The worst thing that has overcome us lately is to trust the written word. When we moved, we wanted the e-mail, internet and phone pronto. The magic word nowadays from the smarmy merchants of the techno-connect world is ‘bundling’ which of course is not far removed from bungling.
We were amazed to hear we could not get a landline and internet from’ Yes Optus’ at the address we had moved to. They, the Yes Optus team, suggested wireless ‘Yes’ fusion plan with a phone through the computer and all calls except mobile free for a modest $ 79. – Per month. It includes all national and international calls and up to 2GB of data usage’. Now, I would not know a mega-bite from a gig-bite or what the $0.15 cents per MB meant when you go over the 2GB. It did not sound too excessive. We liked the idea of a free phone including all calls and particularly liked the ending of their letter enclosed with the delivery of a box with all the gizmos, with, ‘We’re delighted to have you with us’. ‘Yes Optus’.
The next thing was a bill clearly showing their delight. It wasn’t $ 79.-. It was $ 723.45. With 5307 MB over the 2GB at 0.15 cents per MB. I pleaded that for $20 more we could have got the ‘Yes’ fusion plan for 7GB of Data.
But that’s not all. Get a bit closer will youse? We changed to the 7GB promptly and got a discount of 40% on the bill, still left us to fork out $ 479. – Boy was we ropable.
But that’s not all.
I had initiated an online account with a usage meter letting us know how we were going with those fucking mega-bites. It was a nervous few day of watching the graph but we were keeping well within 7 GB and started to relax a bit. We had used 70% of data and only 5 days left. Even had the audacity of taking a few days off to stay at Summer-Hill without computers, when after return I noticed the usage had reached 100% and with still 2 days to go, I was again almost doubled up with ‘Yes Optus’ rage. The usage was going ahead full steam and we were not even using the computer.
But that’s not all.
It turns out that some bastard; any bastard really can use this system if the “wire free” or Wlan has not been disabled. Like any ratbag in this 36 town house estate could calmly open his laptop and get access through double brick walls and acres of tiled bathrooms and peruse all the shaved havens he (or she )could muster at the Oosterman’s ‘Yes Optus” Fusion plan expense. Not a word about this little scam in any “Yes’ fusion booklets. No ‘Yes Optus’ warnings of any kind to disable the Wlan or ensure protection through pass words.
We now drive to the library and get free internet till tomorrow when the new month starts. The moral of the story is that no matter what one chooses in life. It all seems destined to suck money out of unexpected corners. Most people like ‘wire free’ but, I can tell you, unless you embed it with pass words or, preferably disable the ‘wire free’ and ‘cable connect’ direct to the modem you could easily end up broke, sleeping in a railway tunnel. Not a word that neighbours can access one’s internet. Amazing technology.
There is a shop in Hurstville’s Westfield which sells mobile phones with ‘free dermal injections’ including ‘music streaming’. It’s all getting too much.
What happened to the world of ‘Smokey Dawson?’ We are all “Yes Fused.” and will be lucky to get out of it alive.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Can you believe this?
Today, after returning from the Dungog Ladies Bowling Club with a faultless drive back, thanks to the GPS device, we received the new and latest ‘Yes Optus’ bill. They credited us with $ 879.71 cents. This is more than the original bill. Is it a reward for ‘meckering’ about their service?
We don’t have to pay this month’s bill and have a credit of $ 60.81 for next month’s bill.
There is justice. I must thank Voice for having given me the courage and wisdom to keep uop the ‘meckering’. It paid off.
All we need now is a marginal win for Julia. Heep heep Hoorah.
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What I find puzzling about the ‘Yes Optus’ fusion plan is that the difference between 2GB and 7GB cost an extra $20.- per month. My original $79.- per month, allowing 2GB blew by 5307 MB. This extra was costed times 0.15 cents resulted in $723.- extra cost. This was then presented to me in a bill whereby without any explanation they allowed $ 279.14 credit. After a couple of phone calls this was further reduced to $ 479.40. including a recurring cost of $152.24
Why could they not simply move us up to the $99.- per month allowing 7GB and then charge for the extra couple of hundred MBs. It looks as if they want to make the most money out of the ignorance of their clients without a bit of friendly give and take.
I am now totally worked up to try and get our extra money back.
