The story of telecommunication companies that don't know how to communicate

Herein will the tales of my struggle with Accelerit, FibreOps and Aenova be chronicled. A warning to those among you with heart problems: this is a narrative of breath-taking incompetence, impudence and inattentiveness.

10 FEB 2018: My endeavour, in so far as the above are implicated, began on the 10th of February 2018. My complex hosted a Fibre “Open Day” during which various ISPs presented themselves to demonstrate their packages and fell over themselves to sign up residents of the complex for Fibre. Aenova was the physical provider of Fibre, whilst FibreOps, another Fibre provider, presumably installed the fibre lines into the complex itself. The precise nature of the relationship between FibreOps and Aenova eludes me. Among all the ISPs on display, Accelerit caught my eye, based on the premise that the precise package I was looking for was on offer for the cheapest price. The precise product I was looking for was Unshaped, Uncapped, Synchronous.

16 FEB 2018: Having deliberated over the options, I finally made a decision to go with Accelerit. By this date, I had solicited a quote, and opted to “Pay for 6 Months Upfront” to be eligible for a free router. The process of signing up with Accelerit was wrought with a multitude of minor problems, all of which either got resolved after pointing them out. Such problems included: 1) I was directed to a google forms page to sign up, which had an explicit field for “Unit Number” and “Street Address”. The quote generated from this form somehow managed to put my street number as a unit number. After pointing this out before paying, it was corrected, however if anyone still wants to sign up with Accelerit after reading this, pay heed to this. 2) Despite paying 6 months up front, a debit order went off for the first month (Refunded after pointing it out). 3) This first payment was more than the quoted “monthly amount”, I didn’t inquire about this at the time because I was more focused on getting it refunded. 4) The delivery of the router was poorly handled, I was informed on the day it was en route and I was already at work, and the guard house at my complex is not authorised to accept packages. 5) The router itself is a tiny device, and I have read less than stellar reviews on its capabilities.

01 MAR 2018: Once I had received my router, I waited until around this day to receive further information about the actual installation into my apartment. As I had heard nothing, I began emailing Accelerit and Fibre Ops to find out what needed to be done. Was my installation in a queue? Was I expected to schedule an installation myself despite being told I would be contacted? It was a great mystery. 05 MAR 2018: I received a response from Accelerit that my complex wasn’t active yet, and therefore my application for an installation from Aenova was “unsuccessful”. I forwarded this correspondence to FibreOps to get clarity about what this entailed, and I received no response.

27 MAR 2018: Around this time an installation had been scheduled for my apartment. A technician arrived and began installing a wall unit, bringing fibre from the backbone in the complex into my unit and connecting it to a wall unit. There were, however, problems. 1) The wall unit had a single port, a non-ethernet port. I am uncertain of what type of cable this is, but it was definitely not an ethernet port. This is a problem as the router I received required a WLAN connection via an Ethernet cable. 2) The wall unit was installed in the middle of the only “corridor” in my apartment. Of any place that the router could live, this was not one of them. 3) The wall unit’s install location was nowhere near a power outlet, so even if I would concede having to dodge a router when moving around my apartment, I couldn’t as I would not be able to power the wall unit The technician left the installation at this point, with a wall unit and no connection to a router, informing me that within a week I would be contacted for a “follow up installation”.

