AnswerID: 224743 Submitted: Thursday, Mar 01, 2007 at 11:02
tricatic
replied:
I had a Telstra CDMA PCPack wireless account for a while last year. It cost me $50.00 per month for 20 hours. It worked well in most
places where I could get CDMA telephone coverage.
The big problem was not with the network, but with the billing system. Serious overcharging by Telstra happened every month without exception. For example:
Every connection has a minimum connection time of 5 minutes—connect for 10 seconds and you get charged for 5 minutes. Wouldn't normally be a problem except regularly I would get some sort network connection glitch where my MiniMax modem would make multiple connections for 1 to 5 seconds duration. Typically it would involve 6 to 10 connection attempts over a 10 or 20 second period resulting in a 30 to 50 minute charge for a 10 second session. It was not unusual for that to happen 4,5, or 6 times a month and there goes a BIG portion of your expensive 20-hour allowance.
The other problem was in breaking the network connection. You hang up your modem after a session and the clock should stop ticking on your 20-hour allowance. Except that regularly—many times a month—the network still keeps your session open for up to 15 minutes after you hang up. Get that happen 8 times a month, which was not unusual and there goes another 2 hours of your expensive 20-hour allowance.
Typically I would lose ¼ of my 20-hour allowance every month to these sorts of network errors. After discussing the issue with other people on the Whirlpool forums I discovered that PCPack users usually keep a spreadsheet log of their network sessions so that they could dispute the charges with Telstra. Doing that requires you to do a monthly reconciliation between your log and Telstra’s online log and then disputing Telstra’s log with Telstra’s customer service representatives every month.
Telstra have the worst customer support of any company that I’ve ever dealt with, and I spent literally hours at the end of every month on the telephone battling through the labyrinth of Telstra’s customer support service and dealing with totally unhelpful customer service representatives to get my monthly bill corrected.
Getting that Telstra CDMA PCPack wireless account was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made—it became a monthly nightmare. In the end I gave up and paid Telstra $550.00 for an early termination of contract just to escape their clutches.
A safer, easier, cheaper and far less stressful solution is to use all the Internet access points available to you as you travel. You will be pleasantly surprised at where you will find wireless broadband and dial-up access in the bush. The smallest towns now seem to have an Internet café, rural transaction centre, library, caravan park, general store or some other place where you can connect your laptop to the net, and it all works out a lot cheaper and easier than using Telstra’s wireless network. I’ve found excellent broadband access in the most unlikely
places.
And then there’s leeching… You will be amazed at how many open wireless networks you will stumble across that you can use for a bit of free surfing often from the comfort of your own caravan. The opportunities for leeching are best if your caravan park or campsite is in close proximity to commercial premises, many of which use open wireless networks. You can download free software that will scan for wireless networks.
My ISP account includes a dial-up service anywhere in
Australia for the cost of a local call so if all else fails I just plug in to telephone somewhere and use that.
Finally, remember to turn on your firewall while surfing
on the road, and if you use Windows make sure all your AV software is up-to-date.
Steve
Reply 3 of 8
