A positive story about ISPs and Telcos

Recently we upgraded our Internet connection to TPG ADSL 2+. This was an effortless transaction with TPG providing good progress feedback and the required modem/router settings.

Our house has always had a very noisy telephone line (to the point of making it difficult to hear the other person in a conversation) so the ADSL connection had issues from the start. Connections would drop out after a few minutes and take multiple retries to re-connect (and then drop out anyway). The best connection we had would have been less than an hour in duration. Having inspected some of the internal telephone wiring in the house I wasn't convinced the problem was with the Telstra side of the wiring (Telstra provide our home telephone line).

At this point I was spending a fair amount of time away with work and didn't get a chance to look at the issue any further. TPG telephoned us (without me contacting them) and said that they had noticed the connection dropping out and suggested a few configuration changes. They also speed limited the connection in an attempt to increase uptime. Needless to say I was very impressed (I knew at this stage TPG were not at fault).

After talking to TPG I lodged a line quality complaint with Telstra. This was a bit of a gamble on my part as if the problem was on our side Telstra would charge a $405 callout fee and I would have to get an Austel electrician to look at the house (costing hundreds more). Telstra came out two days early (I was staggered at this) and fixed the fault in the line at the street a few houses down. The technician was very polite and everything was sorted in an hour or two. We now had a crystal clear phone line!

A quick email to TPG and a modem reboot removed the speed limit on the line and the ADSL hasn't dropped out since! Given the horror stories that circulate on the Internet regarding Internet service providers and telo-communications companies I thought it would be good to share a positive story.

Black-faced Woodswallow

IMG_4753, originally uploaded by gjhmac.

Black-faced Woodswallow (Artamus cinereus, Dampier, WA, Australia).

This is one of the first photographs I took with my "new" Sigma 170-500mm 5-6.3 APO DG lens. Needless to say I am very happy.