David Flynn16 July 2009, 4:55 PM
A new $100 ‘temporary connection charge’ for disconnecting a landline after three months is claimed to dissuade customers from joining competing ISPs on a naked DSL plan.
Telstra has once against raised the ire of Australian broadband users and shone a spotlight on its own potentially anti-competitive strategies.
Changes introduced last week to its
connection fees for new landlines now classify a landline connected for less than three months as a ‘temporary connection’ which attracts a $100 penalty for cancelling the service.
Broadband users claim this is intended to stop customers signing up for a home phone with Telstra and then immediately churning to another ISP for a naked DSL connection.
Why not establish the initial connect directly through that ISP or another telco? Because of reports that Telstra puts those new connection applications to the bottom of the pile, while giving priority to its own connections.
As a result, many broadband users are faced with waiting weeks or even months for an ADSL connection if they apply through their chosen ISP or less than a week if they initially get the line connected through Telstra.
A typical situation is described by Whirlpool member
GarthD from Adelaide. “When we sorted out Internode ADSL here, the expected time for a Telstra tech to look at the line was about four weeks if we signed up direct with Internode, or three days if we signed up for a Telstra home line and transferred.”
“It’s bad enough paying $69 to Telstra (rather than your provider) to get your connection up earlier. (It) looks like they've decided they want $169 instead if you want to keep off the slow list.”
This has led to many new lines being connected through Telstra but then an almost immediate cancellation of the Telstra service when the customer churns onto their preferred ISP. That’s said to be the reason behind the sudden introduction of this $100 ‘early exit’ fee.
“I can only imagine that Telstra has seen a large increase in these sorts of signups and is looking to either cash in, or they feel it is costing them money and is looking to discourage competing ISPs from relying on this process” says Phil Sweeney, news editor for Whirlpool.
“I believe this is going to affect consumers signing up to naked DSL providers that have not implemented a full ULL provisioning process. For example, TPG requires you to have an active phone line before signing up to naked DSL. So after moving into a new house, you have to sign up with Telstra and then immediately switch to naked DSL, which deactivates the dial tone again. Providers with a full provisioning capability (such as iiNet) do not require this, and can provision naked DSL from scratch on an inactive line.”
For more information, visit the Whirlpool thread on “
Telstra’s new Connection Charges”.