ISP Netspeed cops a dishonourable mention by ACMA

harvyk1 said :

Yeah, I personally had nothing against Netspeed. I used them for a year with no problems. Then again I’m a techie myself, so I didn’t exactly need to rely on their technical support, and I always know when a techie is BSing me (which happened fairly frequently when I did speak to them, but it also happens in most companies, even ones I’ve worked for, so Netspeed is no different there)

The thing that put me right off them was the Longreach balls up. From a pure PR point of view you could get a worse roll out than that, slow, unreliable, no one actually got the speeds the advertising material spoken about (even after taking the standard 10% to 20% away due to marketers optimisim) and delays upon delays.

longreach didn’t. at a time when nextg wasn’t up and running, if they had got it right, it would have owned the market. fail.

Mr Waffle said :

As long as you don’t actually need to talk to them, Netspeed aren’t that bad at all.

True. Unfortunately, I found I needed to talk to Netspeed regularly, because their usage meter was always stating that I used more than I actually did, regularly putting me over my limit. And they always had a BS reason for this. Yet, 2 years with them, and it was never fixed.

Velocity – their usage meter is always spot on for me.

As long as you don’t actually need to talk to them, Netspeed aren’t that bad at all. There’s been the occasional outage, but all ISPs suffer those. Netspeed plans are better than anything else on the transact network too, as far as I’ve seen…

Yeah, I personally had nothing against Netspeed. I used them for a year with no problems. Then again I’m a techie myself, so I didn’t exactly need to rely on their technical support, and I always know when a techie is BSing me (which happened fairly frequently when I did speak to them, but it also happens in most companies, even ones I’ve worked for, so Netspeed is no different there)

The thing that put me right off them was the Longreach balls up. From a pure PR point of view you could get a worse roll out than that, slow, unreliable, no one actually got the speeds the advertising material spoken about (even after taking the standard 10% to 20% away due to marketers optimisim) and delays upon delays.

Brian is a nice guy. he does have some bad points, I will admit. But, as a customer of mine, he has always dealt with me professionally and honestly. We haven’t always been in agreement, but so it goes.

from a netspeed customer perspective, no idea. I have been with my current provider since 1996.

I have heard horror stories from other customers about the way they have been treated by him.

Hmmm, looks like RA readers have had a common experience with Brian.

Anyone have anything good to say about him?! 🙂

johnboy said :

It was always my opinion that the success of his business owed more to the tenacity of his billing system rather than the technical merits of his network.

I think you’re spot-on there JB… It’s a very common story from ex-Netspeed customers: The continued billing or charges before the service has been installed (in the case of longreach).

As The Brad Said, Velocity are good.
I’ve seen Brian Morris on “Whirlpool”calling his customers F%CKWITS for questioning Netspeed’s tech support abilities.
He’s quick to abuse & be rude to customers, but doesn’t like it back.
I was cut off from Netspeed and would not be re-connected until I apologised to him.
Karma Brian….It’s all Karma.

I use TPG. 50GB for $50 at reasonably fast speeds. Never experienced a “down” period in all the years I have been with them.

grundy said :

I joined Netspeed for 1 month while Velocity were having some issues and even within that short period that managed to f**k up and keep charging me after cancelling the account…

It was always my opinion that the success of his business owed more to the tenacity of his billing system rather than the technical merits of his network.

nexus6 said :

anyone know of a good isp for transact cable customers?

Yes, Velocity.
I was with Netspeed for a few years, but found their Help desk to be close to useless, and Brian to be rude, patronising and unhelpful.

Velocity – I have no issues with them at all.

Look at the Whirlpool forums – http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-threads.cfm?f=67&g=46, and I think you’ll find this is supported.

I’ve been with them since they started as ACR down here in Bega in 1999 and every time I drive along Yamba Drive I look up at his huge house in Isaacs and think I own a brick in that place. Luckily I don’t rely on them now as my main ISP.

Brian was always a strange bloke to talk too.
Always immature and rude when talking to his customers.

I joined Netspeed for 1 month while Velocity were having some issues and even within that short period that managed to f**k up and keep charging me after cancelling the account…

So exactly what are they in trouble for, other than not complying with the TIO? Is this something like being charged with resisting arrest, when the cops dont really have anything on you in the first place? Not that I doubt there are problems with netspeed, as quite often our service just disappears for 6-8 hours at a time, or various services (email, web, etc) silently fail.

Ive had an investigation into another ISP going for a little while now (due to inaccurate usage meters, amongst other things). This ISP has been putting it off for nearly 12 months, suggesting that they’ll provide usage to me over a support number, if only Ill please close the TIO file. What does the TIO actually expect to achieve?

I had a load of trouble actually getting emails on a netspeed email address.

The funniest netspeed moment was when their connection was down for a few days – and they sent out an email telling people to stop bothering them on the phone, and to check their website instead for updates on the problem…they did apologise later for that one.

anyone know of a good isp for transact cable customers?

first a court case to wind up the company (wonder how that went, or if it is actually closed) and now this. not a lot of fun for netspeed right now….

For years I have had much more trouble sending emails to Netspeed’s customers than any other ISP. Anyone else having the same failures?