Bigpond

The product, the internet, when it works, works great.  The problem is that when something goes wrong, and with Bigpond it eventually does, is the customer service.  There is none.  Zip.  You spend a long time working your way through the automated phone menu until you finally get into some phone queue.  If you don't somehow get cut from the queue and have to call back and start again, you get someone who you will explain the problem to who will eventually tell you that you came to the wrong area and that you have to call another area.  No, they can't put you through to them, and trust me, if they did, they'll just lose you anyway.  When you eventually track down the area you were told you should have gone to in the first place and tell them the issue, they'll tell you that you were correct in going to the first one, and no, they can't put you back there.  The final straw for me was when we moved.  We moved house but only a short distance, same town, same exchange area, same phone number... but we couldn't get the net up and running.  I kept calling them and they kept telling me that they found what the problem was (wouldn't tell me) and that it would be up and running in 48 hours.  This went on for about 4x48hours.  Eventually someone said the problem was that I had changed my plan.  I didn't actually.  They said I must have.  Nope, I just changed address.  Well, then looks like someone messed up and there was a conflict in plans and it will be rushed through... should be fine in 24 hours.  24 hours came and went and still nothing.  I did get a bill though (and kept getting one once a month for 4 months after I had disconnected from them).  In the end I rang up the cancellation dept to cancel my bigpond account.  When I told them why, the girl put me on hold and sixty seconds later came back on said she had the problem fixed.  I checked and what do you know, it was fixed.  She talked me into staying with them and gave me a bonus 3 months.  Everything was fine but then the same problem happened again and all the calls, about half of them occurred again.  I rang the cancellation line again but this time just told them to disconnect me for good.  I can't afford to lose all that time and have all that frustration every three months.  This is just one of the horror stories with them - I've got dozens more.  Just don't go Bigpond.

Telstra Bigpond cops a lot of flack. But I have to be honest that, while I do like to whinge about them myself, my connection is rarely down; the tech support people actually answer the phone, normally within a reasonable time; both the people and even the automated service provide solutions to most of my problems; and they have always gone out of their way to offer me (and also honour) what seem like good deals (half off my monthly fees if I'm signed up to other Telstra services, for example). The one major complaint I have about them, which I have about Telstra more generally, is the poor quality of the organisation of their phone support when it comes to my Bigpond account (as opposed to Bigpond technical issues). Things I tell one phone consultant about my service or account, which they tell me there are notes on for the next time I call, are then not there when I try to speak to another person. There also seems to be quite a wide difference in the quality of training the accounts people receive and in their 'care factor'. But overall, though, and compared to the horror stories about their internet service providers that I hear from friends, I'd say Telstra is a pretty good deal... not perfect, but satisfactory enough, and pretty helpful in a crisis.