Honestly amazing to see that telco providers can get away with such poor quality support in a first world country.
Don’t they use a third world country to do the support?
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I hate how they always assume it is your fault and make you go through endless tests. The fault (in my experience) is always at the exchange. Our NBN drops out (goes to zero) for brief periods - seconds to a few mins - several times a day. No way am I getting on the phone to Telstra about it.
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Telstra phone support 
There’s a reason why there are queues lined up outside Telstra shops every Saturday morning before they open…
At least the dudes in there usually have some clues in my experience.
And Steve, I’ve recently experienced NBN drops too, usually several minutes then back up, then down again after 5-10mins, then back up. - I thought my 6yo modem must have been on the way out. But things seem to have stabilised recently.
I switched to a 4G wifi box each time it went down and there was no problem with it staying connected. So, the FTTN or something further up the local area network chain must have been the culprit. - Imagine calling something like this into the help desk !
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My parents live in Horsham, a rural Vic town with something like 20k pop, and whilst it’s slowly growing larger - it’s typically old folk moving in from surrounding towns for the better hospital and other support services, so - a big ageing population.
My mum has often ended up going in to their Telstra Shop for iPhone / iPad issues as whilst Dad just jumps on the phone to me with any Mac issues, she doesn’t want to disturb me too much (bless). I’ve often been left shaking my head though at the stories she has told me of their lack of support.
Given the demographics of their customers, you’d think they’d want to be good with old folk who struggle with tech… but it sounds like they just have zero patience and don’t give a rats…
That said - I have no idea what their Optus people are like… or Voda… or…
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Vodafone gave me the run-around in August.
We were changing our HFC NBN from iiNet to Vodafone, both part of the TPG Vodafone group. We signed up with Vodafone and a few days later, our iiNet connection was stopped. So we had no internet service. I had assumed a quick change, but after a few hours with nothing happening I rang Vodafone, the first of many calls.
They said that they had arranged an NBN appointment in 8 days time. I indicated that I had been told it would be a quick change and asked why they arranged for our iiNet connection to be cut off if they knew they could not connect me for 8 days. I also asked why is there even a need for an NBN appointment given that my HFC link was still connected with 4 stable green lights. I never received a logical response. They seemed to be locked into one script with no flexibility.
After many calls and eight days, an NBN tech called asking why an appointment was necessary given my NBN connection was fully functional. I explained that I had been saying that to Vodafone for 8 days. He said he would contact Vodafone and ask them to activate our link.
A few hours later, I noticed that our Vodafone internet service was working, so the NBN tech succeeded.
This was not a good introduction to Vodafone. So which Telco does provide good support?
We are not on the NBN. We were one of the last streets in Australia to be connected! No one ever even contacted us to say we were connected to the NBN.
Anyway, we got sick of waiting & about 5 years ago, on a colleague’s recommendation we went with Uniti Wireless. Never had problem really. They give early warning of scheduled maintenance, upgrades etc. We get advertised speeds. Price is competitive.
I’m with Aldi for my mobile. Never had a problem with them either. My wife is with Vodafone & she is always complaining about something.
They supposedly pulled it back to Australia although that only seems like in business hours they do that
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Richard, If you want better speed than wireless broadband can offer (10-20Mbits/sec I thought was about it) then maybe have a look at StarLink. $1K for hardware up front then $140/mth for unlimited data and speeds that very between 60 & 300 Mbits/sec.
You basically need to be able to justify the x2 monthly cost over other offerings though for your usage pattern.
Also SkyMuster or Optus satellite are options to consider for better data speed than fixed wireless.
It all comes down to value for money if you have options.
We went with Starlink for work because it’s easy to relocate to new sites by either nominating a new service address in your online account or by paying a premium for an “RV” service that works anywhere you take it every day.
But, back on topic, their support is all by internet texts, no shopfront at all…
We’re on 54Mbps & regularly get over 52! Plenty of speed & bandwidth for us. $64.95 per month, unlimited downloads. Plus no hassles!