28Mar 10:43  On Monday morning our TelstraClear broadband still hadn’t been connected, so I phoned the call centre. I was advised that in a week’s time TelstraClear would be able to tell us how long it would be until we’d be connected. When I said we’d been promised outage of less than a day I received the verbal equivalent of a shrug and was told nothing could be done to change the situation.

28Mar 14:02  After doing some research I phoned the TelstraClear call centre again and lodged a formal complaint.

28Mar 16:13  As no-one at the call centre appeared able to help me, I phoned the TelstraClear national office reception. I was told by the receptionist that the problem would be escalated to a manager.

28Mar 16:35  I tweeted details of the situation.

28Mar 16:53  I received a tweet from TelstraClear advising that details of the issue had been forwarded to their “resolution centre”.

28Mar 17:05  I began researching our ISP options if TelstraClear couldn’t resolve this issue promptly.

28Mar 18:00  In the absence of any meaningful response from TelstraClear or someone in the company who would take responsibility for resolving the issue, I submitted a format complaint to the Telecommunications Dispute Tribunal.

29Mar 08:46  After half an hour in the world’s worst call centre queue I advised that if the issue wasn’t resolved during the morning we would cancel our account. After being placed on hold for ten minutes I was told a work order had been rejected, although no-one knew why. She would follow it up and phone me back.

29Mar 10:15  I was phoned back and told our problem had been escalated to the retention team. At that point I requested that our account be cancelled, and was then myself forwarded to the retention team.

29Mar 10:20  The retention team said I should sign up with another ISP and have them initiate a transfer.

29Mar 10:55  I opened an account with Snap and asked them to transfer us from TelstraClear.

29Mar 14:07  TelstraClear phoned to say we would be connected on 31 March. I told then we had already cancelled our account; they agreed we could return the modem.

30Mar 10:01  TelstraClear phoned to confirm that we wished to close our account, then forwarded me to the help desk so we could arrange to return our modem.

30Mar 10:12  TelstraClear’s call centre answered, verified my details and put me on hold. Eventually I was told the retention team would send us a letter. At that point I was asked if I would take part in a customer survey.

30Mar 10:22  Participated in a pre-recorded customer survey which I’d prefer to have avoided. The questions appeared skewed to generate positive statistics about TelstraClear’s customer service.

06Apr 11:05  TelstraClear phoned to apologise, saying no disconnection fee would be charged and the technical department would ensure our phone number was returned to the pool so we could have it back.

06Apr 11:13  I phoned Snap to pass on TelstraClear’s information.

08Apr 11:00  The Telecommunication Dispute Tribunal phoned to apologise for the delayed response. They said we should not be charged a disconnection fee by TelstraClear and should get our phone number back. If these outcomes didn’t happen we should immediately contact them.

08Apr 11:05  I phoned Snap to tell them the Telecommunication Dispute Tribunal determination.

12Apr 09:04  Our phone had not been reconnected so I phoned Snap. I was told that, despite their undertaking to the contrary, TelstraClear had deactivated our number which meant the port request couldn’t proceed. After some effort this was resolved and Snap indicated that both phone and broadband would be connected later in the day.

12Apr 14:51  Our telephone was connected. I phoned Snap because we still had no broadband. I was told that Telecom, which manages the Chorus cabinet, had rejected our broadband provisioning request. Snap was in touch with Telecom and would phone back when this was resolved.

15Apr 07:17  Snap advised that the capacity issue was significantly more serious than first thought. A further component had to be added to the local exchange, for which estimated delivery was 22 April. Snap offered to provide us with dialup access until then.

15Apr 08:00  Configured dial-up on an old box and made it available on demand across the wireless network. Although this was slow, it was a better option than another $600 of mobile broadband.