Wrong phone line

I’ve been in Adelaide for three weeks now and I still don’t have a proper phone connection.

The story is like something you’d expect to hear from a third world country.

To begin with, I rang the phone company (known here as PC), gave them my new address and asked for a connection. Easy. It should have been set up when I arrived.

For some reason, PC told me it would take a week to connect and I would have to be present between 10am and 2pm on the day of connection.

That didn’t suit me, obviously, but I cleared things at work to meet that request.

Then I received an SMS to say the phone line had been connected, the ADSL broadband would follow and my new number was xxxx.

Terrific. I arrived home that night, called Juliet and started advising family of my new phone number.

I checked my new number by calling 127 221 23, which gives an automated recording.

It was annoying my broadband didn’t get connected at the same time, because I don’t like paying for a wireless modem, but I thought it would be just a matter of days.

Wrong.

Eventually, an SMS came to say my broadband account had been activated.

I arrived home on Monday night this week happy in that knowledge.

Unfortunately, when I went to access the web, various browsers took me to the Adam Internet login page.

Puzzled, I wondered if Primus had some deal with them, so tried entering my account details, which didn’t work.

I rang technical support and waited on hold for 30 minutes before I spoke to someone, who was totally unhelpful. Basically, they suggested I reset the modem.

On Tuesday evening I called again. By that time I had discovered my actual phone number was different to the one I had been notified was mine by SMS.

I explained this to the support person, who said I would have to call the “provisioning” department during business hours.

Apparently the provisioning people couldn’t call me because they’re not allowed to make outside calls!

On Wednesday morning I called provisioning, who confirmed my number should be zzzz and I must have a crossed wire to be getting xxxx.

They told me to get an electrician to visit and repair the line. According to them, that was my responsibility, not the phone company’s.

I searched the Yellow Pages and found a telephone technician who agreed to visit that evening.

He told me the wrong line was coming into my unit, but because there was no “mainframe” box, he could not repair it.

Only Telstra technicians are allowed to play with wires on phone poles. The technician ranted for a while about the so-called deregulated telecommunications industry while billing me $80 for 10 minutes’ work.

He gave me a few tips regarding what to tell the support people at PC.

I phoned PC and reported the fact the correct line wasn’t active in my unit. The technician had suggested not telling them about the crossed line, because he said that would confuse them and delay repairs.

A fault was logged and I had to declare if it wasn’t an “external” problem, I would pay $160 for the call-out.

The estimated repair time was two business days.

On Thursday night I still had the wrong line.

On Friday night I still had the wrong line.

I rang PC support again and asked if the reported fault had been repaired.

They said a line check had revealed it should be working.

I then explained (again) how I had the wrong line in my unit.

Support person said my fault report had been incorrectly logged and would now be checked again on Monday.

I’m waiting (again).

Update (May 22): The Telstra technician came on Saturday morning! I now have the correct phone line and a working internet connection. Relief.

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