mr_scotty
16-06-2009, 05:01 PM
Hi guys,
I’m almost at my end, after a couple of weeks worth of wrestling with People Telecom (and Telstra) about this one… any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I recently moved house (from Melbourne’s inner suburbs, to the West). Of course, I had a telstra Homeline Complete phone line connected at the property (my brother once got in a hell of a situation with PT because he had an optus line put in, that’s another story), and I checked People Telecom’s website, to confirm that my 512k/128k Easy ADSL plan could be relocated successfully.
After 10 days, I then received a short and nasty (automated) email from People Telecom, saying that my request for ADSL relocation has been rejected, due to an XDSL - ALTERNATIVE PATH CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE, whatever that means….
---
Dear TELSTRA TELSTRA - (0393560305)
Thank you for your order with People Telecom. Your application for ADSL has
been rejected on 05/06/2009 for the following reason:
XDSL - ALTERNATIVE PATH CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE.
This means that the phone number you supplied is unable to have ADSL
provisioned on it for one of the following reasons:
* ADSL is not available in your area.
* Your premises has equipment that is incompatible with ADSL between it and
the exchange and no alternative connection is possible.
* There are no free ADSL ports in the exchange.
Best Regards,
People Telecom
Customer Care Team
---
To make matters worse (far, far worse.. far move difficult than I could have conceived), when I initially signed up for my ADSL plan in Sept. 08, I agreed that it would be OK to be put into a 24 month contract with People Telecom, in order to waive the initial connection fee.
After a few disconcerting calls to both Telstra and People Telecom (and speaking to people that were admittedly vague), I finally spoke to someone at Telstra whom at least was able to explain the probably cause of this problem to me. He told me that - basically - every exchange had an ADSL ‘hub’ - for example, 50 available ADSL ports, and that the hub at my exchange would most probably be full.
The Telstra guy seemed to think that most people in this situation would simply try re-appying, again and again, until someone in that neighbourhood moved out and an ADSL spot became available. This sounded pretty ludicrous to me… I mean I’d be happy to reapply and all, but surely it is someone’s responsibility to manage these switches and implement new infrastructure at the exchange if it is currently full? I couldn’t seem to deduce whether this would be Telstra’s responsibility or PT’s (or a combination of infrastructure teams at the two)… but anyway.
--
So now I’m not sure where to go from here. Before I get fired up into a legal argument with People Telecom, demanding them to cancel my service without a lease-break fee (on a count of they can no longer provide the service… but more on that later, of course I seriously don’t want to go there if I can help it), here are some thoughts:
- Basically, I just want a hassle-free broadband connection at the property. A wireless broadband solution (such as a USB wireless modem, similar to a ‘NextG’ setup) would make a lot of sense, and I see that People Telecom offer this service. This would work, However my main concern with an upgrade to my plan in this fashion (I read somewhere that I have ‘one free plan upgrade’) is that all of People Telecom’s Wireless Broadband plans consist of a fixed-term contract of 24-months. Given my current situation (and experiences of the past), there is no way I would sign onto any telco - least of all People Telecom - for a fresh 24-month period.
- I’ve read in places that an upgrade to ADSL2/ADSL2+ means that your phone line bypasses these regular ADSL switches at the exchange, routing through an “ADSL2 RIM” instead. Granted an ADSL2 connection would be serious overkill for my approx. 5-6gb/month needs – and it’s hellishly expensive too.
- I’ve called People Telecom about the possibility of having my phone line provided by PT (bundled, if you like, with my internet line), as I was curious to find out whether this would help. PT told me that this would not assist the situation – and fair enough, too: I couldn’t see how a change in provider could assist the exchange’s ADSL switch in using less ports.
- Goes without saying, but dialup is not an option.
I have read in similar forums that occasionally, one can organise a line ‘transposition’ to take place – meaning that Telstra(?) will come and attempt to connect different pairs of (hopefully) copper wires to your property, which apparently works around 80% of the time. But how does one facilitate this? Should I call Telstra?
---
My final option, of course, would be to break the contract. As you might guess, at best this would be a frustrating process, and at worst, a frustrating, slow, and expensive one. I queried this with a PT phone rep, and she informed me that with around 14 months supposedly left with them, a break under normal circumstances would cost around $800. However, I flat refuse to continue paying for a service that PT can no longer provide. Should I gear up for this slugfest?