What are the actual cost for Optus by customers using MBs over the allowable limit? Does it wear out equipment or does something have to work harder pumping in more MBs?
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On the average it costs them extra to pump out extra data because they need a higher bandwidth to maintain acceptable speed, meaning extra hardware. Of course that only applies to significant data increases; your little 5GB is irrelevant. Charging is a difficult part of a business, but their strategy makes sense. Say you are an ISP who needs/wants an income of $100 million and you have 1 million customers. You could charge each customer $100. But then people who don’t use a lot of data would be charged the same amount as those who do need a lot of data. Furthermore, a lot of those smaller usage customers would just go elsewhere, so now you have to charge $200 per customer. So you instead charge the low usage customers $80, getting a lot more customers over which to amortise your capital investment.
It’s similar to pricing multi-user software. It costs no more to support more users, but typically you have a stepped charge (for example $100 for 4 users, $150 for 12 users) because otherwise the lower usage customers would probably not be able to afford to buy your product, since you would have to charge them more and they couldn’t justify it for their business in a cost-benefit analysis.
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Voice:
Thank you for the technical support and information. I feel you should take a leading role in re-routing the ‘Yes Optus’ advisery&caboodle.
When the ‘Yes Optus’ swami advised me on the Fusion Plan I told them we did not need or want to walk around with our laptops, and that our computers would always be plugged into the router or modem.
“That’s really ‘cool’, he said.” The package came with the Optus InZone E 960 device. You plug in the phone and the laptops and the device is then plugged in the powerpoint. It tells you it is not suitable with homes that have a back to base alarm or for disabled people. (power failure)
The booklet does not warn that the wireless is ‘enabled’ or give any warnings about others being able to use the same.
Anyway, a capable OPTUS bloke with an accent from a tea growing country guided me online and I managed to disable the wire free part of this Optus Modem. and he also did not once say ‘that’s cool’.
I am chuffed that so many of you have responded. There is a front page article in the Sydney Telegraph, and Telstra is having huge problems with ‘clients’ that are so shocked by their bills, they refuse or can’t pay. Soon, many will be queueing for railway tunnels with their guitars.
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In that case it seems to me that you have a good case for the Ombudsman. If I understood correctly you must have known that wireless was enabled because you told others in the apartment about it.
The E960 manual is online (as are manuals for most electronic devices these days). In the section immediately following the directions for setting up a WLAN it says “You need to set up security and a password to prevent other users using your broadband when you have your wireless network on.” Personally I consider this warning grossly insufficient, especially when you compare it with the warning in the manual for my router, which BTW puts the warning BEFORE the instructions on how to configure it.
In your case, where you didn’t configure it yourself, you could not have been expected to read the manual, let alone see that little sentence.
I like wireless. Gives you the freedom to use your laptop wherever you want to, and obviously eliminates messy cables. I use the highest security levels available and think it unlikely I will be selected as a target.
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Oh, I see. It is wireless upstream (modem to the ISP). You would have been talking about the upstream wireless. It seems completely inexcusable that they enabled downstream (modem to end user computer) wireless as well without your knowledge. I can’t see how you can lose.
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Hoy! To all Piglets
DO NOT USE WIRELESS CONNECTIONS.
They’re inherently insecure.
This has been known and broadcast for some time now.
The temporary convenience of mobility is not worth the risk of your paid-for time being permanently stolen.
Even worse is the possibility of some script kiddie with a suite of “crackers” using a keylogger to snoop on your banking transactions.
Sometimes modern advances are a backward step.
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Tomo, is that true for wireless keyboards too?
You’ve got me worried now… you see, a few days ago I broke one of my hithertoo unbreakable, paranoia-induced rules: When I found myself on a site advertising the ‘Utimate Blues Guitar’ course, I just couldn’t resist… (I can resist anything but temptation!) so I actually made an online purchase, for which I’m still waiting (I believe it will be here maybe by the end of next week if I’m lucky!) but this site looks the bizzo, so I’m not worried about it not getting here…
But now I’m wondering if keyloggers can read my new wireless keyboard in spite of my computer using the latest AVG (free edition) in combination with Windows 7’s own ‘CyberDefender’…
I’m pretty sure it hasn’t happened yet ’cause I went to the post office today and there’s still money in my account… but although I’m kinda glad I did make an online purchase in this instance, I think it will be my first and last internet purchase…
“Cat’s foot; iron claw;
Neurosurgeons scream for more
At paranoia’s poison door…
Twenty-first century Schizoid Man!”
