NBN two appointments missed in a row, no internet for two weeks?

What can you actually do to complain to the NBN? Honestly. Provider, Belong, says its NBN's fault. The phone line at NBN essentially directs you to get in touch with your ISP. Brilliant.

I call the Ombudsman, they say that NBN is outside their jurisdiction (conveniently enough) and that it's 99% likely not Belong's fault, just a technician running late or going to the pub. I have received literally zero communication from NBN or Belong regarding the cancelled appointments. My partner has taken two days off work to be at home for the appointments. We are chewing through phone data.

Anyone else had any luck getting through their thick heads? I sent them a message on Facebook but there's only so much good that can do.

Comments

  • +6

    My mate had a similar issue, he was told he had to be home to enable access to do the Install. He sent them (Telstra) an invoice for the 2 days he had to wait at home saying they would show up to connect at $750 a day. They responded pretty quick, it was a bit of work but managed to get 12 months free internet out of them once it was resolved. He then cancelled his account once the 12 months was up and went elsewhere. A tactic to consider.

    • That sounds superb, probably would only work if you were a business owner though. NBN is such a joke. What a great strategy though, free internet for 12 months would be awesome.

  • +1

    Welcome to #nbnfail.

  • You are getting FTTP, I presume?

    • Nope, FTTN.

      • +1

        I don't think you need to be home for FTTN. Do you have ADSL already at your address?

        Perhaps you may want to think about getting a few of these in the meantime.

        https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/kogan-mobile-prepaid-voucher-co…

        • I don't know what the address has, we are new here. When we booked the appointment Belong said that we needed to be there.

        • @jrowls: Do you have a Belong account online? If you do, you can login to the portal and check on your appointment status. I switched over to FTTN from ADSL, my bookings was cancelled twice before it actually went through ok. I know it sucks, but that is NBN for you.

        • @jrowls: my neighbour had to be home for telstra to do nbn fttn but i signed up with aussie broadband couple weeks later and i didn't need to be home

      • i went to fttn from adsl2+ i didnt need to be home on the day of connection.

  • Perhaps you might want to consider giving up on NBN altogether and go with a mobile broadband provider instead. It will take time to sort out your NBN connection.

    • Aren't the prices pretty exorbitant?

      • I guess that depends on your data requirements. My parents-in-law live in a suburb where there aren't any spare ports at the exchange, so they had to get mobile broadband, I think it is about $80/month with Optus for 200GB. I am sure you can get cheaper ones with resellers, etc.

        • Ooft, that is very expensive. Our NBN plan is (well… isn't yet) 70 a month for unlimited and that's at a good speed, not the base one.

        • +1

          @jrowls: FYI, I have left Belong because during peak time at about 6pm to 10pm, my internet was so slow that it was unusable. It might be better now, or your suburb may not have this problem, depending on your neighbours. Belong customer service was good, but too bad about the actual connection in my case.

        • @geek001: Same experience with Belong but with Broadband not NBN

  • Try your luck with another provider - as a suggestion, ABB or Telecube. If you still need a NBN technician, keep ringing the NBN every day to see if any appointments open up.

  • +1

    Same issue with this but with Telstra. We called them up and they apologized for the downtime, we told them that this is a business that requires internet to function so in return that gave us a Pocket wifi with 30gb of 4G which was good enough since we are a small company. So you can try and ask for compensation.

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