Sick of Telstra Bashing

Is anyone else as tired of all the crap and misinformation that's said about Telstra as I am.
The service we get from Telstra is very good and anyone who thinks it's bad, should ask their parents what it was like thirty years ago. Back then IF country people could get a phone they had to share the line with their neighbour. If the neighbour liked a bit of a chat you had to wait until they finished.
Most of the country exchanges were manual and if the operator was off sick or out for a smoke you didn't make your call.
Repair delays were longer in the country than they are now.

The accepted failure rate in telephone exchanges for outgoing calls was about 2.5%. I live in the country and I've had one call fail to connect after dialling. That's in 7 years. Crossed lines and calls dropping out used to be a normal events but are rare as hens teeth now.
The lines were poor quality and very often you couldn't hear the person at the other end because of static. Now you can transmit data over them.

Now we have reporters interviewing someone in a town like Tennant Creek and saying how deplorable it is that the mobile doesn't work 200metres out of town :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

People have very short memories. The Universal Service Obligation has made country people believe that is's a god given right to get the same phone service as city people. When I worked in telephone exchanges the cost of providing a city service was about $3000 and cost of a country service was $10,000. Country people should just be glad that the service isn't provided on a user pays basis. If it was, most of us wouldn't be able to afford a phone at all.

Adrian,

Your point on mobile coverage is taken, and physically it's not possible to reach the entire continent while we rely on line of sight technology.

I'm not a Telstra Basher, (normally) but you've raised a few issues for to which I can only respond with questions.

I think to talk of 30 years ago, is drawing a long bow, after all technology has changed a little, and we no longer need to have people manning switchboards in exchanges. If there had been no progression I would be very surprised indeed.

Has there actually been 30 years of progress? It seems to me as though not much has changed in the last 10.

Question: Tennant Creek is not quite as far away from network infrastructure as some of the places I visited last month, so how is it that without the miracle of Telstra, I was paying less than 50c an hour for broadband internet in the back blocks of Siberia, and Mongolia??

If you think providing a network is a challenge here, then it's time you visited Tuva.

I too have lived in rather remote Aus locations (more than thirty years ago to be fair) but I just can't get my head around the fact that there's something missing here, whether that's infrastructure spending or what, I don't know.

I had the "interesting" experience of accompanying MathewA to a Telstra shop when he arrived in Aus, to connect his phone, internet and buy a mobile . Let's just say it wasn't a user-friendly experience, and this is a country where I speak the language, and am reasonably familiar with the system.

In Siberia, about 10,000 k's from anywhere, I walked into a shop with a friend, we couldn't read or speak the language, but walked out in a few minutes a few dollars lighter with a new card in his phone, and receiving texts from England.

Draw any conclusions you like, just don't be misled into thinking we have a fantastic or economical communications network.

Cheers,

P (But the weather's good here!)

:cool: :cool: :cool:

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Country people should just be glad that the service isn't provided on a user pays basis.

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It is! If I want to call a number in Sydney, it costs me a hell of a lot more now than it did when I lived there.

Why should country people not expect a similar standard of service to the cities? We pay the same taxes. I'm sure there's a lot of money spent in Sydney that doesn't benefit me directly too.

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Originally Posted by silentC

It is! If I want to call a number in Sydney, it costs me a hell of a lot more now than it did when I lived there.

Why should country people not expect a similar standard of service to the cities? We pay the same taxes. I'm sure there's a lot of money spent in Sydney that doesn't benefit me directly too.

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Silent, if it really was user pays it would have nothing to do with the taxes you pay.

I never said it did. The use of the system is user pays: you pay for the calls you make, unless you are suggesting that they are subsidised by our taxes. It costs me more to call my friends in Sydney than it did when I lived there. I'm further away - it costs more - user pays.

However, our taxes pay for the infrastructure and that is not strictly user pays (although I bet it costs me more to put on my phone here than it would in Sydney) and neither should it be. Like I said, plenty of my tax money goes into improvements in Sydney, so why should city people begrudge Telstra spending money out here to improve our services?

Much of the complaints about Telstra are justified. However it is often the case that Telstra ha been left to clean up the mess of crazy legislation.

For instance many regional areas had good relable mobile phone coverage under the analogue system. Then legistaltion was passed that the operating (working and payed for) sytem would need to be turned off and all new system built in the name of "a level playing field". So that other Telcos would not be at an disadvantage. Many regional areas now have worse coverage and Telstra is still the only carrier available.

Then there is the so called "local loop" legislation, which requires Telstra to install and maintain the cable runs into to brand new housing estates. Once the phone lines are in the new lines can be taken over by other Telcos. On one housing estate I saw the projections of income, it was estimated that it would be 600 years until the cost of installation had been recovered from a user pays system. What company would invest with that sort of return?

