Quantum Forest

Our telephone service for the last three years has been provided by Ecomtel (a small company), although the physical infrastructure belongs to Telstra (the largest telecommunications provider in Australia). Initially we were very happy with Ecomtel’s services, they had low charges and their service seemed to be very responsive. The icing in the cake for me was their reliance on Open Source Software (e.g., Linux), which made easier for them to be very competitive in price—particularly for international calls.

This year we logged an issue with Ecomtel, because our low speed of connection to internet (maximum of 14.4 Kbps, pathetic, isn’t it?). After some investigation, it was established that the problem was in the quality of our line—that belongs to Telstra, which happens to be a paired gain system rather than an individual copper line. We pointed out to Ecomtel that according to the TIO the minimum speed of connection to internet should be 19.2 Kbps:

The Internet Assistance Program was set up as a joint venture between Telstra Corporation and the Federal Government to ensure a minimum transmission speed of at least 19.2 kilobits per second to all users of its fixed network. Subsequently, it was decided that a minimum speed of 19.2 kilobits per second would become a condition of Telstra’s licence agreement. While this condition is not binding on other network carriers (where Telstra does not provide the underlying infrastructure), the TIO views this as an industry benchmark and expects that regardless of which network a customer is connected to, the standard telephone line provided should be capable of a minimum transmission speed of 19.2 kilobits per second.

The fact is that physically it is not possible to achieve 19.2 Kbps with a paired gain connection. Telstra and Ecomtel say that we should pay for a new telephone connection (cost AU$209) to change to a copper line. Our position is that i- we were never offered the option between types of line when connected in the first place and ii- the current line does not meet the condition for Telstra’s licence agreement anyway. By the way, the ‘new connection’ only involves unplugging our line from one connector and plugging it back in a connector sitting next to the original one.

We have been discussing the issue with Ecomtel for over a month, and they have not been very responsive during this time. We will now take this issue to the TIO and see if we can get a new connection without the extra cost. During this process, we changed from loyal (telling our friends to switch to Ecomtel) to dissatisfied (writing this post) customers. A real business lesson in how to alienate your customers.