As York Council staggers into the second month of 2018,
when it actually has to hold a public meeting, news has broken that Jenni Law
and the DLGC have parted.
This means the last of its terrible trio, involved in the demise of Matthew Reid, Jennifer Matthews, Brad, Jolly and Law have all left the building.
Brad Jolly’s doppelganger, the former Mayor of Joondalup, Troy Pickard, has been charged by police with assault and the Minister, David Templeman, has suddenly found out that 1,100 local government city council employees in Perth and surrounds have an annual salary above $100,000- and the question is why?
Rural regional and Remote Shire Councils may well be asked the very same question.
The Shire of York had three executives well above this mark and still has two.
This year will prove once and for all whether this remaining dynamic duo, on in excess of $450,000 per annum between them, is actually worth it.
York is now changing to the National Broadband Network, also lovingly known as the NBN Co Limited network. (This is when the fun starts- when you can decide that the Shire of York is not as inept as you think, or rates the same as the NBN.)
Unfortunately you could be one of the many unlucky ones who find out that Limited is what you, as users, get in both service and customer service. In fact, how limited, is the yet to be a fully answered question.
When you nominate TELSTRA as your NBN service provider, brush up on your Tagalog, as you could be on the phone, at your expense, for many hours and many times trying to make someone in Manila understand that you have a serious communications problem.
On the other end of the phone is a TELSTRA outsourced customer service provider who speaks very poor English with an American accent. (Even worse is their inability to comprehend what you are talking about.)
At the end of an incredibly frustrating telephone conversation, where you are trying not to harm international relations through using the word’s ‘f…ing moron, you are told that your complaint cannot be acted upon for 72 hours because their computer system has either crashed, and/or being upgraded.
Maybe their excuse to you will be that a local volcano has just erupted!
Or you may hit the jackpot and get TELSTRA Mumbai.
With iiNet you end up in a Soweto ghetto where Afrikaans is the official language that contravenes the normal comprehension of the English language.
Or if you are really lucky you get the dulcet tone of a New Zealander who tells you may have to wait a ‘wee sux’ days before anything at all could happen.
So where do the actual NBN staff live, breathe and sort of work? It is probably in the middle of the Great Sandy Desert where communication networks do not exist, in some-ways similar to their NBN.
Some suburbs in Perth have had their telephone system clarity reduced to snap crackle and pop through the NBN rollout. The lucky ones have the same service quality as two jam tins connected by string. Others wish that Alexander Graham Bell had never invented the bloody thing!
A letter of complaint to the Minister for Communications, Mitch Fifield, received a response faster than you can get on your landline.
Fifield’s response through Consumer Broadband Services (that basically does not exist) is highly illuminating regarding what you can expect in the future.
There is a copy of this letter and what the underlying response actually was that were supposed to placate the complainant.
Date January 14, 2018
Dear Senator Fifield
Your ref: - DOMESTIC COMMUNICATIONS PROBLEMS .
(Q)What has occurred in the roll-out of the NBN is truly disgraceful and begs the question how poorly functioning the electronic communication development system in this country really is.
(A) Do not expect a world class broadband network using best practices and technologies that places it at the forefront of international communications quality assurance. It is a service to be delivered in the most cost-effective manner only.
Do not expect equality of service delivery, you punters will get the broadband speeds we care to deliver in the most cost-effective manner.
(Q) It also raises the question of the quality of its major telco, TELSTRA, which is represented by a customer service delivery/ complaint staff located in cities like Mumbai who have little ability in understanding basic communication failures and English.
(A) The decision by Australia’s telco’s to pay overseas monkeys in local peanuts to deliver cheap, but not cheerful, customer support is their commercial decision.
The customer service you will receive will be the most cost-effective to the telco’s and be at the most ineffective and infuriating to the customer.
(Q) So as Minister for Communications do you personally have staff that can answer questions lucidly on the NBN system and query the customer service compliance of TELSTRA and its alleged proper customer support mechanisms?
(A) Yes S. Kearns, Consumer Broadband Services.
These are the questions:-
1.The NBN connection device used at these premises to connect to the new NBN Service is a TELSTRA UL ® Listed 48s5 Communications Circuit Device
that is decades old.
NO COMMENT.
Can NBN management explain why there is no difference, and or improvement in the technology used, and the delivery systems used, compared to the fibre optics cabling connected 25-years-ago?
NO COMMENT.
Should this have been replaced as part of the NBN roll out with a new connection device? If not? Why not!
NO COMMENT- but was certainly cost-effective!
2. The landline service number is ……………….. In the past it has been used
for Foxtel Service delivery and one domestic telephone service only using a base station telephone and one additional handset.
The NBN service works in Foxtel Service delivery and the base station, but not on the additional handset that is located 16 metres away.
The telephone set being used is TELSTRA EASY CONTROL-202.
We have had two sets of these and neither additional handset has worked to provide clarity of reception acceptable in the 20th Century, let alone the 21st Century.
You mainly hear static and this is totally unacceptable. We were led to believe the range of the additional handset delivery service was up to 25 metres.
Is this true? If not- why not!
NO COMMENT – however the quality of the NBN service is causing the problem, but it is TELSTRA’s problem in providing this service linked to crap devices.
We have complained continually to TELSTRA service representatives located in Manila or Manchuria. Finally they stated that we had a line fault and the matter would be up-scaled and prioritized.
NO COMMENT- however it should have taken at least 2-weeks to receive
assistance.
An actual living, breathing TELSTRA service representative attended the premises and tested the landline number by dialling it 4 metres from the additional handset using a mobile phone and found the clarity of the service to be acceptable. This, at best, is a stupid test that TELSTRA tried to charge $175 for.
NO COMMENT
What is blatantly obvious is that the NBN landline service does not provide the quality of service provided in the past by the hardwired system. And an electricity power failure will see the service outed.
WE never promised you a rose garden. Do not rely on the NBN, get yourself a Mobile phone.
I would be interested to hear the response, if any?
Got a problem? Why not call the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and join a queue of 200,000.
You never know-York might be NBN lucky! If not please do not self-harm.
Yours sincerely
David Taylor
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