😉
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Astyages asked “But now I’m wondering if keyloggers can read my new wireless keyboard …”
Dunno, Asty.
I can’t say for sure but I WILL say that I’ve been doing most of my purchases online for a couple of years now, with no problems. That includes grocery orders every month, frequent purchases of 3DG models from both the USA and UK and some purchases of other stuff from Japan and locally. All my banking is done online, too. Never had any problems with intrusion.
All you really need to do is to check the encryption (SSL 2) padlock icon is showing for the site and maybe check if it’s a known phishing site.
However, my system is cabled, copper and fibre only and I run not only a full virus check every week, but also a trojan/malware/spybot detector at the same time . (Defrag 1.75 Tb storage every week too.)
(I also wear braces AND a piece of string to keep my trousers on.)
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Ah! Another ‘belt AND braces’ philosopher; a man after my own heart…
Thanks Tomo for your reassurance; but while I am a little reassrured that I haven’t already been robbed; I think I’ll reserve any online shopping for things I can’t get any other way… that way at least it will minimize any danger…
🙂
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Hehehehe… having said that I went back and bought the ‘Beginners’ Blues’ course, didn’t I? Just to make sure there were no gaps in my knowledge! Now it’s heads down; tails up until I’ve learned how to play dem blues!!
😉
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I’m with Otstra no Teltus, they are great 🙂
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First pass: You are a bit hazy on the details, but the bottom line is that you should not have to disable wireless. You should have to enable it. Meaning, you shouldn’t have wireless support unless you specify that you want it. If it is configured to be on, that will have been done by whoever supplied/installed the modem, or by yourself.
The supplier/installer should not have supplied wireless support without you asking for it, and at that point, or at least at some point before you started using it, you should have been informed in writing of the risk and of security considerations. If wireless support was supplied without your knowing or you asked for it but were not informed of the risk, you should be able to complain to the Telecommunications Ombudsman.
If you configured it on yourself, the manual should have informed you of the risk and if not you should be able to complain about the modem supplier.
Here is an extract from the manual on configuring wireless support for my modem (router):
“Implement Appropriate Wireless Security
Unlike wired network data, your wireless data transmissions can extend beyond your walls and can be received by anyone with a compatible adapter. For this reason, use the security features of your wireless equipment. The DG824M wireless gateway provides highly effective security features which are covered in detail in this chapter. Deploy the security features appropriate to your needs.”
accompanied by a highlighted warning box:
“Note: Indoors, computers can connect over 802.11b wireless networks at a
maximum range of up to 300 feet. Such distances can allow for others outside of your immediate area to access your network.”
Of course, being female, I tend to read the documentation. (A broadly accurate generalisation.)
Personally my ISP contract specifies that the transmission speed slows down when the limit is reached, instead of being charged extra. It is annoying but lets you figure out what’s going on without financial risk.
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Having been shamelessly lied to by both Optus and Telstra marketing hoons over the last few years regarding “bundling” and “discounts” we decided when we discovered that it had happened again recently that we weren’t going to take it lying down this time. Having been condescended to in a most putrid manner by some spotty Telstra “Channel Manager”, whatever that is, I arced up and promptly went off. Suddenly a “Senior Manager” was on the line, which was strange because the previous one had told me that as far as Telstra was concerned she was the acme of their customer complaint mechanism. This new one reiterated the same nonsense and lies the previous one had spouted so I arced up on her too.
To cut to the chase I’d finally had enough sport with these “managers” whose sole purpose it seemed to me was to tire the complainant to the point where they left off the complaint, so I said I’d be taking the full complaint to the telco ombudsman and I’d also be cancelling the payment authority at our bank because; and this was my punchline, I’d been lying too when I said we’d pay for the service which incidentally we hadn’t actually received. This was the Saturday morning. Slamming the phone down with some satisfaction I thought first thing on Monday morning I’m calling the bank.
