Category Archives: ISPs

Internet Service Providers

Month one with NetSpace: two support calls

One two occassions I’ve had to call NetSpace, my new ISP, because the Intertubes went away.

On both occasions, I was on hold for quite a while – 40 minutes, Thank the Lord and Maker that He Invented handsfree telephones. On the second call the support guy helpfully pointed out that they could have called me back if I’d pressed “1”, and then clarified that I wouldn’t lose my position in the queue. Mental note for next time. Trouble shooting in both took more than a half hour, and assumed that there was a working Windows box in the house – that was a bit of a stretch.

Both calls to NetSpace were for the same problem – Authentication Failure. No, we didn’t forget the password to the account. For the first call, it appeared that the problem was resolved when the modem settings were altered from the factor default (and ISP specified) PPPoE to PPPoA (VC-BASED); the second required changing the account password, and changing it back.

This does not bode well, and I expect there will be a next time.

What am I meant to do when my home phone is a VoIP phone?

Hold music down (severity level unknown)

I find it mildly amusing when the web hosting ISP reports through its system status RSS feed that the support phone line hold music has broken down.

But I suppose it shows they're serious about tech support issues.

Goldplated parts

What dumbarse designed the Optusnet web site? Out of interest I went to compare plans to other providers, and Optusnet has turned into a portal which has so much stuff on it, I can’t even find anything about services they sell.

When I did find it (memo to self: go to the main Optus site, not the Optusnet site), I found some totally incredible equipment service charges, where if a problem isn’t their fault, and you’re out of warranty, you’ll get slugged:

Faulty Network Interface Card (NIC) — Service call ($99.00) and replacement fee for NIC ($50.00)
Faulty Ethernet Cable — Service call ($99.00) and replacement of Ethernet cable ($55.00)

Please tell me I’m reading that wrong. They’ll try and charge me $149 for replacing a NIC? $154 for replacing an Ethernet cable?

Where does one buy a $55 Ethernet cable, anyway? It’s like $10 a metre retail. And it’s not hard to buy a NIC for under $20. I guess Optus’ ones are all gold-plated.

I guess they don’t really want the business.

ADSL2+ at more AU exchanges

Telstra has upgraded a bunch more exchanges around Australia to ADSL2+, including my humble local in Bentleigh, Victoria. When I looked, Whirlpool’s Broadband Choice hadn’t been updated with the new information yet, but you can check via Telstra Bigpond’s page.

Whether I upgrade or not is another matter. I’ve noticed that while downloading Linux torrents, the bottleneck is actually at my PC, not the modem/net connection. The torrent speed is pretty good, but the connection on the PC doing the torrenting is swamped, while the other PC sharing the modem isn’t. This is a very puzzling thing to me, and something I need to explore further, as obviously something (LAN card maybe?) is operating sub-par. Obviously that needs tackling first… until then, 1500/256 will do me.

Just in case you need to know

My main web provider logs all their problems onto a fault-tracking database, and publishes them onto the Web, including via RSS, to make sure their customers are kept informed, and can work around things where necessary.

Even down to the most trivial thing.

We are currently experiencing issues with the on hold music on our telephone system. This is causing customers to receive silence when placed on hold. Periodic messages are still being played.

This will be rectified tomorrow morning.

Maybe I don’t need to know that, but it’s reassuring to know they’re being open and honest about any faults that occur. If only all companies were this open.