Thursday, March 25, 2010

can we talk?

We’ve been without phone since we arrived in Australia nearly 2 months ago and the saga looks set to continue.

We came with cellphones, brought during an earlier visit, so that initially took the pressure off. We added to that a wireless roaming plug-in, and that managed to get us through the initial search for car and house.

Once established in a house, with a 12 month rental, we began to look at phone companies.

We were recommended a wireless provider, but warned of a potential 3 week delay. They looked good initially, but after multiple to and froing (it’s not easy to organise phone without a phone), and toward the end of the 3 weeks, told us that our local exchange was overloaded, so they couldn’t help us.

So we turned to Optus, who prepared to send us out the required hardware. Which never arrived, because apparently the intermediary company we were going through (Direct Connect) required some information from us to complete a credit check, but never contacted us, so we duly failed the check.

By now it’s been weeks and we’re feeling quite cut off, especially from friends and family back in New Zealand.

So we look at yet more wireless providers. Many advertise and for a fee, will check whether there is room on the exchange for us to plug in. Yeah right, a fee to be told they can’t help!

So we’re now back looking at a landline connection. Which means back talking with the owner of the house, because the existing wires have been ripped out of their sockets and so the connection fee looks like going up.

It all feels so hard. And so tiring.

Posted by steve at 08:53 PM

3 Comments

  1. It sounds like they make NZ telcos look good! I don’t understand how they get away with such appalling waiting times and charging to check the exchange. The infrastructure must be outdated if it’s perpetually overloaded.

    Comment by Paul — March 26, 2010 @ 8:49 am

  2. it is a first world country though Paul!

    steve

    Comment by steve — March 26, 2010 @ 9:17 am

  3. stupid question…

    have you looked into naked adsl? if it’s accessible you may be able to use voip without a phone line…

    i use netspace.net.au pretty good thus far…

    Comment by Darren — April 2, 2010 @ 10:22 pm

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