Before Sunday tea time we had received a technical service call from a charming little woman in the Philipines to help me correctly set up the modem to increase net speed and reliability, we received no less than three calls from various customer service persons fawning in their appreciation that while we had obviously misunderstood their marketing spiel and the formula by which the cost and various discounts were calculated, none the less they were willing to be magnanimous and would we like to work something out. Finally a manager called and we negotiated directly with him to reduce our monthly bill by some 22 percent and three months free just for the trouble. Colour me gobsmacked!
What I want to know is how often does this sort of thing happen and why; and what does it really mean in terms of the service cost versus what you can screw the client for. The service, which is sold as blindingly fast, is actually quite slow compared to some OS countries and virtually tortoisian when everybody’s online in the early evening, and apparently there is no relationship between the service and what they charge for it.
In this, as in so many things, I feel that I’m slowly losing my grip on reality. And what will it mean if Abbott actually gets up, by no means an outside chance, and the whole sorry mess is left to the luddite Liberal’s “market forces”? We’ll be stockpiling tomato tins and string!
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“…“managers” whose sole purpose it seemed to me was to tire the complainant to the point where they left off the complaint”
Mirriyuula, you certainly have my sympathy! I could tell similar tales about Optus, in term of service or the lack thereof; that’s why I switched to Dodo, only to find that Dodo were just as bad; indeed, I caught ’em trying to charge me for imaginary phonecalls… Seems no-one learned much from the GFC after all… we still haven’t learned the lessons it should have taught us about corporate greed.
Roll on the Evolution, I say!
😉
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Woudn’tcha know it? I forgot to mention the reason why I quoted your phrase about managers in my above post:
There’s a game invented by Chinese bureaucrats and adopted by the rest of the world, known as ‘The Man With the Key is Not Here’. This is a bureaucratic response to complaints; its aim is to keep you coming back with your complaint for appointments which always seem to be with someone who understands, but does not quite have the ability to deal with your problem until sooner or later, you give up the very notion of complaining and go away.
From personaly experience I can tell you that, while not all Australian bureaucracies are guilty of such abuse, the University of Adelaide are past-masters at this art! I’m sure it makes all those Chinese students feel right at home!
🙂
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Not understanding the technical lingo is one thing but the risk of neighbours free riding on someone’s account is not explained in the Optus booklet that came with the router.
I did mention here in our 38 town-house complex how marvellous our wire free was working. It must have spread like wildfire. Debbie does Dallas, or heaven knows what else, could well have raced through this”St Henry village”. Like, a free porn picnic for all and sundry. Perhaps I am jumping the gun and they just all studied French philosophy instead.
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At least you don’t have to worry that it was something to do with your talking about it. To connect to a wireless network, you just ask your computer to tell you what wireless networks it detects. It gives you a list and tells you whether they are security enabled or not, and if not you can just connect. When you got your computer to connect to your own wireless network, you probably noticed it was not the only network detected. Unless you have named your network something recognisable, such as Oosterman, they wouldn’t even know it was you they were ripping off.
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My commiserations, Gez and Helvi. What a bloody con!
Yes, neighbours can be bastards, but, I guess if you fire up your laptop and it automatically coonects, the, you don’t know who’s account it’s connected to, unless it’s password protected.
A Voice and Emm say, it’s better to pay a bit more for Megabits up front than exceed your limit and pay for the extra, post use.
We’ve had a bit of trouble after moving. The new house already had a phone connected, so, in theory, just switch accounts. In practice, not so easy! Iprimus blamed Telstra, who blamed Optus. Plus, no ADSL2. They rang me to tell em that we had no internet, even though we’d been using it for seven days!!
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Just a quick word to say thank you all for your concerns. To-day a new month started but have already used 186 MB.
I am supposed to stay on this ‘Yes Optus Fusion’ $99.-plan for 2 years. I’ll take Vivienne’s advice and threaten an Ombudsman big stick.
It all makes for a very nervous internet, having to watch a kind of usage worm creeping up to a financial obliteration and possible railway tunnel sleep overs.
I better go now.
