Ok, having Broadband for a while now and moving around this country a fair bit as well, I understand the processes involved with Telstra, Moving, and ADSL connections.
Since I was born, through to now, I’ve lived in many places, up and down the east coast of Australia. Cairns, blooody hot in summer. Townsville, not as bad as Cairns. Melbourne, flat. Crowded. Trams though. Sydney. Ewww. Toowoomba, it’s alright. Ipswich, high crime rate, and needs a little Ajax Spray and Wipe applied.
Anyway, my point here is, I’ve moved a fair bit, and the essential services, Phone, Net, and Power I always get connected.
With Internet access, the process for ADSL is:
Get Telephone Connected.
Arrange Broadband Connection / Relocation
Wait 3 – 15 days.
That’s all well and good, and pretty standard. The issue for me now is that my currrent ISP, Netspace, has some ‘catches’ with relocation.
1. You can’t move and stay on the same plan, using their preferred relocation methods, online, or fax (I’m not in the stone age).
2. Your contract is apparently extended with a move.
The issues with this are:
1. I already have a good plan, that I am happy with for now. The new plans from Netspace suck. Poor value, not as poor as Bigpond / Telstra, but still poor. So I want to remain on the same plan I’m contracted to for a few months (May). The online system they have does NOT allow you to keep that plan, though, I understand it is supposed to, but obviously a coding issue, not yet solved.
2. I want to leave in May. Plenty of better value ISPs around, and frankly, I don’t want to be with Netspace any longer than I have to. Unfortunately, the case seems to be, if you move, they extend your contract 6 months. And you are forced to stay with them for another 6 months, or you are required to pay out your contract (let’s see: 6 months @ 79.95 = $479.90). The only reason I am with them now is so I don’t pay for a service I don’t use. If they were going to charge perhaps a $110 ish contract break fee, then fine, I’d pay that. But not the full contract period like they expect.
I understand the reason to lock them into a 6 month contract, Telstra in all its wisdom requires ADSL connections to have a few items (and these aren’t requirements of ADSL technology):
1. An active PSTN line, that is not prepaid.
2. A minimum commitment of 6 months.
As you can see by 2, they have to have them for 6 months connected to a DSLAM port, otherwise they get charged a $69.00 (ish) fee.
The problem I have with this is, I don’t care about a minimum term of 6 months of keeping the line connected, but I do care about being forced to stay with Netspace for 6 months longer then I need to. Netspace don’t get charged for me to churn away, and that’s what I’d be doing (there is no ADSL2+ in Long Jetty, despite Google knowing there is demand for it).
I do hope the response I get from Netspace on this issue is positive. ISPs in general are disposable nowadays, it costs just $20 – $50 to Churn from one ISP to another, and that makes them very much so disposable. You can change ISP every month if you really wanted to.
I think the issue with the contract is, they don’t actually have a process in place for “minimum line term” to seperate that from “total contract term”, and as such, they simply extend the contract when you move for an extra 6 months. It’s a pain, it really is. Even if you left them in that 6 month frame, they are only getting charged the $69 fee, so why do they feel the need to charge the extra $400 – $500 by extending the contract? 🙁
Pingback: Anonymous