John Linton
...as Cher sung a very long time ago but I don't think then she was referring to the scummier types of, or in fact some very large, telecommunications providers:
http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/861396
The few references in this government web site, while shaming companies such as TPG and Tel.Pacific is only the tip of the iceberg of blatant lying in the promotion of telecommunications service charges.
Before Exetel started offering calling cards I wrote some rambling account here of how I was simply amazed at the bare faced lies that so many calling card providers in Australia used in the promotion of their particular brands. I made those comments after testing more than half a dozen different brands and finding that NONE of them actually delivered the number of minutes claimed for each different card - best result was barely above 50% of the promised minutes - worst result was 12% of the promised minutes.
Similarly, I have never been entirely sure what it actually costs to make a call on so many advertised mobile services and, anyone who has read some of my past maunderings would know that I think virtually EVERY mobile carrier goes well out of their way to confuse, if not straight out mislead, potential buyers via their advertising.
Which brings me to the stange case of the major carrier's wholesale order processing system that not only didn't 'bark in the night' it was out of operation for more than 48 hours. I have no idea how the largest telecommunications company in Australia can have a mission critical computer system (LOLO = used by all customers of Telstra Wholesale to submit end customer orders for, in Exetel's case, ADSL1 services) that just dtops working and Telstra's response is "we have no update on when it will become available".
I guess the recent furore caused by the strange 'off air' problems by iPrimus in their Melbourne Data Centre followed by days and days of failing to restore some of its own services was a massive condemnation of that company's network architecture and 'disaster recovery' strategies but what on Earth can have gone wrong within a carrier the size of Telstra for a key B2B interface to be 'down' for over two days?
Personally, I can't think of ANY set of circumstances that would allow a run of the mill part of any network to go down and stay down for over two days - but then again I'm not a network engineer. Based on the fact that it actually happened this week there oviously is a circumstance/set of circumstances where this could happen but Telstra seems loathe to spell out what happened and, as is always required, what has been done to prevent such an event re-occurring.
The 2 days down time didn't seem to affect BigPond though.
Perhaps the iPrimus and now Telstra major outages of key network components is just a sign that the telecommunications industry infrastructures may be going the way of the finance industry in that they have been mismanaged for so long they eventually irretrievably break and can't be repaired? Unlikely - but it might be nice to know why such things happened.
Then I'm reminded that Telstra, who had placed three credit default notices on Exetel's VEDA credit rating report removed them this week after being threatened with legal action but did so without a hint of an apology for their actions in wrongfully damaging Exetel's business reputation. Typical arrogant behaviour by that company but we won't leave it there.
So is the communications industry 'out of control' as that plaintive ACCC web site inferring? Are things so competitive that lying advertising, false service specifications, anti-competitive behaviour and 'strange' occurrences are becoming the norm?
It seems a pity to be returning to Australia tomorrow to become directly involved in all these insalubrious carryings on after a very pleasant few days of only upbeat events and communications.
As Malcolm Fraser so pompously once said..............