Constant Dropouts and Very Slow Speeds with $65 500GB Plan

[stryke9]

I have recently signed up for the $65 500GB mobile plan. Service was actiavted a couple days ago, and from the moment it was activated I've had nothing but dropouts and excruciatingly slow speeds. I looked up for service faults on the Optus page, and apparently 1 of the towers is faulty. I am in Glen Waverley.

I signed up for updates to be notified when the issue is resolved. The network fault number is 51792

Its been a few days and seems like the fault still hasn't been resolved. Just wondering if this is a permanent thing with the dropouts and speed, because this makes it unusable. I switched from a Telstra plan, and speeds were amazing with Telstra. This however, is really frustrating. Pages would take forever to load, and streaming media is next to impossible as it would just constantly freeze. There is nothing wrong with my phone or settings etc as everything was working perfectly until I swapped out my old Telstra sim with the new Optus sim.

Can anyone assist, or let me know if this is just the norm. I'm really regretting my move.

[Casey_YC]

Hi there, @stryke9

Thanks for raising this with us here. 

I get that interruptions to your service can be frustrating. 

As per the Network Status Page the works are still in progress. This is for various towers in the area, in order to improve the quality of the services used in your area. 

While our teams are working on it, there may be some service interruptions but we’ll try to keep this to a minimum. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

You will receive an update for the fault you logged, once the works are completed. 

[stryke9]

Thanks @Casey_YC . Hopefully it will be resolved soon.

[petergdownload]

Have you tried driving to the next suburb and using your phone there? That would confirm if it is the tower near you that is the issue

[stryke9]

@petergdownload - Interestingly, I could load pages without any probems while I was waiting to pick up my daughter from school. I did a speedtaest and the download speed was about 85Mbps! The school is only 2 streets away from my home. Unsurprisingly, when I got back home, I parked my car on the street and tried accessing the internet again and it came to a complete crawl again. Pages would take a couple minutes to load, or completely fail to load. I ran a speedtest and after multiple failures to even complete the test, I finally got a reading of 1.1Mbps! Yes, that's 1.1Mbps!

@Casey_YC - Is tehre any way someone at Optus could look into this? As it is, my service is pretty much unusable. I've got a screenshot of my speedtest. I signed up for a service that I am paying $65 a month for only to have dropouts half the time, and when it does work, it's crawling along at 1.1Mbps! Certainly the tower repairs can't be the reason that I'm getting just over 1Mbps?! To put things into perspective, often times I'd have to wait a few minutes to load a single page.

[Tina_YC]

Thanks for getting back to us with an update, @stryke9. 

To complete the work, sometimes we need to take the tower offline temporarily at certain times during the day. We're sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. From what I can see, This work is expected to be completed by 27-11-2020. Your service also shouldn't be affected for the entire duration of the work.

If you’re still needing a hand, we recommend messaging us via the My Optus app. Our Messaging team is available 24/7 and are ready to assist customers as quickly as possible.

[petergdownload]

@stryke9,

Seems like the tower (or your home placement) has issues. If it doesn't sort soon Optus offer a no problem option just to leave your plan. You'll need to pay out any handset included but otherwise you can try another provider without penalty. Suggest you grab a few $1 prepaid sims and test out reception for the others.