 mbs to 1.5 mbs since last Saturday when I first noticed streaming videos were not playing properly

The steaming videos now buffer or are too blurry to watch for the first 20 minutes of the stream

I thought this may only be fluctuating load on the line but it is consistent every day now ..... what happened to my 4.0 mbs download speed that I was happy with ?

Anyone have an idea what has happened & can it be fixed .... (It is not my equipment (I don't think) I disconnect everything except the comupter and the modem and get the same result ?)

could Telstra have slowed my speed or turned something off at their end ?

Probably the cables got damp and now the modems need to be retrained. Try resetting your modem. DSL is crappy technology.

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