well I ordered ADSL about a week ago.... The 1st phone call they made to me was a 'confirmation' and we were to set up a time and date for installation. (28th April)

Well we set up a time and date and we thought that was it...cool, we're getting ADSL!!!

They ring back 45mins later saying we couldnt get it because we failed some test. They said 'excessive transmission loss'.

Well, we felt like punching something but we got over it.

At the end of last week, they called us back and said that they had run better tests on the phone line and that we could still get it....so we scheduled another installation date (8th May)

So here we are...on a pretty happy note for a few days...until our dumbarse room mate decides to move out because he cant hack being rejected by our next door neighbour...... The telephone was in his name, which means we had to change the phone lease to my name..which means we had to cancel ADSL and reapply for it.

Well I thought that wasnt a problem, so I filled out the forms again and they sent me an email back again today saying that I couldnt get it because I failed the tests.

I called them up today and talked to some lady about it, she said that its probably because I am too far away from the exchange.

So I went and hopped in my car, drove down to the Telstra exchange and did an odometer reading. It was 5.6km

Now I live in a city of about 150,000 people and the lady at Telstra said I couldnt be more than 4km from the exchange.

Where the 4km threshold is there is still about 5-6km of suburbs until the edge of town, which is a lot of damn people that cant get ADSL.

There should be at least 2 exchanges between the city and the edge of town.

If there is, then why am I on the city exchange and not some exchange that is closer?

Also, are the first 4 numbers of you telephone number your exchange code? e.g. mine is 4638... the student village i live in is 4635 so hopefully the village might be on a closer exchange which means if I request it, maybe they can change me over to my local exchange.

Also, I will be putting in a complaint to the telecommunications ombudsman about Telstra. I tried to talk to the specialist in the ADSL department and they didnt know jack. I dont even work there and I felt like I knew more than them.

hmm, well ive ordered my adsl and its all setup ready to be installed on the 9th may... hope it goes smoother than yours, so far no probs. ill let ya know if its really worthwhile :)

friend got adsl said it was great. with telstra too. everything done first go and he live in a town house...

yeah, rub it in

Well telstra really need to pull their finger out on the rollout of ADSL, mainly because they are currently the only provider of this service in this country.

I live within 100km of the most populated city in OZ, my distance from the local exchange (which is a new modern digital one) is only about 2km. Also, i am only 20minutes south of Newcastle.

I have registered interest with Telstra for ADSL, however they cannot give me any firm dates as to when the service will be available from my exchange. Quote : "not on the books for the next 3 mths, maybe 6 Mths or next year even" .

The 'rollout maps' on the Telstra site are about 12 months old.

Telstra suggested that i even create my own local campaign to get public awareness and interest going for the service.

Really funny stuff, yes i will do their advertising for them! ;)

Sad fact is, Telstra have no competition in this area, my mates in the states had a choice of provider, and lobbied that provider until they got service; we cannot do that here.

I have been informed that Iprimus is looking into it, but chances are even if there is one private company providing the service, they will stick to capitol cities.

One other thing, ADSL is regarded as a 'value added service' and is not covered by legislation as far as % of population coverage by a certain date. Standards exist, but Telstra are not reponsible for providing ADSL as a service to all who apply. This means that there is no way that we can force Telstra to provide it, even if you are in an area of high population and just a stones throw from your ADSL enabled exchange.

well, got it installed, but when the guys were here setting it up the friggin telstra servers were down... so i had to wait for them to call back. but, works good now, get about 60kbytes/sec dl... nice :)