I blogged two days ago that the Optus cable internet is (so far) woeful! I then spoke to Optus Support on the day of that post and was hopeful when they ran a network test and confirmed that there is indeed a problem with my connection.

A technician was booked to come out next Monday. This is pretty quick for Optus as it took nearly a month to get the initial cable connection re-connected (the previous owner had Optus cable).

I had my neighbour, who also has Optus cable, to run the same ping analysis and confirmed that he does not experience any packet loss. Hence, I am sure the problem is isolated to my connection.

This afternoon I got an SMS from Optus say that they have cancelled the technician for Monday as there has been a general fault reported in my area.

I immediately rang Optus Support to complain and get the technician to still to come out on Monday. My rationale being that my problem has been on going for weeks, so is not related to the reported general fault.

Whilst being sympathetic, the Optus Support person said that they cannot reinstate the technician’s booking whilst there is a reported general fault in the area. He said that a Support person would contact me tomorrow, presumably after the general fault is fixed, to book the next available slot for a technician to come out - I have lost the Monday slot.

About 30 minutes later I got another call from Optus Support, this time the person I spoke to a couple of days ago, who also said that he cannot reinstate the technician’s booking whilst there is a reported general fault in the area. He said that he would call me on Monday to raise a new issue to book in a technician, which could be days away.

Clearly the Optus business processes are a farce, and completely ignore scenarios like mine.

As it stands, I have an cable Internet/Phone service that is not fit for purpose, and no clear steps/deadline to a successful resolution!

I hope this does not drag out to being something that needs to involve the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.