It DID happen

So here I am in Melbourne. Once again there are problems that might prevent me from going home. Once again this is because of Telstra.

Our Melbourne branch is in the process of moving offices, which means that new phone lines need to be installed before the move, and one of the analog lines needs to be activated for ADSL. Luckily this was all organised weeks in advance so that the time there would be no problems. Sigh.

I found out on Tuesday that Telstra had supposedly never received the application for ADSL from my chosen ISP, it had magically disappeared. I asked the ISP to re-submit the application and kept pestering them repeatedly until I got escalated. At least the analog phone lines were ready, once the line is provisioned for ADSL it will be plug and go. I delayed my flight for a day so that I wouldn’t be wasting any time. I arrived in Melbourne at around 8:15PM on Wednesday night.

This morning I called the ISP call centre to check on the status of my application. It had been escalated and was being provisioned, it should be working by Friday. But there was a problem with my other application, the new one I had made on Tuesday. It was going to be denied by Telstra. The kind lady at the end of the phone explained to me that you can only have one ADSL service per phone number, so I shouldn’t have applied twice. I re-explained the situation. She was very helpful and called Telstra to chase up for me, calling back within 5 minutes. I may very well get to go home after all.

I arrived at the new office this morning ready to get things going. I had anticipated Telstra ADSL shenanigans so opened a dial-up account Just In Case. I went to plug the modem into the wall, but there were no analog outlets. I checked the patch panel. None. The frame. None. Sigh. The cabling contractor explained that although Telstra had installed the lines through to the building’s MDF, they did not have dial tone (only side tone, whatever that is). Icy hands grabbed my heart. If there is no dial tone, then the line might not be activated, if the line isn’t activated, they might not provision for ADSL. Such a familiar feeling.

I called the Telco who logged a fault with Telstra, they tested the lines remotely and found a problem, they would respond within 8 hours. I could feel my weekend slipping away from me.

A Telstra tech arrived within two hours. He checked everything and found that the cabling to the MDF was fine, he found dial tone. Someone had connected it in the last 2 hours. I called the cabler and he will supposedly be here by 3:30. So maybe I will get analog by the end of today and at least have dial up. BTW I am in an Internet café now downloading drivers and firmware.

I will update through comments.