All my utilities have now been arbitrarily cut off

First they came for my electricity, and I did nothing. Then they came for my gas, and I did nothing. Then they came for my electricity again, and I got mad and blogged about it.

Now they have come for my internet. and my phone. and my Sky TV.

I arrived back home here in Wellington after far too many months overseas to find all three of these utilities are not functioning. (All bills are paid.) Actually I have no idea about the phone, but I assume it is off – you’ll see why.

I called Sky first, and they remotely reset my card and everything worked again instantly. Well done Sky, and very quick and efficient on the phone.

Next I tried the to restore internet. The wifi network was fine, router looked ok and was even reporting up and downstream speeds. So I called ISP Orcon. They also answered pretty quickly, which was again excellent, but only after a painful voice prompt system. (Note to people that set these up – talk faster, much faster. If I didn’t get it the first time then repeat it by talking slower and adding more words. The first time should last a few seconds)

The Orcon CS guy took me through a prolonged identification system so that my account was showing on their screen. He then informed me that my account had been closed back in June. It was closed after Telecom “informed Orcon that I was discontinuing the service”. That’s five months ago. While I’m glad that I have not been paying for internet that I have not been using, this was unacceptable. It was not only the first time I had heard that I had been disconnected, but I had also not asked Telecom to disconnect me, and I had received no notificaaton from them either. Someone at Telecom had the power to disconnect me, and nobody could do anything about it. That’s f#$%ed up.

Orcon let me know that despite a data connection being visible to me it would still take the usual ridiculous amount of time for me to get the internet back on, and they didn’t seem that interested in determining what had happened or in getting me back aboard.

So I just called it quits.

No call to Telecom, no reordering of the internet – I’ve had enough.

I’ve had almost enough to call it quits on this country.

Australia is bad enough – it’s taken me 2 months to get internet at my new place there after the ISP punched in the wrong address for Telstra. ISP iinet has the same dependence on giant incumbant ISP problem that Orcon has with Telecom. But at least once that Naked DSL line is working I will have no further dependance on Telstra, and no home phone line to pay ridiculous monthly rental fees on. (I pay those to Telstra for my iPhone instead).

So let’s summarise what we have here:

1: Neither Orcon nor Telecom informed me that they were about to disconnect me. Orcon was losing a customer and did nothing to attempt to retain them.

2: Neither Orcon nor Telecom informed me that they had in fact disconnected me. Orcon lost a customer and did nothing to regain them.

3: Despite an active connection it still takes weeks to get internet working. That means lost customers between moves.

4: Orcon and Telecom both suck.

5: I give up. It’s TelstraClear or bust for me next time.

I don’t get it. There is such a vibrant scene happening in the web space here in Wellington. Can’t we at least have the basic serivces functioning?