Thank You Optus, Thank You Telstra

This blog has been silenced for a month by the combined efforts of Australia's biggest telephone companies, Optus and Telstra.

A month ago, we moved from one north-western suburb of Canberra to another north-western suburb of Canberra, a distance of a mere couple of kilometres. We informed our telephone service provider, Optus, well in advance of the move, and they had no difficulty cutting off the phone from the old address. Providing a service at the new address however, turned out to be an entirely different story.

Now remember, I'm not talking about some third world country with dodgy infrastructure. This is Australia's national capital in the 21st century.

Day after day Optus gave us excuses and promises, but no telephone service. Finally, after three weeks, they told us they had connected our phone. But still the phone was telling us it was not connected. It turned out that the Optus technician's attempt to connect us was foiled by Optus's great rival, Telstra. The previous owner of our new house had been a Telstra customer, and our phone couldn't be connected by Optus until it was first disconnected by Telstra.

A month to connect a telephone. Welcome to the information superhighway!