Telstra – why are they not just better?

When we first moved to Australia we were conned into some Vodafone handsets with lies about how I could use them to access the Internet. So burned once I shuffled off to Optus who had some attractive data plan bundles which it turns out they were able to offer by selling capacity they just didn’t have. Add further insult to injury (where injury is 3G data being so slow as to be unusable in Melbourne CBD), when I was travelling in Australia I found out the joys of the ridiculous telecoms monopoly. In Tasmania, in spitting distance of Hobart for fuck sake, I stood under a telephone cell tower with no Optus signal at all. If I had an Italian mobile phone, I’d have been able to roam onto Telstra but Optus? No siree, no service for you. Why is there not a deal in place? This is a big country, you people need to collaborate and get your shit together.

Then when we moved to leafy Belgrave,  40-odd  kilometers from Melbourne CBD, and got no Optus signal at all – I think it began to dawn on me that we had signed up to a third rate operator. Happily they charged me an absolute fortune to get out of my massive two year contract even after a year. Not a great experience so far and naturally sufficient that I shant be engaging their services again any time in, oh, my lifetime – and made pretty sure everyone else knew what a farce these guys were also.

So tail between legs we ran off to Telstra. No contracts, never again. Handsets owned outright, post-paid low-end plans. I also got one of Telstra’s fancy pants Next-G 3G dongles. The service overall has been excellent. The charges for data are absolutely astronomical, however, but hey I’ll take high charges for actual service than low charges for no service at all.

Circumstances changed when I started using a spangly new Nexus One. I was using the netbook and 3G dongle a whole lot less but a whole lot of data was appearing on my ‘browser pack’ on my phone. Today I called Telstra and disconnected the 3G dongle account and upgraded my browser pack to something they call “phone as a mobile”. Since I hacked the Nexus One to give me tethering I can either use the device itself or plug into my netbook (where it gets powered/charges) and sponge off the Net on that as required. I’m paying $59 for a 1GB allowance, which is probably, hopefully, more than I need and definitely more than I’d like to pay. However since if you go over they charge you 25c per megabyte, your break-even point is the 300MB pack with an additional 120MB downloaded pay-as-you-go which is 420MB. Nice.

Phoning Telstra up to get a service disconnected (when you have no contract) and upgrading the datapack on an existing phone was painless. What puzzles me though is why their website is just so diabolical. Once logged in half the functionality teleports you to disconnected websites. You have to piss about to sign up to monitor data usage, or to get online billing, all separate. You can’t upgrade your own plans, you can’t even buy a new plan although you can sort of upgrade phone and plan via their shop. It’s a terrible web site, reminiscent of also-ran operation in the UK rather than the incumbent in Australia.

What really pisses me off is that to get a 1GB data plan on a 3G dongle would cost me $39.95 a month and they’d ‘slow’ access after that – which is great. However 1GB on my phone, same network, is $59 and if I go over they’ll rape me sideways. There’s a very clear bias in charges where “phone as a modem” is loads more expensive. I think this is because they treat 3G dongles as being incremental business so they’re competing on price. I find it frustrating and disrespectful that I already give them a standing charge in addition to this higher charge data pack, just to have a mobile phone account for telephone calls – of which I make maybe 5 a month. I still need to do it this way because it’s simply more economical to have the large pool of quota (and the more sane 6c a megabyte) in one place available for my phone and my netbook.

I’m weary of the terrible telecoms situation in Australia. Weary of Telstra being the only one to offer a service that works properly but using this as a license to rip you off completely while cowboy operators that can’t run their web sites or customer service numbers, let alone a functional telephone network – lie, cheat and steal by falsely selling capacity they don’t have. Why can’t we have some actual respect?

Telstra need to bring their services up to date, fix your goddamn web site. Lower your prices not hugely but just so you’re not being absolutely ridiculous. Third party operators need to stop offering bargain basement services which they fail to deliver. More than anything else there needs to be a goddamn regulator with teeth to get stuck into this situation.

First thing is first though. Telstra need to charge me $39.99 for that 1GB plan on my mobile instead of $59 just like if I had the plan on a USB dongle. On what basis should it be otherwise?