We do understand Telstra that you were very busy after last week's huge storms. We would be sympathetic about that If we could see that our needs were definitely being recognised. We would do our best to be patient if we knew our connectivity was somewhere on your to-do list. But - as a communications company you really must learn to communicate a whole lot better. (Telstra response in comment below.)
It is bad enough that you think we are the northern outskirts of a fictitious location called "ARM COVE". Just where do you think that is? Is it somewhere under water in Port Stephens? Do they have phone and ADSL connectivity there?
When you bother to list us on your Service Status page at all - it is under the letter "A" following this mysterious non-existent location: showing us as "Arm Cove North" on the pull-down list. We might just tolerate the fact that you don't understand that our Cove is the North Arm of Port Stephens if you had kept us informed of what you were up to with this latest outage.
On Friday morning, after the phones came back on, you told us Monday evening as the time for a fix to ADSL in the Cove. Then on Saturday your Service Status website said ADSL was fixed in "Arm Cove North". No it wasn't. When alerted by locals to this fact, even "Arm Cove North" disappeared entirely from this Service Status page as either a fault or fixed and, as I write this, has not reappeared.
We waited patiently till the Monday night. Still no connection. Then today, Tuesday, some local residents get told that ADSL was only off for the one day in the Cove. Utter nonsense of course.
Finally, as I typed this, ADSL reaches back into the Cove. No mention of this yet on the service website.
(Edit: Tuesday 2.55pm: This has now been added to "completed" on the Service Status web page with a start time of 23-04-2015 18:10 and completion time of 28-04-2015 14:20 - duration of outage is shown as 5 days.)
We weren't fixed by the Saturday morning. We have had six and a half days since the power from the battery backup in the local hub ebbed away and more than four and a half days since the power to the Cove came back on.
You need to do better with communications Telstra.
Telstra Response:
Telstra's response. The above article plus five issues were raised with Telstra Complaints. These issues were:
1. Better communication regarding local outages including estimated times of repair.
2. Some consistency between information given via phone to the local community; between Telstra staff and via the website.
3. Appropriate recognition of the name of our village! Sometimes words like "North" are an integral part of a name, not an afterthought to be tacked on at the end. We are not the north part of "Arm Cove".
4. Some action to redress the poor mobile coverage particularly in the north of the Village.
5. Some action to extend the hours that the Telstra hub can survive in the event of a power outage.
After four phone calls with Telstra complaints we have the following response from Telstra:
"I’m sorry we haven’t been able to reach a mutually agreeable solution regarding your complaint about internet and phone services. As discussed, we’ve investigated your complaint and as a result the following resolution was proposed:
"You have been told that we do not have a formal feedback that we can send to you regarding when the infrastructures in your town will be upgraded.
"You have been advised that its not that they are not being prioritized when it comes to outages. Its just that there is a reason why its being removed from the outage board.
"While it is disappointing that we are unable to reach a mutually agreeable solution, Telstra is confident that our investigation and proposed resolution are appropriate and therefore, I’m not able to do anything further to resolve this matter for you.
"As you are not satisfied with the outcome, you may wish to pursue an external independent review with a body such as the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO).