[LINK] Take the infrastructure back [Was: Friday funny a little early]

[David Boxall]

On Sun, Aug 05, 2007 at 9:08 AM Craig Sanders wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 04, 2007 at 12:18:34PM +1000, steve jenkin wrote:
>> Did no-one else catch the irony of a Foreign National in charge of one
>> of our largest public companies (in fact, part of a Troika) banging on
>> about the dangers of having Foreign Nationals in charge??
>
> it was the first thing i thought when i heard it.  the second was "that was
> one of the many reasons why telstra shouldnt have been privatised".
Let me tell you a story:-
18 July: phone line damage reported to Telstra.
19 July: temporary repair effected, leaving wiring clipped together in 
the bottom of a trench, protected by plastic bags.
26 July: a phone call to Telstra faults reveals that the job has been 
closed off and no follow-up organised.  Follow-up arranged.
27 July: A linesman arrives, looks at the mess, says something about how 
it can be permanently repaired, then leaves.
2 August: a phone call to Telstra faults reveals that the job has been 
closed off and no follow-up organised.  Appointment made for the 
following day.
4 August: a phone call to Telstra faults elicits the response that a 
permanent repair was effected by reprogramming the ISDN terminal 
adapter.  A quick look in the trench reveals the same mess, but it 
rained on the 3rd so it's looking a bit soggy.  Needless to say, the job 
has been closed off.  I do my best angry customer act.

Over the past ten months, my service has been out of action four times.  
Telstra has shown that they will go to extraordinary lengths to claim 
exemptions from legislated obligations (OK; there was one natural 
disaster, but no excuse is infinite and Energy Australia's performance 
put Telstra to shame).  If they can get away with it, Telstra will 
always claim that work can't be done until a date at least two weeks in 
the future.

 From my experience, I have to declare the commercial experiment a 
failure.  The privatised Telstra has demonstrated that it is not a fit 
custodian of the nation's telecommunications infrastructure.  It's time 
for compulsory resumption of the infrastructure into public ownership.

-- 
David Boxall                         | "Cheer up" they said.
                                      | "Things could be worse."
                                      | So I cheered up and,
                                      | Sure enough, things got worse.
                                      |              --Murphy's musing