We all have a mobile phones, we all use the internet, whether it being wireless or fixed line and most of have a landline phone; but getting these services connected can sometimes be a little bit of a hassle.
Almost one and a half years ago, I moved interstate, which means, I need to get the landline and internet connected. Because where I previously lived, Bigpond was pretty much the only option, I now had access to a wide variety of ISP’s. So I narrowed it down to two ISP – Optus and iiNet. My main criteria where cheap/free phone calls, and a reasonable amount of internet quota.
Optus offered me $129/month, free landline & mobile calls with 30GB internet and iiNet offered $70/month with Naked DSL, free landline calls and 50GB quota. I originally chose Optus, thinking they where offering a traditional landline (not VOIP) so I could use a fax machine (and plus there number was cool it had six 8’s in it). So I went online to order to get their 3 months free access. However, they couldn’t find my house, and I was to call them. Anyway, I put the order through, a few days later; they called me up (was a nice bloke) saying you have to pay $300 to put a line to my house. I said to them, there is an Optus line going to my house – I can see it. They said, sorry, there isn’t one. So I went to iiNet, put through the order and they rang me up, and they too said, you have to pay $300 to put a phone line to your house. I said the same thing. There is a power line, a Telstra line and an Optus Cable line. So both of us did some investigation and troubleshooting to see what the problem is.
A couple of days later, one of our friends said, “you know the suburb you live in was originally called this, not that”. “Oh”. I rang up iiNet, gave them the suburb other suburb name; and look, they can see a line to the house.
So, the order went through, I got Naked DSL with iiNet and the BoB modem. 10 days later I got connected, but didn’t receive my modem. BoB came a little later on, but didn’t come with a handset. In the end, it took at least 2 months to get the internet connected after going through both Optus and iiNet.
This week, I signed my mum up to a post-paid plan with Virgin Mobile. I ordered online to get the 3 months free access on Thursday. Put the order through, and got the phone on Tuesday. However, I cannot activate because Virgin Mobile is coincidently updating their systems and they’re offline – 24 hours over their original ETA it’s still offline, so therefore, I cannot activate the service. As I mentioned in my Blog, I went down to All Phone, purchased a phone there and then and it worked within a few hours, not 6+ days I have been waiting because I ordered it online.
So my question is to everyone, how long do you think an acceptable time frame to get connected? Is 2 months to long for internet; is 6 days to long for a mobile? Let me know.
