Die Telstra - Painfully

Oh . . . My . . . God. You know the phrase "Shit Happens"? My entrant in to common speech is "At least your not being fucked over by Telstra". Not as catchy, I know, but I would reckon it will travel well - we may not know they're out there but I'm pretty fucking sure that the martians are up in the sky cursing Telstra's inaction about something. Inaction - the word I come back to time and time again when dealing with Telstra.
This time, my third major head-on with Telstra. After 3 years of majorly bloated Telstra bills - because I had no other option for internet (well Optus - the other lack of choice option - and I'm considering it) I spat the dummy, again, contacted Telstra and asked them to sort me out with a discrete phone line, upgrading from the pair gained line I have now (a topology that doesn't work with ADSL). The was last October, its now August and I'm still a Telstra customer.
The October interaction. . . was made on the request of the telco ombudsman who required a recent complaint to act on. That interaction went back and forth via email, until December and in all of that time, the only thing that happened was:- I was passed to a new, who knows - department maybe, with some new person writing "Hi. I'm blahDeBlah, I understand that you want to connect to Bigpond ADSL, but you've already got Telstra Cable. Are you sure you want to change, Telstra Cable is much Faster?". (expletive, expletive, expletive). My request was simple - if not impolite. I asked for a discrete ADSL compatible residential connection that would allow me to cease using any Telstra Services (Internet/phone/mobile). "I understand that you want to connect to Bigpond ADSL, but you've already got Telstra Cable" -- What is hard about this ?
In point of fact, I didn't want Bigpond ADSL, nor do I want the Bigpond cable I currently have. I don't want the unannounced maintenance downtime, the a..maz..ing..ly over priced bills, the ridiculously over priced and unique (the other ISPs don't charge $35 for disconnect/reconnect) penalty charges. I don't want to deal with the company whose subcontractors come to my house saying that they are being lied to by Telstra re: maintenence and downtime in areas, and they thought that my appraisal of the situation was more correct then the infomation Telstra gave them. What about any of this sounds like a "service" to you? In fact, I really don't have a kind thing to say about Telstra - honestly, not a single thing, I just hope that the company collapses/folds whatever, I don't care, but the sooner the better - I think I might host a party.
A couple of weeks ago I referred Telstra back to my request - from nine months earlier - All I got was an automated message apologising that they hadn't responded within two days. About 2 weeks later, I called them and asked them if they would do anything about the request and I my request was given to a complaints department with a promise that it would be acted on within 10 days - and surprise, they did
Telstra called me and offered the following process --

• I was to recieve an additional phone line (fee waved) that would not be pair gained. But I was told that "this might not fix the problem"
• After the additional line was installed, I was to contact my chosen ISP and apply for ADSL
• If the ADSL request was successful, I was to them have my original primary phone line disconnected

. . . and today was the day. At 8am a very nice man knocked on my door to install the additional line. He came inside, and started plugging things in to my phone line, and as we chatted, I pointed out to him that I was intending to use the line for ADSL - he looked up at me and immediately said that this line would not be able to support ADSL -- WHAT!!!!
As it turns out, not only do I have a pair gained phoneline currently, but the connection from the exchange to my local junction box didn't support it, this was do to the multiplexer that was installed at the junction box. So -

1. This starts to stink of the same archaic crap that had me complain to the ombudsman twice previously (in short, the Telstras ad said "coming soon to your home", 10 years later I complained about it not being available yet, and then again 13 years later -- and got no where)
2. How is this possible? Everytime I speak with either a Telstra linesman or a Subcontracting linesman, they have the knowledge in their head about the situation in my area- They tell me exactly what I want to know, what I need to know, without hesitation.

9 months folks. Telstra - WTF !! What- you don't have any infrastructure maps anywhere that you can refer to? You couldn't take my f'ing request and call the local linesman for my area and ask the question? Really - I have to orchestrate every single step of what should be Telstra's internal process Telstra- honestly, they can not do anything competently, or even at all.
Whilst speaking with the linesman, he explained that the "RIM" setup that connects my line was a single optical fibre to my local junction, but the multiplexer device that is installed at that point wouldn't transmit the ADSL signal. This makes me ask - "If this is optical, then it is a recent multiplexer, not the same 30+ year old copper setup" (that crippled my connection at my previous address - the excuse there being that I was rural area with an old setup - I was Metro, but that that's a different story, in this story I'm 15km from Melbourne's CBD). The "liney" said that this "RIM" setup was about 10 years old, one of the earlier optical roll-outs. "About 10 years? Wasn't ADSL in being used at that time", I mentioned. To this he agreed. Telstra - obsoleting communications by design.
This is not  the whole story, but the parts I've missed still add up to the very same thing. Telstra provides access to allow people to be Telstra customers.
I don't believe I'm asking for anything outrageous, I want one thing. To not have to use Telstra for communications. The deregulation in ~'92 guarrenteed this, and Telstra does their damnedest to make this impossible. Telstra sux folks - at least some things never change

If your not Australian, Martian and have never lived at either place, then you might not have any idea about the subject matter of my rant. Lack of knowledge will not gain you sympathy. Don't even think about puffing your chest out and declaring in your best foreign accent, "My countries Telco is more terrible than yours" - Mate bring it on. My countries telco will chew you up spit you out as competently as they do nothing else. I'm just kidding - "chew you up and spit you out" - come on, way too much action the the company of inaction.

