Wonder Why Your Phone Does Not Work?
Apparently, (remember that I’m no expert on the subject) it has something to do with Telikom’s “Failure Assurance” maintenance plan. The beauty of this plan is that it allows Telikom to collect exorbitant fees while allowing the entire infrastructure to rot and then extending to its customers the privilege of waiting months to get someone to fix a phone. I have friends who have simply given up.
As you might imagine, I have an example of Telikom’s “preventive maintenance” skill. Here’s a junction box in front of my office. (Click on the picture to see a bigger one.)
The lid was broken into two pieces, so I don’t think I violated the law in lifting it enough to take the picture. The gaps in the lid are apparently big enough for someone to fall into – witness the shoe! There is also plenty of room to shoot in a carefully aimed stream of buai spit. As for the smell – you don’t want to know. And when it rains, it is of course full of nasty water. Hmmm . . . Water – Electricity? I seem to remember that they don’t play well together.
Kiddies – Don’t Try This At Home. It’s probably not a good idea to go around poking into Telikom’s junction boxes for photos. If anybody bothers me about this one, I’ll tell the truth. It was broken. My foot slipped in. I was just trying to get my shoe back. Oh, and by the way Telikom – You owe me K1,000,000,000.00 in compensation for my broken leg.
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Why doesn’t this surprise me!
Simply because, dear Anne, you have lived here. You are therefore, by definition, unable to be surprised.
Hey Jan, Shouldn’t get me started!
But perhaps you will feel better after reading this?
Don’t think that PNG is any different to rural OZ. I have never had mobile service here on the farm EVER…and for the 9 months till December last year (I refer to it as the pregnant pause) I had no landline either.
Telstra, Australia’s Lack of National Communications did nothing but hinder the problem.
When the fault first occurred in January 2009, I had to drive 15km to the only phone box in our nearest tiny town (on a Sunday) to report the outage, only to find that I needed 50 cents to ring “Telstra Faults & Difficulties- Free Call” ha ha – so, drive another 2km to the local roadhouse to get change, as nothing was open in town, then back to the box, where I waited for 35mts “on hold” till someone told me I had the wrong Telstra Dpt. and cut me off.
That sort of frustration was a daily occurrence until 9 months later when Telstra sent a bunch of “Contractors” out to the farm to check the main lines to the effeced 3 properties. This time they brought in diggers and machinery and for 2 weeks they dug and tinkered and tested and dug, scratched heads, dug some more, until they FINALLY believed us that the lines they were working on had been disconnected from the system since 1985, when the Wivenhoe Dam catchment was flooded to service the Brisbane water supply.
Up till then, they told us politely to mind our own business and that they knew what they were doing.
They would not believe us that the lines they needed to look at were about 20 meters further up the hill.
UN-BELIEVABLE..??? NO! We are talking about Telstra and it just gets better.
Then they promised me a Satellite phone which I had to be “at home” to receive for installation. I waited and waited and it took 3 weeks to never arrive, needless to say they did not phone to apologise!
The best piece of advice that I ever got from -MY OWN PERSONAL “Telstra Faults Rep.”, was this little gem.
She said “After the contractors leave tomorrow, and your phone is still not fixed, I want you to ring this number immediately and let me know. Is that clear? ”
“Very clear”, I replied, but when I asked her if she thought I should use the Secret Telstra Shoe Phone to ring her on, there was a silent pause……Surprise, surprise…she didn’t get the joke at all.
I laughed till I cried and cried and cried !
One contractor guaranteed his work for 30 seconds or 30 yards which ever came first when he left. ???????
We finally got the phones fixed at the end of November, 2009, by contacting the local Ombudsman who put the right- royal- wind -up -Telstra in great gusts and I now have a land line phone service and a rather healthy Telstra CREDIT account to go with it, which will see me covered for some months to come.
But of course the Telstra Accounts and Billing team cannot handle anything out of the ordinary, and add an $11 Late Fee to my monthly account….every month! They cannot understand that you can’t be late paying an account which is in credit ?? Ho hummm…so every month I have to ring and wait, and explain and argue and finally have it reversed until the following month when they do it again.. Arghhh!
I was told last month by the operator, that I am ungrateful as I should be thankful to have a Credit account and why was I worried about the piddling little late fee?
So, you are not alone, we understand your frustration with Telekom.
I rang PNG 3 times last month for a total of 12 minutes and it cost me $80, so I’m comforted to know that bad service doesn’t come cheap.
I too am looking forward to giving Telstra the “dialing finger” (or the one one close by) when I download Skype at my nearest access to wireless. YAHOO!
Sorry for the RAVE!!!
Ali, no apology is necessary. I’ve heard Australians say before that the only thing worse than TELIKOM is Telstra. I read Australian PC magazine each month. Not an issue passes without a similar story to the one you relate. Thanks for adding a little spice to this pitiful space. I hope many people read it.
Can I get one of those secret Telstra Shoe Phones? I don’t care if if works or not. I just want to put it on and go over to TELIKOM’s office and kick it up the manager’s Secret Place Where The Sun Don’t Shine.
By the way, you are a very funny lady. Maybe we should do a stand-up routine. I’ll be the straight man.
Unfortunately the Secret Telsra Shoe Phones are a discontinued item Jan.
They all wore out very quickly and no spare parts were available.
Telstra don’t have a “sole”
Just my luck, Ali. I suppose I’ll have to go with a Chinese knock-off. Nice pun, by the way.