Midge your point about the T shops is right on the money. They are without a doubt the most frustrating outlet that I have ever dealt with. My money now goes else where.

Well according to a new system currently under trial, the old Telstra lines will become defunct and all phone and internet communications will be going through existing power lines. The power companies can provide the same service as Tel$tra do now and the broadband connections are 4 times the current speed of adsl. Then they'll face some really stiff competition.

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What company would invest with that sort of return?

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Exactly!!

That's why the government should not be selling Telstra because it is not a viable business unless cutbacks are made. By making it profit driven, money will only be spent in areas where a reasonable return can be made. It's deja vu. Commonwealth Bank all over again.

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Originally Posted by Gumby

Well according to a new system currently under trial, the old Telstra lines will become defunct and all phone and internet communications will be going through existing power lines. The power companies can provide the same service as Tel$tra do now and the broadband connections are 4 times the current speed of adsl. Then they'll face some really stiff competition.

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Maybe.
About ten years ago I was sort listed for a job with a power company to roll out the system you are talking about. Every couple of years there is another wave of interest. Currently the power companies are not getting anywhere near the reliablity that is required. However they do seem to be getting close. They are still a long way off from you and I using it but they should be able to wholesale to big customers in the near future.

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Originally Posted by silentC

Exactly!!

That's why the government should not be selling Telstra because it is not a viable business unless cutbacks are made. By making it profit driven, money will only be spent in areas where a reasonable return can be made. It's deja vu. Commonwealth Bank all over again.

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Yes quite right.
There is another thing too. Telstra is still building these networks with in the same manner it did 100 years ago.i.e underground copper line. They really need to look for more cost effective ways of doing the same thing.

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Originally Posted by knucklehead

Maybe.
About ten years ago I was sort listed for a job with a power company to roll out the system you are talking about. Every couple of years there is another wave of interest. Currently the power companies are not getting anywhere near the reliablity that is required. However they do seem to be getting close. They are still a long way off from you and I using it but they should be able to wholesale to big customers in the near future.

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They've got 500 homes (in Tassie I think it is) on the system now. They couldn't get adsl through the phone (too far away from exchange) and so they built the whole area using this sytem. They pay about 10 cents per call and overseas is about half price as well. It was on TV the other night - I just happened to be channel surfing and watched it. I think they said another 6 months trial still to go but those residents interviewed were all for it. The savings just on phone line renatls are about $35/month, not to mention
the cheaper calls and faster internet. There's a special attachment which just plugs into your power point and has all sorts of plugs coming off it. Sort of like the rear of your computer. They were saying that the possibilities for this were just about endless.

http://www.tastel.com.au/bpl/faq_products.html

Yeah when I was looking at the job, voice communications (phone) was the main aim. Looks like they have given up on that and have moved in to IP.
Smart move. The IP stuff is eaier to deliever and you get more money for it.

I will continue to bash Telstra until they provide acceptable services.

I don't know about Telstra per se, I haven't had the (dis)pleasure of dealing with them very much.

But I can tell you about here.

If you want a telephone connected to your house, it will cost you nearly $800 to buy a subscription. You gotta have that before they will even talk to you about a phone line. Another $50 to hook it up, and you still have to buy your own phone, because they (NTT) don't provide one with the line.

However, we have ADSL here, and were given the modem, cables, splitters, etc to make it work gratis (free!).We make maybe 30 minutes of international calls here per month, 1.5M/s ADSL, a few phonecalls, rental subscription (we didn't pay the $800, spreading it out), etc, etc. Out bill rarely runs over $60 per month.

My mobile phone and my wife's phone cost about $70 per month, for both of them. We get the messaging stuff, we rarely have no signal (unless underground), and our phones have a list of countries that you can switch them to so they will work. That includes Australia, NZ, USA, Canada, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, etc. Not cheap, but it's a few button pushes away. My phone is 3 months shy of 2 years old now, andway back when, it blew everyone in Oz who saw it away. International roaming, camera, dictionary, etc, etc.

Newest version of my phone has GPS, TV, Radio, 2Mp camera, etc, etc. And I'll be given the thing because if you use their phone system, they give you points so you can buy a phone with it. And no contract BS. :D

That's just the phone companies.

Now don't get me wrong, there are an amazing number of things that range from slightly annoying to absolutely bewildering here, plus amazingly good. The good and bad can be in the same place on the same day.

But I tell you what, if Telstra tried to but in here, it just wouldn't work. Draw your own analogy. At the same time, plenty of things here wouldn't fly in Oz either.

It is getting to the point though, that if a company wants to compete, heck, if they want to survive, they have to do it in an international market.

Anyways, just mentioning what's it like here. You haven't got it all good, nor all bad, but I think Telstra are lagging behind what they could be doing... ;)