Telstra NextG Broadband Problems

It’s a pity that the only way to get broadband in my Brisbane suburb is by 3G wireless from Telstra. I say that because the Telstra service is two or three times as expensive as an ADSL (1) equivalent and has several other major disadvantages. These include:

• Extremely low download limits. The package I have has a 1 gigabyte limit and costs as much as a 20 gigabyte ADSL package. The biggest package they offer is 3 GB and costs about $150 per month! That means if you wanted to download films or TV shows, you would almost instantly exceed your limit.
• Very low speeds. The package I have is the fastest they offer and it is alleged to ‘average’ between 500 Kbps and 1.5 mbps. I have never had a connection that runs faster than 500 Mbps and it often runs slower. Today, for example, I am getting just over 250 Kbps – at 10am on a Tuesday with ‘excellent’ signal strength, you would think that Telstra could do a lot better than this.
• Badly-written software. My Telstra Connection Manager (CM) software crashes about twice a day. It used to bring down my whole operating system with it but I discovered that this was an incompatibility with my graphics card driver. I downloaded and installed a new driver (41.5 Mb of download allowance used up just for this) and now the CM only crashes itself. Even the CM installer package is dodgy, installing all kinds of programs it shouldn’t which then have to be deleted by hand!
• Incompatibilities with common software I have installed. It is hard to believe but the Telstra software does not work with Norton Anti-Virus (NAV). I actually broke out laughing when the Telstra ‘technical support’ drone told me this. As a result, I could not send emails because the NAV outgoing email scan was failing. I’ve disabled this in NAV now and my email works again but not properly. I still have problems because the Telstra software doesn’t work with Outlook 2003 either! Apparently, it is only guaranteed to work with Outlook Express.
• Minimal modem functionality. Telstra only supplies one kind of modem and it is a very simple affair (and very expensive for what it is). What I actually want is a modem and wireless router unit so I can have other computers in my home connected to the Internet too. Modem/routers like this are available off-the-shelf from several manufacturers for ADSL but not for the Telstra 3G network.
• Having to deal with Big Pond. Big Pond is the Telstra ISP that provides the broadband service. I have now spent many hours working through my many problems with seven different Big Pond ‘technical support’ drones. Some of these were absolutely useless. The rest were mostly useless. Between them all, I managed to identify one or two causes of my problems and fix them (about as many as I identified for myself and fixed). As for the remaining issues, they ‘escalated’ the problem 8 days ago and I have yet to hear anything more from them.

I could go on but you get the picture. I am paying almost $1,000 a year for this rubbish and you can imagine how much I resent it. If there was another supplier of broadband to this suburb, I would switch like a shot! Why isn't the government doing anything?