From: Gates, Sue [Sue.Gates@det.nsw.edu.au]
Sent: Monday, 15 September 2003 11:20 AM
To: ECITA, Committee (SEN)
Subject: sumission to telstra enquiry
 
I live 14kms  from Bathurst on one of the main highways out of Bathurst- the Midwerstern Highway.  Although close to a large regional centre I may as well be 100lms from the nearest town when it comes to Telstra services.
 
This is just three examples.
 
As we have to put in a road across the property I rang Telsta asking for a map of where the cables were located.  They finally sent me the correct map after three attempts- the erpson who did this was in Canberra.
 We followed the map and dug and found a cable.  When the grader driver came out to start the road he said that that was not the fibre optic cable and asked that we get a cable tester out.  
The recommended cable testers were in Cowra or Dubbo or Wentworth falls and apart from the fact that the person in Cowra no longer does this, all of the testers required that we paid travel to and from their area to do this and they are all more than 100kms from us.
We did get a tester at a cost of $300 and the cable was no where near either the indicators on the fence or the drawing on the mapand was not as deep as it was wupposed to be and in fact was so shallow in places that it was a wonder that we had not severed it before when we were farming the paddock.
 Imagine what would have happened if we had relied on Telstra.
 
 
We rang the number in the Telstra advertisment saying to get advice on increading your internet speed.  They did not offer us any advice just told us that that our speed was 52.2  when it is only 19.2 and when we spoke to another tech about this her says that that is the most we can expect- for us that means that a download can take an hour and reading emails is extremely slow.
 
 
Our telephone lines are so bad that at times that we can't hear the callers and they have to ring back.  As well it will often take four or five goes before we get a clear line ie one without very noisy static so that we  can ring out. There are at least 10 people in this area who have complained to telstra about poor phone connection and usually when they check they get a clear pair and say there is no problem or they try to "fix" it without making it any better  This has been a problem down the road from us for at least 2 years as the phone for all those people- none of them more than 3 kms off the mid western highway - does not operate every time it rains and since they have been "fixing" the problem our line is now bad as well
As well for the people who live down the road from us they have no mobile service and have to come to our gate - a distance of at least 1 km- before they can get a signal strength powerful enough to enable them to ring to notify telstra of a problem most have both CDMA as well as GSM
 
I stress again.  We are only fouteen kms from Bathurst  and on a major highway  although we are connected to the Fitzgerald Mount Telephone exchange which is about 4 kms up the road on the same highway.
 
 
 
Sue Gates
Bungawarrah
1459 Mid Western Hwy
Evans Plains  via Bathurst 2795
Home phone 63685804
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