5 October 2008

Telstra marketing harassment

A story on The Age website talks about aggressive telemarketers acting for Telstra.

TSA Telco Group has been contracted by Telstra to win back customers who have switched to a new telco.

There are claims the company ignores the Do Not Call register and employees pose as Telstra staff. Read more »

Tags: communication, Telstra
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22 August 2008

Bigpond billing game

I cancelled my Bigpond wireless broadband account when I moved from Kalgoorlie to Mount Gambier. It wasn’t cheap at $89 a month for about 250MB of data and the kids broke the modem, so overall it was a lost cause and superfluous.

I was actually in credit when I closed the account because I had inadvertently paid a couple of months while also having a direct debit drawn. Bigpond said they would reimburse me with a cheque. Read more »

Tags: Telstra
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26 February 2008

It’s hard to love Telstra

I’d like to like Telstra, I really would. They have the best network and they are currently majority Australian owned. They used to be our national public telco.

In addition to having the best network, you’d think one of their competitive advantages in regional Australia was having a network of Telstra shops.

I visited the Telstra Shop in Kalgoorlie today and left unimpressed. Read more »

Tags: mobile, Telstra
2 comments


24 January 2008

Mobile phone plans

My mobile phone plan with Telstra expires soon, or so I’ve been told four times in the past week. In addition to answering four calls from salespeople I’ve missed about six calls to my phone from the same Melbourne number.

When the first bloke rang, I told him to email the information. “No worries,” he said, but nothing ever arrived. I told the second one that I was waiting for an email. I told the third one I never received an email and he offered to post me the information.

The fourth bloke, who incurred my wrath, said: “To be honest, we can’t email or post anything.” He tried to sell me a new phone plan with a $6 rebate for the last two months.

I asked him to remove me from the sales list. I wonder if I’ll get any more calls? Seriously, this sales pitch is overkill. If it wasn’t for NextG and the wider coverage area I’d switch today.

Tags: marketing, mobile, Technology, Telstra
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17 January 2008

Wireless broadband at Falcon

I’ve been silently cursing Telstra while on holiday at Falcon, near Mandurah, for the poor wireless broadband connection. Considering that Telstra’s prices are double those of competitors, their wider coverage is an important selling point.

But after reading the Mandurah Mail today I realise it’s not Telstra’s fault. Apparently they applied to Mandurah City Council to install a communications tower in Falcon near the fast-food precinct, but the request was denied.

The councillors thought it would have an adverse impact on the area’s amenity. We’re talking an ugly commercial strip here with no views of the beach or estuary!

The case went to the administrative appeals tribunal, which strangely referred it back to the council and asked for discussions to be held with Telstra. Talk about bureaucracy gone mad.

The mayor was quoted saying he wanted Telstra to consult more with the community. Well, as a repeat visitor who contributes to the city’s prosperity I can tell the council they should stop standing in the way of progress.

Tags: holiday, mobile, Technology, Telstra
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30 November 2007

Telstra’s future

Telstra’s group managing director for public policy, Dr Phil Burgess, arrived in Kalgoorlie-Boulder this evening for a flying visit. He came straight from the airport to a private dinner with business and community representatives at the Cornwall Hotel.

I was pleased to be among the small group of a dozen people. It’s not often you get to meet one of the most influential businessmen in the country.

Burgess is one of the “Three Amigos” who came to Australia in July 2005 with the new management team headed by Telstra CEO Sol Trujillo.

I thought the meeting was going to be off the record, so I didn’t take my notebook or camera. Bad journalist! Burgess said over drinks on his arrival that he doesn’t believe there is any such thing as “off the record” in Australia. He has heard it said, he reckons, and then read his words the next day.

Not that he’s any stranger to the media. Burgess has been the hard hitter for Telstra in its running campaign against government regulation.

I’m writing this article less than two hours after the meeting finished, and I’m paraphrasing some of the key points. Read more »

Tags: finance, Kalgoorlie, Technology, Telstra, Western-Australia
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28 November 2007

New JasJam phone

I bought an i-mate JasJam on eBay for A$650. It had been used as a demo version for some purpose, but was virtually new.

I didn’t really need it, but I love gadgets and this is my Christmas and birthday present.

I’d like to install Windows Mobile 6, but I’m worried about turning it into a “brick”.

So far it works fine, except for the Tomtom GPS navigation, which I can’t seem to activate; probably something stupid that I’m not doing.

Heading towards holidays in January at least I won’t be without internet access. Between this and the wireless laptop connection I’ll be able to stay in touch.

The more I think about that the less attractive it seems.

One of the good things about a mobile Windows operating system is the easy synchronisation with Windows software. It’s a shame that I haven’t been using Outlook.

I installed Outlook on my Vista PC today and imported contacts from Gmail. I had 652 contacts! Of those, I’d say about 70 are current and of the rest there are only about 50 I want to keep. The rest were purged.

The sync with the Jasjam went well.

Tags: internet, mobile, Technology, Telstra
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8 April 2007

Bigpond users were temporarily blocked from visiting this site. The mystery problem has now been fixed.

Tags: Technology, Telstra
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3 April 2007

Bigpond and Gmail

I use Gmail for most of my personal email. In the past week I’ve been getting a lot of error messages, basically whenever I send something to a Bigpond address.

At first I thought I might have had the wrong address for a particular person. I updated my contact book and tried again. In the last couple of days I’ve had nearly a dozen emails bounce back to me with error messages.

This topic has been discussed on the Whirlpool forums and it seems there is no explanation.

I’ve had trouble before with gmail addresses being blocked as spam, but this is the first time I’ve found them blocked by an entire ISP. It reflects poorly on Australia’s biggest provider that they haven’t immediately fixed the problem.

I’ll have to get around this by sending messages from another email address until Telstra gets its act together.

Tags: email, internet, Telstra
2 comments


14 February 2007

Telstra’s online ordering

I’ve struck out a couple of times trying to switch my Telstra GSM mobile phone to a new plan and handset on the wizz-bang flash Next G network via online ordering.

The first time, in October last year, I received this response a few days after placing the order:

The mobile number you have supplied is currently associated with an existing mobile repayment/service plan contract. If you would like to cancel this contract before the expiry date (and incur Early Termination Charges), please contact Telstra Mobile Customer Service.

Um yes. I knew that number was already on a plan. I wanted to upgrade the plan and thought I was dealing with the customer service department.

Telstra made a great fuss when it launched the new technology. It seemed reasonable to think there would be a transitional arrangement for people who had bought GSM phones before they knew about Next G. I wouldn’t have minded paying out the old handset. Read more »

Tags: mobile, Technology, Telstra
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