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An example of the power of persistence. A few years ago I had a massive problem. I have Telstra for home phone and a local ISP mob for internet. To cut a long story short, Telstra disconnected me from my ISP people and I had no internet. Phone
calls got me nowhere, a letter to Telstra got me a stupid reply. I had made notes of everything and typed it all up as well
as a list of added expenses incurred (trips to town to my ISP trying to find out what the hell had happened, a new modem as
the disconnection actually stuffed it and so on – my ISP got me back on to the internet by using my old dial up modem) and took the lot into the Country Telstra office. I spoke to a woman who took all the information and promised to follow up. 24 hours later I had a call from a woman in Melbourne and we went over events. She was appalled at the horror of my story. I got back on to my proper ISP people, I was refunded expenses and sent another letter with her direct phone number if I had any further problems. Well I did have to get back to her as the refund was not right. She fixed it and then I realised I had been paid twice. I phoned her and she said to forget it, my luck.
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I forgot to say that the Emmlets got about 5 gigs of their 7 per month stolen from their wireless connection (Telstra cable + home wireless) – and had the service slowed down. This stuffed their online uni lecture watching for a couple of months – but has been stopped by passwording the home wireless connection.
Some neighbours are bastards aren’t they ?
Maybe Aunt Mary has some advice on this
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Gez, Voice is probably a greater expert than me on this, but I avoid “extra megabyte” conditions like the plague, for the reason you’ve just illustrated so well.
We have just cut a wired deal with Telstra – bought a T-box – capable of downloading pay per view movies (not counted in the download limit) and running Youtube straight into our TV – as well as having a 320GB hard disk for recording free-to-air TV and some useless extra Telstra channels.
We used to have 50 GB allowance per month and when that was only once exceeded when Tim the Cabin Boy downloaded three massive online games in the school holidays. That used to cost $50 with Internode – and the Telstra bill was pretty big – but we have a landline, two mobiles and two wireless USB things (1 GB and 5GB) for when we work away at clients.
Swapping out for the new Telstra T-Box “Bundle” yields us 200GB per month, a land line for our wireless ADSL internet connection, free local and mobile calls for $139 per month. And another $150 for the two wireless USB dongles for using our PCs when we’re on client sites – like now. So we have reduced it from 50 + 1 + 2 GB for $400 down to $289 for 203 GB.
That’s a massive amount of bandwidth.
AND I’m putting in some management settings to restrict Tim to 2 Hours per day – to save what’s left of his brain. We have seriously dodgy neighbours and like them, we password protect our in-home wireless so the locals don’t free-ride on us.
I would certainly complain to Optus again and threaten them with the Telecommunications Ombudsman – and ask for a greater reduction in the bill. FM did it when Telstra refused to honour a previously-promised 10% discount for having more than one service. It took days to get them to buckle, though. You have to go hard and keep on keeping on.
Regards,
Mike
In the past, when we had a smaller allowance, when we exceeded the few Gigabytes, Telstra did not charge more, they just slowed the speed until the month limit was reset. Didn’t bother us, but wrecked Tim the Cabin Boy’s internet gaming – which was fine by us.
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I hope you told Optus to eff off and threatened them with the Ombudsman. Get really tough and they go to water. Don’t use wireless – it is really only for people not able to access broadband and who live in difficult areas.
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Yes Vivienne, but that’s wireless from the ISP to your home. I think gerard means wired from the ISP to the home modem, and then connect the computer to the modem either by cable or wireless. Then wireless is really great because you can connect to the internet from anywhere in the home (or indeed the next door neighbours home or the street!)
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Yes, it gets all a bit confusing as there are combinations of things and the word wireless has different applications. I have a wireless modem so one of my daughters can use my internet connection on her laptop. The wireless modem is
a little beauty and visiting friends can use it too. I think it works for a distance of 25 metres or something which means it covers a bit more than the house. No one else can use it as we are on acres and nearest neighbour is 150 metres away.
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My router User Guide says it works up to 300 feet (about 90 metres I think). Personally I would use encryption with a password in your case and tell your friends the password, but then my level of personal paranoia is probably higher than yours.
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Yes, for daughter or friend to connect to my wireless modem I have to give them the Code. My modem is connected to the phone plug thingy in the wall. In the unlikely event that my daughter wanted to work on her laptop (doing a post-grad HR course) in the paddock on a sunny day, she could go for a wander.
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I know just how you feel Gez; although I’ve never gone so far over my limit. But it is quite staggering to think that we may be paying for someone else using one’s internet service… And are Optus doing anything about it?
I sincerely doubt it.
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