I think that your views will never change no matter what Telstra
does. Your previous comment says it all -
At 7:05 PM 1/3/04, Craig Ringer wrote:
Then again, I'm a /really/ bitter ex-Bigpond Cable customer.
Bob
At 7:48 PM 1/3/04, Craig Ringer eloquently proclaimed...........
On Mon, 2004-03-01 at 19:36, Bob Jackson wrote:
I thoroughly agree! Unfortunately there are some people who had bad
experiences in the past and continue to recount them without
appreciating that the current situation is totally different.
Is it? Do their ToS now guarantee that they won't change the plan under
you while you're on a _long_ contract? (Note: In fairness, every ISP has
this clause - it's just that Bigpond has a history of using it to the
customer's disadvantage). Do they offer you contracts that are a
reasonable length?
I do agree that they've improved - their support has clearly come a long
way, they're somewhat more honest about what you get when you sign up,
etc. Their cable plans are even vaguely decent value, except for the
entry level one with no data allowance, which is a disgusting rip off
and should be stopped by the ACCC under consumer protection laws.
Just recently, Telstra dropped it's broadband prices. While nice,
they're not moving existing customers across to the new prices unless
they ask. This would be fine (I'd be much happier if you were guaranteed
to get what you paid for over the term of your contract) - if they
didn't have a history of forcibly moving customers to new plans whenever
the new plans cost more.
So ... I'm not convinced they're much better. The recent incident with
their mail servers - and the public lying about said incident - plus
their treatment of other ISPs shows them in a bad light. Their new "low
cost" plans designed to rip off uninformed users to the tune of hundreds
of dollars just top it off.
Craig Ringer