19 APR 2018: Leading up to this point in time were a series of emails to Accelerit and FibreOps trying to find out what was going on. Every communication attempt was either ignored or deflected with finger pointing. At some point in the interaction I was given the instruction details of a representative from Aenova. This representative has proven himself quite adept at taking phone calls, promising to call back, then ignoring you until you call again, at which point he would say he had asked someone to call, as this happened approximately three times during this endeavour. In all fairness, I should have stopped trusting him after the first time he did this. At the same time, Accelerit had asked for photographs of the Wall Unit and the Router to bear witness to the differences. Once I had supp**** these, Accelerit responded with the observation that my complex “Was not yet activated with Aenova”, a state that was persisting since the entry I wrote above for the 5th of March. I was quite frustrated with this, as no official communications about this delay had gone out, and I was living with a half-completed installation, so I responded with a series of questions: 1) How does the inactive state prevent the installation from being completed? 2) If the complex isn’t even active yet, why was the option to sign up even presented? At this point in time I had signed up and paid 2 months earlier. 3) What about the six months I had paid upfront? I presume I still have 6 months credit but my experience with multiparty services is that they often take liberties with activating the service despite not being able to provide it. Of all these questions, only the last one was answered, informing me that my account wasn’t drawing down on this credit yet. Great to hear that I wasn’t using up my prepaid funds, not so great on knowing what the hell was going on.

06 MAY 2018: Having received no communications regarding my installation, even from my Body Corporate, I sent an email through to Accelerit for an update.

08 MAY 2018: Having received no response from Accelerit for the email from two days prior, I asked if anyone even monitors the Accelerit customer support emails. This received no response.

24 MAY 2018: After some back and forth, some finger pointing between the parties, I finally got a call from someone at Aenova to come and inspect my unit to try and understand the problem. I received the call on the 24th, to come and inspect on the 24th, and it was by sheer coincidence that I was taking the day off sick. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to accommodate a house call at the drop of a hat. The inspector noted that I would need a cable to connect the wall unit to some other unit which would be setup closer to an ideal position for my router, and that he was uncertain as to if they had stock of the cable in question at a great enough length. He informed me that he would check up then call me back sometime next week to schedule a final installation. I never received the phone call.

26 JUN 2018: I had forward my correspondence to my body corporate early in May to try get them involved. At this point I received a response asking if everything had been resolved. I guess they were hoping the problem would sort itself out and they would have avoided having to do anything. Unfortunately for them, nothing had changed since I had sent them the correspondence. They did however respond immediately, and roped in a new individual from Aenova. Shortly after including this new individual, I received a phone call from Aenova to schedule an installation. I asked the individual calling me if they had managed to find the cable mentioned earlier, and she was unfami**** with my concern. I declined the installation, as I told her that I wasn’t going to take a day leave only to have some technician walk in with neither the cable nor the context required to finish the installation. I told her about a named Aenova representative that was fami**** with my situation, and that she should contact him to understand. I had also emailed the group including Accelerit, Aenova and my body corporate informing them about the call and the reasons why I refused the installation. Within a day the above-mentioned representative from Aenova had responded on this chain to say he would follow up and get a second call to me.

9 JUL 2018: A week later I received another phone. It went through precisely the same problems as the first one. The agent from Aenova was unaware of what cable I was talking about or that I had a half installation already done. I rejected it for the same reasons, and fired off an email to inform everyone that I had rejected the appointment for the same reasons. The new contact from Aenova fired off an email to someone with explicit instructions about the cable.

11 JUL 2018: I received a call from the very technician who performed the inspection on May 24th. If you can recall, I just so happened to be sick on that day so I could accommodate his abrupt ad hoc appointment. Unfortunately, this time he wanted to make another ad hoc appointment to finish my installation, but I was already at work. He said he would call me when he had an opening in his schedule. I have not received any call back from him.

Throughout this endeavour, both Aenova and Accelerit have been abhorrent. Communications, from a company ostensibly communication-centric, have been so poor it borders on Truman show levels of parody, I have found myself in stunned disbelief in how communication mechanisms through service tickets, emails and phone calls have been handled. While the issue of my complex not yet being active could be grounds for the delay, this was only ever communicated to me without an active pursuit for an answer once, and this was done long after I had begun communications of my volition several times, and I had long since found out about the inactive state of my complex. Had I known about the delay in activation, and how long it would have taken, I would have sought another solution as far back as November 2017, when fibre through Aenova was first announced for my complex. It is important to note that, as of the 17th of August 2018, I would have been waiting 6 months for a line, and I paid for 6 months up front.