Compo! A case for the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman?

A horror week for this veteran comms industry observer, courtesy of Telstra AND Internode!

A local mytshop 'consultant' had proposed a radical, all-encompassing phone/mobiles/Internet plan to my wife and myself during a visit on October 4. We had both thought that as ageing users we might be better served by having a local point of reference, for advice and/or repairs...

I e-mailed the 'consultant' asking if I could get VoIP on the line as I had with 'Node, else I might have to reconsider and stay with the reseller.

No reply. (I later found this was because the e-mail was sent from my Internode account e-mail address, which meant it failed to get delivered.) The charming person in the Telstra shop averred that No, VoIP would only be available with the NBN.

So I talked to Internode Provisioning, requesting to remain with the company for all but the mobile services. The 'Node CSO netted a 10 out of 10 for his quick and competent help. He e-mailed us a detailed proposal of what we'd get with a new contract if we signed on again...

At that time we still had a functioning account with Internode, which kept us going until the proposed cut-over on October 11.

That day arrived, as did a pair of grandsons with their parents from Sydney. As is usual on such occasions, we drank a bit more than the regular prescribed intake...

Therefore we only noticed the absence of an Internet connection after 4 p.m. - the time of the purported cut-over of the ADSL2+ line snaking up to our bush burg for 300-odd metres from the roadside pillar.

We kept calling Telstra from the mobiles they had sold us on a quoted $25/month plan each (by the time we actually got connected by a charming Big T. 'consultant' this had risen to $29/ea./month!) but made no headway.

The connection eventually materialised, but proved highly erratic, frustrating Bianca in particular since she was used to working on her laptop from around 7 a.m. each morning after brekkie...

(Even as I type this, the line breaks up LOL).

Telstra meanwhile worked frantically around our local DSLAM and checked our line for nearly a day - with me holding a mobile as well as a Fritz! phone handset to my ears - until the line appeared nicely stable.

In fact I had a data rate never seen here so far: 19,600 kbit/sec down and nearly 760,000 up! But it didn't last. After getting a new password from a remote adviser, the line was back to "The provider does not accept PPPoE packets", as diagnosed by my new Fritz!Box 7490.

My support ticket was escalated to a senior level, eventually, and I complimented 'Reg' on the brilliant connection quality. He suggested that if I needed further help, Telstra might have to send a technician around to our place to fix the apparent problem... I would then have to pay $240 for the technician's trouble.

I asked 'Reg' to put the ticket on hold for a couple of days while I continued my own investigation. The fault just MIGHT have originated with a Realtek RJ45 controller soldered to my motherboard when I got my then main working machine to join 4 others as the home server some 8 years ago.

With this in mind, I ordered a $39 RJ45 add-on board from my usual Melbourne supplier.

It hasn't come in yet.

Nor has the Internet... Yet MS tells me upon checking the status of the Realtek beast that I AM CONNECTED - would I like to start browsing the Internet? Click yes and receive the usual message 'Server not found'.

And the Fritz!Box 7490 tells me or 'The internet service provider is not responding to PPPoE packets'. The usual story: 'X number of PPPoE packets dropped by the local DSLAM'

Postscript: At Bianca's behest, I have today ordered a $1500 NUC to test on my network independently of my main machine. Trouble is, my bank takes TWO days to process the simple transfer! Another case, for another ombudsman...

Postscript II: Spent another three-quarters of an hour on the mobile to Telstra regarding the PPPoE drop-outs. At every junction did they stress the need for sending a technician around to see if the fault is due to some problem with my own set-up.

We agreed to meet a techie between 8 and 12 a.m. Friday. Perhaps my new NUC arrives in time? (It did arrive today, 30/10/18 after I kicked up a fuss yesterday...)

Postscript III: By a stroke of luck my Melbourne supplier managed to get the Asus XG-C100 10Gb PCIE-E network adapter to me today (18/10/18), so I spent the afternoon installing it, updating my main working PC and hoping for the 'miracle'. I had of course disabled the on-board Ethernet chip and just left the ASUS card do do its bit.

Same error 1062: provider does not accept PPPoE packets. Telstra's remote expert gave me a new PWD last night - an earlier one worked for a day and a bit - but the new one changes naught. A have a sneaky suspicion here why this should be so but don't want to risk a defamation suit LOL

Postscript IV: I got up at around 2 a.m. this morning (19/10/18) driven by a new idea: had I or had I not configured the brilliant little Asus adapter before trying the connection? I soon found out that I hadn't - and after I changed its properties to automatically seek the Telstra DSLAM connection rather than have it fixed by my PC I had a rock-solid connection with superior data rates!

I went to be after 3 a.m. and slept fitfully until 5:30 when I had brekkie. So I got the techie's message about coming to fix my Internet around 7:15 and told him he was welcome to a cup of coffee but he shouldn't charge me for the visit...

He sounded as if he'd take the invite up - but later in the morning I received several attempted calls ('no number') and that was it for the day... Peter, that coffee's sure getting cold!

Cheers,

LMH a.k.a. carioca

Postscript V: daughter Cristina, on a flying visit from Canberra, went shopping at Harvey Norman and JB HiFi for me this morning and brought home
a new ADSL splitter
a new 5m phone cable, and
a new RJ-11 connector

I put everything together and connected the Fritz to the new set-up: BINGO! The Internet ADSL connection is back. Let's just hope it stays connected...

POSTSCRPT VI: the connection lasted around 100 minutes. Then my Synology DS218+ advised me it had been lost at 3:15:02 pm.

Since then, rien, nulla, Nada ...

Basta gia! Back to 'NODE we go...