Congestion? -Cranbourne

[Larico]

Just wanted to ask what's going on?

Is anyone in around Cranbourne having speed issues? It's been about a month for me.

I called tech support a fortnight ago, and gentleman said that there was some works being done in the area.  Fair enough, I hung in there.

I called today, because more than 2 weeks is a long time. The fellow fluffed me around and couldn't give me a straight answer.

I'm a network admin, so it's not like I can't troubleshoot myself-

1. he wanted to reset my modem to default settings! (no thanks, I've got port forwards and a DMZ set up).

2. suggested I flip the cable around- plug in the computer side to the 'modem' side and vice versa.... what on earth would that do?

3. try a different port ...

etc.

I mean after telling me that there are congestion issues, I did ask him how are ANY of those steps going to do anything. It would have been more helpful to suggest I connect my computer directly to the UNI-D port and see how the speed is to rule out the 'modem'; but apparently Optus tech support is suggesting that changing the WiFi channels is somehow going to affect speeds on my computer that's connected by gigabit ethernet.

So... those annoyances aside, there was no eta on the "server upgrades" that Optus is apparently doing for the past month...

What am I supposed to do? Twiddle my thumbs getting 10-30mb/s on a 50-100mbps plan (yeah, that's right, advertised MINIMUM speed of 50mbps). Despite still occassionally getting as high as 40mbps, it's somehow not enough to watch EPL replays without ridicoulous blurring every 15 seconds..

In all honesty: it's FINE if it's not the 98mbps I'm used to... really... BUT the ping that comes with this is not. normally about 3ms to Optus or Telstra servers in Melbourne are now about 70-110ms. I mean come on? I mean the fact that your own service won't stream properly despite ~20-50mbps is a bit of a slap in the face don't you think, even putting aside that's it's FAR below the paid for service.

So, can someone provide any information, timelines, or ANYTHING useful. I'm really not keen to spend any more time waiting in the dark for what I am paying for, it's already been a month. This is ridiculous.

I don't have any problems with "down time", but it should:

a) be announced in advance

b) be planned for so it can be completed in a TIMELY manner (not weeks on end)

c) where avoidable, done properly in stages to not affect customers at all ideally

Cheers.

[Scott_M]

Hi @Larico - I'm sorry to hear about your troubles with the service so far. I'm not sure if I can add anything further to what Tech Support could advise but I'll check. Can send a PM with your full name, username and date of birth so I can locate the account? 

[wannabeastar]

We are experiencing the same issue in Officer at present where the plan I'm on is 100/50.  I'm paying for a service and I'm getting peanuts.  If server upgrades are happening then do this outside of peak hours I wasn't experiencing these issues a week ago.  I feel we should be getting a refund for the service that we are paying for and not receiving.  Not good enough as I haven't experienced these issues in the last 2.5 years only now.

[Toomey]

Not good to hear @wannabeastar. Have Tech Support been able to run line tests to confirm congestion? Feel free to shoot me a PM to check it out

[Larico]

While I appreciate your enthusiasm to try and help, how will providing personal details help when there are, I believe, only 2 exchanges in Cranbourne, Victoria. It's not like there's going to be much confusion... And yes, all my bills are always paid on time, and no, I've contacted Optus only twice about these issues- because I'm far more patient than Optus deserves.

(not a reflection on you personally) What happened to just some down to earth honesty? Are there works being done- if so, what works (generally speaking)? What's the timeline and expected ETA? Which are the affected areas?

Now on about 6 weeks of "congestion".

As far as I am concered; I should be owed a refund for each day that I am not receiving a service I paid for.
I most certainly wasn't the one who told Optus to oversell their service without putting in place appropriate hardware.
I can be patient and understanding that things sometimes go wrong and downtime happens.

But anything more than 2-3 days is unacceptable. If I left any of my organisations in this state for this long I would have been fired long ago.

This flagrant behaviour of leaving paid services unfixed for so long is insulting and really pisses me off. You're a national ** corporation; grow up.

[Hollie]

Hey @Larico, the reason we ask for your specific details is so we can look at your service as a singular one, at this point in time we're unable to advise of upgrade time frames in general areas as there can be more than one CVC in an area and we want to make sure the information we provide is accurate for your specific service. There can also be other issues that can affect your speeds such as excessive downloads/ uploads and WiFi interference.

If you'd like to send your info through as per Toomey's comment please do so and I'd be more than happy to have a look into this further.

[ktrinh83]

I'm in the same position as you..I work in IT as well and live in the Noble Park North area.

I got NBN on 3rd Jan 2017 and within  2 weeks of getting my 100/40Mbps connection its dropped down to 4Mbps during the evenings and has been like this ever since.

I get fed the same bs lines by the support teams "There are upgrades in the area but there is no time frame". I wouldnt hold my breath mate cos i dont think there are any upgrades happening.

I think the next step might be to speak to the resolutions team and get your contract waived.

[ktrinh83]

So what is the difference between giving you our personal details here and when we give it when we call up the support team? They still give the stock standard lines and tell us to wait a little longer till the upgrades are done. Is that what you're gonna say to us as well after we've given our details to you?

[Hollie]

Hey @ktrinh83, I understand where you're coming from and whilst I may not be able to provide an ETR I can definitely provide a little more indepth info about the Network there as well as making sure there are no other faults on your service and chatting about your options moving forward. Totally up to you, but I am happy to help.

[ktrinh83]

@Hollie No worries. I will send you my details.

I am eager to hear what other information you can tell me.

From many of the other posts here customers have been told by Optus that there is no way around the congestion and they will have to accept it. One customer was told that they will be congestion 23hrs of the day and will only have reasonable speeds between 4-5am and the last resort is to leave Optus.