Telstra net service lets Australia down

20 May 2010A privatised Telstra forgot about towns like Tascott, writes Rodney Tiffen in the Sydney Morning Herald

TASCOTT, the jewel of the NSW Central Coast, looking out on to Brisbane Water with national park behind, is a well-kept secret. Well, sufficiently secret for Telstra not to know a lot about it - much of the suburb still cannot achieve an ADSL broadband connection.

This does not inhibit the company from advertising the service. I had three offers from Telstra to join BigPond and agreed to do so, attracted by the bundling of ADSL, home phone and Foxtel, the sort of marketing muscle that a monopoly affords. I had credit card at the ready when Telstra discovered it could not deliver. What does it say about an organisation's systems that it could market something only to find out it could not fulfil its promise?

What does it signify about the state of Australian telecommunications? ADSL is a basic form of broadband access, and...

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Photo: iStockphoto

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