- This article has been updated following a response from TPG
On January 6, I contacted internet service provider TPG and applied to get broadband in my apartment.
Today, I'm still waiting. Although I’m told it's not far off.
I chose TPG because I had moved into an apartment complex near Sydney's CBD and had been forwarded an ad from the Telco offering broadband to residents in the building.
Things got off to a patchy start when they told me my application would take 10-20 days to complete and I needed to pay $179 to even get the ball rolling. I queried the long wait time and the fee but was assured it was standard procedure, so I figured that it wasn't a big deal.
After 16 days the application was rejected, and I was advised to re-submit it using another postcode, which might better my chances.
And so another 10-20-day waiting period commenced.
Somewhere in this time I began to wonder when it became acceptable to demand your customers fight to access your service. Shouldn't they be fighting for us to have it?
When I was at university I spent years working part-time in clothing shops and had it hammered into me that the customer was always right. It was our responsibility to sell to them, never the other way around. Maybe it's because there is such a high demand for the internet, so the need to "sell" it is less, or maybe it's because we are so worn down by huge companies that they know we’ll tolerate 100-day waits or endless phone calls spent listening to hold music. But for whatever reason, the love has gone.
In early February, I contacted TPG to find out how the application was coming along and was told it shouldn’t take much more to complete. They would be in touch.
"Maybe it's because there is such a high demand for the internet, so the need to 'sell' it is less, or maybe it's because we are so worn down by huge companies that they know we’ll tolerate 100-day waits or endless phone calls spent listening to hold music. But for whatever reason, the love has gone."
By then it had been more than a month since I first contacted the company and after I lodged a complaint about the delays and lack of communication, they assigned me a specific person to deal with my case, who we'll call Amber.
Amber began to call me regularly and responded personally to my emails. She was always kind and I felt guilty that she had to wear the brunt of my frustrations. But that didn't stop me asking questions.
- Why can't the process be sped up?
- Why would a company require customers to pay a fee for a service before they knew if they could even provide that service?
I felt like I was going insane.
Late last year a friend who lives in Brisbane had contacted me to say that I should do a story about how slow internet service providers could be at getting customers online.
He had been waiting more than a month and could not believe the delays.
I thought his was an isolated incident and forgot about it. But my own experience has been oddly similar, and I was certain there'd be others out there like us.
And so I began to ask around.
"I waited three weeks without internet from Telstra," a man named Brendon, from Vaucluse, NSW, told me. "They never gave me ETAs and were pretty bad but in the end they gave me really good compensation."
Another woman originally from the UK but now living in Brisbane emailed me to say that she had just about given up hope of getting broadband at her home after a number of roadblocks and rejections from different service providers.
"I'm baffled at how far behind the infrastructure is in Australia," she wrote.
But what stood out the most was how this all seemed to be accepted as normal.
"When I move house I factor in about two months to get the internet set up," one friend told me. "That's just how it is."
"I'm baffled at how far behind the infrastructure is in Australia."
Meanwhile, between all the headaches in my situation, there were some small gains. At my request, TPG sent me a free modem and promised my first month of internet would be free. Despite this, I was not feeling hopeful.
After two months, I came home one afternoon to find a letter from the company slipped under my door.
"Dear resident," it said. "Your building has been connected."
"We have put together a simple Internet + Home phone bundle deal so that you can take advantage of this future generation technology and save money at the same time."
I emailed them straight away to point out how crazy it was that I had been wrangling with them for months trying to get the internet set up in my apartment and now they were delivering cheery promotions directly to me.
The service advertised, they told me, was fibre to the building (FTTB) not ADSL as my earlier applications were for. Did I want to change my application to FTTB? Amber hastily called to say that would be a quicker option and more reliable in the long run. Once again, I was baffled. Why was this service never mentioned?
Yes, I told her. If it means fast internet, I’ll take it.
How long would that application take? Probably 10-20 days.
By now I realised that I had Stockholm syndrome. Too weak to look elsewhere, too broken to imagine what life would be like with fast, low-cost internet, I glumly accepted my fate. The whole thing had become so comedic, I no longer had any fight left.
Shortly after this call, I received an email from TPG to let me know that there was a $10 fee that they would need to charge my credit card for the new application.
Beyond exasperated, I told them the last thing I wanted to do was give them any more money. They agreed to waive the fee as a gesture of goodwill.
I’m still waiting for that internet.
Update: TPG responded to SBS following publication of this article, saying this was not a normal customer experience and it would investigate any delays.
Update: TPG responded with an apology and an offer to install the internet the same day. I elected to cancel my application because it was unethical to carry on, having published the story.
Update: Today (March 11) TPG offered me another apology and free internet in my home for 18 months. I declined the offer. TPG said this offer was a regular course of business for customers who have a bad customer experience with the company.
If you experience problems with a telecommunications company, you can contact the Telecommunications Ombudsman for help.
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