Eight months after last reporting on problems in Telstra's Velocity Smart Communities I find myself again reporting about the same issues.

Whirlpool is being flooded with comments like this:

Lucky her, she gets Velocity. How's this though... after numerous phone calls over a couple of weeks, and being assigned a case manager, Telstra has told her that they can't connect her for months because they have no-one to do it!

It is a similar message through some 20+ posts, with residents complaining about the delays, the restriction of service provider (Bigpond only) and the pricing of services (a typical 20,000/1,000 with 25Gbyte quota costs $140 per month, the liberty account with 20,000/512 is $110, both only if you take a standard telephone service - they are another $10 more if you don't).

Last week I was at my friend's house in Heron Park (a Telstra Velocity estate), and he was telling me about the ongoing problems with the Telstra installations and his neighbours getting the run around; the same problems he had last year.

Now TV antenna's and satellite dishes are appearing in the estate despite the covenants preventing the installation. The Free to Air TV and Foxtel signals are supposed to go over the Velocity network, but you only get the ONT (the Fibre termination box which coverts the signals) installed if you order other services from Telstra (like the phone or Internet).

Up in Brighton I have been told delays in installations are still occurring, as is the case in Bluestone, Mt Barker. In one estate I have been informed the developer has received a letter from Telstra cancelling their agreement to supply Fibre to the Home stating "we are withdrawing the Velocity product from your area". I will admit I have not seen this letter, but I am chasing it down to see it first hand.

Good luck if you are moving into a Velocity Smart Community.

2 comments:

At 03 March, 2009 22:41 Anonymous said...

This news scares me as we have just bought a property in Heron Park and plan to move in Around Christmas time. Lets hope something happens to make things better by then.

Jenny

 
At 15 April, 2009 08:35 Anonymous said...

Me too...my new house in Heron Park is due to finish around June/July. Maybe I should be looking into wireless internet solution while waiting for all these issues to be solved.

Fred

 

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