Any thoughts would be wonderful,
-scott-
I’m almost at my end, after a couple of weeks worth of wrestling with People Telecom (and Telstra) about this one… any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I recently moved house (from Melbourne’s inner suburbs, to the West). Of course, I had a telstra Homeline Complete phone line connected at the property (my brother once got in a hell of a situation with PT because he had an optus line put in, that’s another story), and I checked People Telecom’s website, to confirm that my 512k/128k Easy ADSL plan could be relocated successfully.
After 10 days, I then received a short and nasty (automated) email from People Telecom, saying that my request for ADSL relocation has been rejected, due to an XDSL - ALTERNATIVE PATH CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE, whatever that means….
---
Dear TELSTRA TELSTRA - (0393560305)
Thank you for your order with People Telecom. Your application for ADSL has
been rejected on 05/06/2009 for the following reason:
XDSL - ALTERNATIVE PATH CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE.
This means that the phone number you supplied is unable to have ADSL
provisioned on it for one of the following reasons:
* ADSL is not available in your area.
* Your premises has equipment that is incompatible with ADSL between it and
the exchange and no alternative connection is possible.
* There are no free ADSL ports in the exchange.
Best Regards,
People Telecom
Customer Care Team
---
To make matters worse (far, far worse.. far move difficult than I could have conceived), when I initially signed up for my ADSL plan in Sept. 08, I agreed that it would be OK to be put into a 24 month contract with People Telecom, in order to waive the initial connection fee.
After a few disconcerting calls to both Telstra and People Telecom (and speaking to people that were admittedly vague), I finally spoke to someone at Telstra whom at least was able to explain the probably cause of this problem to me. He told me that - basically - every exchange had an ADSL ‘hub’ - for example, 50 available ADSL ports, and that the hub at my exchange would most probably be full.
The Telstra guy seemed to think that most people in this situation would simply try re-appying, again and again, until someone in that neighbourhood moved out and an ADSL spot became available. This sounded pretty ludicrous to me… I mean I’d be happy to reapply and all, but surely it is someone’s responsibility to manage these switches and implement new infrastructure at the exchange if it is currently full? I couldn’t seem to deduce whether this would be Telstra’s responsibility or PT’s (or a combination of infrastructure teams at the two)… but anyway.
--
So now I’m not sure where to go from here. Before I get fired up into a legal argument with People Telecom, demanding them to cancel my service without a lease-break fee (on a count of they can no longer provide the service… but more on that later, of course I seriously don’t want to go there if I can help it), here are some thoughts:
- Basically, I just want a hassle-free broadband connection at the property. A wireless broadband solution (such as a USB wireless modem, similar to a ‘NextG’ setup) would make a lot of sense, and I see that People Telecom offer this service. This would work, However my main concern with an upgrade to my plan in this fashion (I read somewhere that I have ‘one free plan upgrade’) is that all of People Telecom’s Wireless Broadband plans consist of a fixed-term contract of 24-months. Given my current situation (and experiences of the past), there is no way I would sign onto any telco - least of all People Telecom - for a fresh 24-month period.
- I’ve read in places that an upgrade to ADSL2/ADSL2+ means that your phone line bypasses these regular ADSL switches at the exchange, routing through an “ADSL2 RIM” instead. Granted an ADSL2 connection would be serious overkill for my approx. 5-6gb/month needs – and it’s hellishly expensive too.
- I’ve called People Telecom about the possibility of having my phone line provided by PT (bundled, if you like, with my internet line), as I was curious to find out whether this would help. PT told me that this would not assist the situation – and fair enough, too: I couldn’t see how a change in provider could assist the exchange’s ADSL switch in using less ports.
- Goes without saying, but dialup is not an option.
I have read in similar forums that occasionally, one can organise a line ‘transposition’ to take place – meaning that Telstra(?) will come and attempt to connect different pairs of (hopefully) copper wires to your property, which apparently works around 80% of the time. But how does one facilitate this? Should I call Telstra?
---
My final option, of course, would be to break the contract. As you might guess, at best this would be a frustrating process, and at worst, a frustrating, slow, and expensive one. I queried this with a PT phone rep, and she informed me that with around 14 months supposedly left with them, a break under normal circumstances would cost around $800. However, I flat refuse to continue paying for a service that PT can no longer provide. Should I gear up for this slugfest?
Any thoughts would be wonderful,
-scott-