Telstra have fucked with my heart

After a marriage break up you suffer a bit of a lack in confidence in your romantic abilities, but you get back on the bike (the metaphorical bike, not a woman) and return to the dating scene. I’ve met some lovely women but so far any relationships I have had have been as serious as a Carry On movie – without the hanky panky and Barbara Windsor cupping her bare ample bosom.

So today I was rather exctied when I received an early Valentines Day message on my mobile phone, in the form of an animation which talked about boxing up flowers and hugs and wishing me a Happy Valentines Day. Thinking it was some kind of e-Card I eagerly checked to see who sent it, hoping it was someone in particular.

It was from Telstra.

Fuck you Telstra. Why are you wishing me a happy Valentine’s Day for? Do you want to fuck me Telstra, like you did when you sent me that $545 bill after forgetting to bill me monthly?

Why do you get a person’s hope up that he might be up for some booty only to find it’s some cruel spam thought up by some cunt with a ponytail named Lance, who wears a suit made from fibres not known to nature.

That’s the lowest of the low Telstra. Cruel bastards!

First published at Club Wah, February 12, 2009

The cluster fuck that is trying to get broadband in outer Melbourne

I moved house recently and figured that being sent to jail is easier. You don’t have to lift a finger when you go to jail, unless of course some Tongan giant named Gus wants you to digitally penetrate him.

I digress. Moving house sucks shit. Four football ovals worth of PNG rainforest was cleared to make the stack of cardboard boxes in my garage. But that’s small hassle compared to having to deal with every organisation that provides you with your essential services.

I won’t go on about my electricity being connected a day late, that’s old news and I’m over it, but I tell you now, everyone who works at Tru Energy and their families and friends can go and and eat shit and die as far as I’m concerned.

Then there’s Telstra, who connected me on time but then charged me the connection fee for a new dwelling, rather than an existing home – a couple of hundred bucks’ difference. I made a call to correct this error and was told the department that handles this is “not open today” and to leave my number. No bastard has called me. I’m sure the department that will call me when the bill I refuse to pay is overdue is always open. Fuckers!

But the most frustrating thing about all this is trying to get broadband connected. I have posted before about the third-world broadband conditions that exist in outer Melbourne. Optus, bless them, the Singapore-owned cunts, wouldn’t transfer my Optusnet Broadband because I don’t have an Optus phone account. Fuck Optus.

Thinking my only hope to get a broadband connection was to go with Telstra who own the phone lines and broadband nodes and obviously have a relationship with the ACCC that sees Graham Samuel turn up for weekly sex over a fucking barrel, I bit the bullet and applied for Telstra Bigpond broadband, with the added incentive of having it half price because I have a landline and mobile phone account with the national telco. Like Graham Samuel I am their arse slave.

First signs were good. An email from Bigpond confirming my application for ADSL2. Then nothing. When I called Telstra about the bullshit connection fee mentioned above, the lovely lass in Darwin checked my Bigpond application and said there were “several errors” which she said she fixed. I had to wait another 10 working days for confirmation – what errors? How hard is it?

Then 10 working days later I get an SMS to call Bigpond, which I did only to be told I can’t get ADSL2 in my area. Fair enough I said, “give me ADSL1″.

“You’ll have to reapply,” Margaret in Perth told me. Knowing that it’s futile to ask why anymore, I reapplied on the spot and was told to expect a new modem in the post within the magic 10 working days – which sounds a lot less than two weeks.

What I got instead was a letter saying “Unfortunately, our tests have indicated that Bigpond Broadband ADSL is not currently available on (03) XXXX XXXX. If you have another telephone on that premises, ADSL technology may be available on that number.

HOW? WHY? WHAT’S THE FUCKING DIFFERENCE?

This is fucking extortion! Do they expect me to fork out more money on a second phone just to get a service these bastards are too fucking useless to provide to a phone that’s less than a kilometre away from old house that had perfect ADSL access? Like fuck!

Then they rub it in by telling me about the other services available like Bigpond Broadband Cable – yeah fuck off!. Telstra decided it couldn’t be fucked rolling out fibre-optic cable in a brand new suburb while all the pipes were going in. If I had cable do you think I’d be wasting a month of my fucking life trying to get ADS-fucking hell?

This is a severely fucked up state of affairs. Imagine I had a small business or wanted to run a porn server. Fuck, what if I want to watch porn?

Who do I have to fuck to get cheap broadband?

A move of house within the same suburb has highlighted what a cluster fuck Australia’s broadband internet service is.

I live in a rapidly growing area but no one has told Tesltra this, which means our phone and piss poor ADSL service comes from an exchange which has barely been expanded since the days of Bakelite phones and switchboard operators named Mavis.

I called Optus, who I have had an internet account with for several years. who told me they won’t move my ADSL account to my new address unless I have my phone account with Optus. I politely told them go forth and masturbate with a liberal amount of Jif in their hands.

I then signed up with a smaller company on a friend’s recommendation – they are excellent. Brilliant customer service which does not require plenty of pushing of buttons or an electronic voice telling you to say why you’re calling – why the fuck does Optus have a special phone number for internet services only to put the caller through a range of options including all their phone services. WHY?

Sadly my potential new ISP told that there are no spare ADSL lines for me to connect to, because (and this wasn’t their words but hey I could read between the lines) Telstra are slack cunts. And we’re not even talking about ADSL2 here, just your bog standard broadband run by a clapped out hamster running like fuck on a wheel.

I bet people in Burma have less trouble getting Broadband than we do. And I bet they get faster speeds. And I bet in Zimbabwe you don’t have to pay at least $65 per month for a Broadband plan that allows you to do more than look at websites without going over the piss poor download limit.

Optus said they could offer me wireless broadband, which requires a $300 set up fee, a $5 monthly rental on the wireless modem and 89 fucking bucks for a decent download limit. Yeah, right! If I want to get fucked up the arse I’ll go to the toilets at Footscray Park thank you very much.

This is a national disgrace – imagine I needed the internet for a small business. John Howard and  Helen Coonan should be charged with treason for allowing our country to become the broadband laughing stock of the world.

OK, so the Poms are shit at sport, but in the UK you can get speeds of 28mbps and unlimited downloads for pretty much fuck all.

I hate Australia.

First published at Club Wah, July 9, 2008. Since then the Poms got better at sport, but my broadband is still shit.