Is the internet laborious ?

I left my phone at home on Thursday. As the passage of time feeds my insatiable need for a mobile phone that is, frankly, nuts- I'm now using a Nokia N900. It has whistles and bells- definately. Using its browser is outstanding compared to my last phone (Nokia N82), which I thought was pretty swank at the time. But this phone - It connects to all of my socials crap (Twitter, MSN, gchat, skype, etc) all of the time. I take a photo, and the phone records the GPS coordinates along with the photo*. and I can immediantly send that - or a video for that matter - to anyone via the afore mentioned social mechanisms or MMS. I can verify information at anytime from any location - pretty much ANY information.
So there I was, driving home from work after leaving my phone at home. I barely noticed the fact at work, having made the realisaion during the drive there. I had my laptop with me, so I had tunes and podcasts - and there was definately work, at ... work. However, once I'd jumped in the car to head home, the phones absence was felt. Do I just play with my phone when driving on the way home? Well I could start a discussion about that by saying that I stop at alot of lights on the way home, but for the sake of simplicity, lets just say I'm chauffeured by a man called jeeves, in a stretch magic carpet with tinted windows (Radio might have temporarily departed from embellishing when it manifests the visuals within a story - but I'm all for it). I imagine I had at least 20 occassions to use my phone on the way home. Songs, GPS to avoid traffic or to see if there was a new secret route I could discover, but no, no phone.
What was interesting was, despite my obvious substance addition (substance being little packets of data), my inner being had a different opinion of the situation. I expect like me, you remember a time when you were doing something naughty or taboo, something that you were committing to do - despite knowing that someone somewhere disapproved:-  and it made you feel just, delightfully wicked? A part of me, irking with the adjustment of my missing appendage was basking in the moment.
A naughty - for lack of a better word - sensation spread through me as I realised:- I couldn't be contacted, even in an emergency. I couldn't get any news, not even directions**, I couldn't see what anyone had tweeted. With my current phone, the blogging interfaces are quite usuable, qwerty keyboard, etc - I could have written this blog entry on it*** from anywhere, except I didn't have my phone with me. For the first time in a very long time, I was alone.
Isn't it strange to feel this way. I didn't have a mobile phone until I was (thinking about it) about 20 years old- wow 14 years ago (am not!). Now, its not that I do all of these wonderful things all of the time, but I do some of them and normally I could do them all of them, at my whim. (Beep Beep, I just got a message). I suppose, the phone has become a safety net, for example, I know that if someone had an emergency, that I could be contacted at any time. That certainly what happens when I'm on call - 1 week of 1am calls, 4am SMSs - ROCK!.
As the old man floats above the soil in the clearing, up some impossibly long mountain path- his wispy hair and beard blowing in the wind. This depiction has not adopted a mobile phone in its modern telling - and I don't think its going to. I have deep and meaningful's with my self all the time- why I'm always crying at home (joke), but the situation of having no chance of distraction or interruption was no longer familiar. As a consequence of this, now rare situation I was in, I found myself in introspection.
In today's age of endless distractions and toys, I wonder if I might try to separate myself form the technology more often. I didn't have any revelations whilst I was isolated from the world, but the moment was definitely cathartic. It is an experience that I think I have missed. I'm not going to go on a rant (too late) about the evils of the new world - after all once I got home, I found my phone, connected every internet capable device to the rest of the world and cried in the beauty of it all (joke  again- boys don't cry, Robert Smith) - but I do envy the ease in which some people claim to be able to switch everything off and be alone.
I think that once a fortnight, I might actually leave my mobile at home and just be. This new world that I fully endorse, is a change in lifestyle, but it is also an incredible distraction... to... anything anytime - and I think that there is an alternative to that life. I intend to experience that alternative and with a bit of luck I might be able to slot it in twice monthly, on a Monday etween 9am and 5:38pm, not including my lunch break :)

* GPS coords. in the photo - Its very cool, I've never liked that whole sit down session you have after going snap happy, writing the photo's "Situation" on the back. No compaints there
** I find GPS' boing factor interesting, news has been around for ages, before mobile phones we had pagers which had news feeds. GPS however has come in done its thing and everyone has gone "Yep!".
I think it is now far more widely used then people wirelessly getting news - maybe not socials
*** The N900 qwerty keyboard is good. But I must try and hook up my bluetooth keyboard, because yes I have on of those as well.