back to article Telecoms Ombudsman praises nbn™ for growing connections faster than complaints

Australia's Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has praised nbn™, the entity building and operating Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN), for an increasing number of complaints about the network. That may sound counter-intuitive, but the Ombudsman says “It is positive that the rate of growth in the number of active …

  1. Winkypop Silver badge
    Devil

    When did you stop annoying your customers?

    Oh sorry, you haven't yet.

    The turd-polishing unit at nbn™ must be well staffed.

  2. Pompous Git Silver badge

    What I find aggravating...

    ... is the unreliability of the NBN, particularly since it costs appreciably more than ADSL. Yesterday we were without connectivity for 24 hours, something that never happened on ADSL, or dial-up in 25 years. I can recall ADSL going down once, but not for 24 hours. A tree fell over the power and telephone lines in a severe windstorm and both were reconnected within a few hours.

    1. Simon Sharwood, Reg APAC Editor (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: What I find aggravating...

      A tree? What connection medium do you have? there we were thinking that FTTP and FTTN are underground. Which leaves one of the few HFC connections as possibility. What am I missing?

      1. Pompous Git Silver badge

        Re: What I find aggravating...

        I wrote: "I can recall ADSL going down once, but not for 24 hours. A tree fell over the power and telephone lines..." ADSL uses copper wires either strung up on poles, or underground.

  3. Mark Exclamation

    Be warned

    Any company (or person) who switches everything over to the NBN will have to make sure they don't need faxes, because once you're on NBN, you can't get faxes, unless you keep one of those old-fashioned copper phone lines, for which the idea of NBN is to replace completely. And yes, some people/companies still rely on faxes.

    1. Pompous Git Silver badge

      Re: Be warned

      once you're on NBN, you can't get faxes
      Also your burglar alarm system needs replacement, your business letterhead changes because new telephone number (mandatory), insurance increases because the NBN entry point to your business is accessible from the street (mandatory)... According to businesses in Cygnet as reported on ABC TV News several years ago. You only got to keep your old copper wires if you get fixed wireless which contradicted what we were told before we got FW.

      FWIW Commbank is still using faxes rather than email for lotsa stuff.

      1. mark 177

        Re: Be warned

        I got NBN and kept my existing phone number. iinet in Perth.

    2. Phil Kingston

      Re: Be warned

      What's a fax?

  4. mark 177

    Champagne

    I prefer my champagne to flow rather than fly. I've always found the latter such a waste, a la F1.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ombudsman is just as useless...

    We had ongoing issues with Telstra so we lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman.

    First they made us jump through hoops to get the complaint lodged and then all we received was a pre-canned email telling us that they experience higher than usual Case volumes, that we should work with our ISP.

    At the end dealing with the Ombudsman just became an additional burden ontop of dealing with Telstra.

    We felt hopeleesly lost - and not helped at all. We felt "being Case Managed" by Telstra, NBNCo and the Ombudsman.

    The Communications breakdown within each of these Organisations and amongst these Organisations was shocking. It's hard to believe these Organisations operate -and are callowed to operate- in the Communications sector.

    By the time this overly politicised network has been rolled out and complaints have been "Case Managed" under the carpet the network is superseded and Australia becomes a communications banana republic. The network that was supposed to fuel innovation and to be come a pillar of Australia's future has become a major cause of ridicule and frustration.

    Back to digging sh!t out of the ground and selling it to china....

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