The World Has Stopped Spinning
In Australia, there is a monopoly Telco called Telstra, who owns/manages the connections to 99% of Australian homes.
You can get phone and internet through many other providers, but at the end of the day, Telstra still has to be involved to make the connection at the local telephone exchange.
I recently decided to change providers, and when I proposed this to Mrs Mail, the response was You can choose whatever you like, it doesn't matter to me.
So I applied for the home phone and internet service to be moved to a new provider, and it was impressively seamless and pain free, much to my surprise.
There is a process here called "number porting" where the new provider initiates a process, where they take over ownership of my service, and provide the old supplier with some advice that the service is transferred. This means the consumer doesn't have to worry about the technicalities. If you don't do this you end with a new telephone number etc.
After it was all done and dusted, I logged into my account with the provider I was saying goodbye to, just to check that everything was shutdown, and realisising that there would be some final bills to take care of.
I found that the home phone and mobile services were appropriately gone but the internet was still listed. I suspect you are now getting the drift of the story.
So I rang the call centre that happens to be in the Phillipines, and advised that my old internet had not been shutdown and so it needed to be cancelled so the billing would stop.
BUT, I said, be absolutely careful that you not issue any cancellation notice that could be misinterpreted by anyone as a network cancellaton. This piece of conversation actually took quite a while as there was a hint of language based incomprehension, and I had a nagging feeling that she was just giving me answers written on a cheat sheet.
Well, it was the next day when I discovered that I had been surgically separated from the WWW, and raised a case with my new provider who over a few phone calls made me do everything possible to ensure that it was not my fault, otherwise the presence of a man in a truck finding there was no network problem, would hand me a bill for $220.
The following day was a public holiday, and I had done everything possible to verify that there was no fault at my end.
The next day I convinced my provider that the network was broken, and as I work for a company that provides the network I was using (not Telstra) I had access to information behind the scenes, not normally accessable to Joe Blow user.
My old provider had lodge a cancellation that was interpreted by Telstra as a full disconnection. Wonderful.
My new provider now has to reapply for a new service to get Testra to reinstall my connection, a job that itself would take no longer than it would take to drink a cup of coffee, but the administration overhead might take up to 5 working days.
I am gritting my teeth and biting my tongue to remain calm as I try to get used to a world that seems to have stopped spinning and isolated me.
What did we do before the internet.
I won't go into what Mrs Mail said, and will just put it down to her lack of knowledge about how these simple processes are SUPPOSED to work.
Please bear with me as I have a very poor connection on a 3G modem with marginal signal strength. I will try to catch up with you all when I am older, hopefully not much older.
I miss you all.
BTW - this wind generation was a spinning blur, and I took it at 1/8000 sec to freeze it when visiting Nautical Nancy at the marina.
The World Has Stopped Spinning
In Australia, there is a monopoly Telco called Telstra, who owns/manages the connections to 99% of Australian homes.
You can get phone and internet through many other providers, but at the end of the day, Telstra still has to be involved to make the connection at the local telephone exchange.
I recently decided to change providers, and when I proposed this to Mrs Mail, the response was You can choose whatever you like, it doesn't matter to me.
So I applied for the home phone and internet service to be moved to a new provider, and it was impressively seamless and pain free, much to my surprise.
There is a process here called "number porting" where the new provider initiates a process, where they take over ownership of my service, and provide the old supplier with some advice that the service is transferred. This means the consumer doesn't have to worry about the technicalities. If you don't do this you end with a new telephone number etc.
After it was all done and dusted, I logged into my account with the provider I was saying goodbye to, just to check that everything was shutdown, and realisising that there would be some final bills to take care of.
I found that the home phone and mobile services were appropriately gone but the internet was still listed. I suspect you are now getting the drift of the story.
So I rang the call centre that happens to be in the Phillipines, and advised that my old internet had not been shutdown and so it needed to be cancelled so the billing would stop.
BUT, I said, be absolutely careful that you not issue any cancellation notice that could be misinterpreted by anyone as a network cancellaton. This piece of conversation actually took quite a while as there was a hint of language based incomprehension, and I had a nagging feeling that she was just giving me answers written on a cheat sheet.
Well, it was the next day when I discovered that I had been surgically separated from the WWW, and raised a case with my new provider who over a few phone calls made me do everything possible to ensure that it was not my fault, otherwise the presence of a man in a truck finding there was no network problem, would hand me a bill for $220.
The following day was a public holiday, and I had done everything possible to verify that there was no fault at my end.
The next day I convinced my provider that the network was broken, and as I work for a company that provides the network I was using (not Telstra) I had access to information behind the scenes, not normally accessable to Joe Blow user.
My old provider had lodge a cancellation that was interpreted by Telstra as a full disconnection. Wonderful.
My new provider now has to reapply for a new service to get Testra to reinstall my connection, a job that itself would take no longer than it would take to drink a cup of coffee, but the administration overhead might take up to 5 working days.
I am gritting my teeth and biting my tongue to remain calm as I try to get used to a world that seems to have stopped spinning and isolated me.
What did we do before the internet.
I won't go into what Mrs Mail said, and will just put it down to her lack of knowledge about how these simple processes are SUPPOSED to work.
Please bear with me as I have a very poor connection on a 3G modem with marginal signal strength. I will try to catch up with you all when I am older, hopefully not much older.
I miss you all.
BTW - this wind generation was a spinning blur, and I took it at 1/8000 sec to freeze it when visiting Nautical Nancy at the marina.