TELSTRA Free Service Day

[ameerat42]

Because of Telstra's service crash on 18 March 2016, they are going to "offer a free service day" on Sunday 3 April 2016.

You can read about it in these links below, BUT, does anybody know if it will be available to Telstra Prepaid customers as well
as those on plans? I was at a Telstra shop today and he said that mine - a prepaid service - would not be eligible. But he didn't
say why prepaid would not be eligible. (Shop full of customers etc...)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-1...utages/7256706
https://exchange.telstra.com.au/2016...free-data-day/

Are there any prepaid planners here who did receive the free day last time (??some months ago??) ? Does anyone have any
info about this?

Ta.
Am.

[arthurking83]

I saw the headline and immediately thought, Telstra .... Service does not compute!

Two words that can only be described as mutually exclusive

Spent all day today, setting up a new PC on my sisters work network.
The new PC was a little difficult to integrate into the network, as PC naming was sensitive, so the new PC had to replace an existing PC, but the running of the existing PC was crucial to the running of the network(sales and stuff). It was actually a lot more complex than that description, but this gives you an idea of the issues.

The two main software(on the new PC) that NEEDED to be run to keep the Point of Sale PC running required support from the vendors to get configured(at the vendors end) .. and their 'service' people were awesome!
PC up and running for those critical needs fairly effortlessly .. whilst on the phone to the support folks.

Then came the trauma of dealing with Telstra 'service' .. service used only in name here .. not as a description of the quality of the help provided!

In the end what should have taken a few minutes to organise(basically to get email up and running) .. took at least 2-3 hours(maybe more) .. and continual draining of batteries on the cordless phones(x times 3!)

I'm thinking the headline should have read .. 'Telstra service free days' .. all day, every day!

[Cage]

'Telstra Service'

Another classic oxymoron.

[ameerat42]

Yes, well, some things go without saying, but what about it?

-Does anybody know?

[Mary Anne]

Having one of my iPhones on telstra pre-paid they have sent me two txt or was that three recently, given me free days of something? due to problems.
Never used any though, no need to.. Have not received a txt about this Sunday.

[arthurking83]

Yes, well, some things go without saying, but what about it?

-Does anybody know?

I'm guessing it's a social stunt created to appease the millions of users that were excluded from a Telstra service(in specific areas) twice within a few weeks, due to ineptitude and an inability or willingness to provide a proper service system in times of need!


.. or something like that.

On a weird note on my end though(and I have to point out I personally don't use Telstra)

Back at my sister's business premises, it turned out that Telstra can outsource their support department to the cheapest region in the world AND provide at least one person that is willing to actually do some work(which then transpired into actual help!).
Actually freaked me out, in that I thought I may have been in some land of roaming Unicorns chasing away rampant network eating Centaur beasts or something .. really freaked me out.

Turns out that Thunderbird doesn't really like to set up non standard email addresses, and make it a bit convoluted to find the method of providing a full and complete network service settings.
Had trouble sending emails from the two emails I set up for my sister's business.
Receive was A OK .. 100% quick and prompt. But sending from those same addresses only gave a password prompt even tho the passwords were the correct ones.
The other issue was that Telstra don't provide any info on what server settings their SMTP servers use .. so one sort of had to guess.
They give a lot of other info, just not what setting this SMTP server uses.
So using the Optus server settings, we could send emails from the Telstra based email addresses! .. but makes sense, in that all it's doing is sending the email, just not from the telstra server.
Optus obviously use some normal SMTP server settings, as I configured nothing when setting up this email addy .. just this silly Telstra(business, not Bigpond) based.
Not being a Telstra tech, and not being given any info .. the settings could have been any number of combinations that amounted to millions .. obviously you can't guess at this, so the call was(very reluctantly) made.

I have to hand it to the foreign chap that answered tho .. as he did try hard to help. They don't provide support for T'bird users, but he searched for where to find the settings area for the server settings. Took about an hour of digging and so forth, but he came up with the goods.
Turns out that Telstra simply don't use any authentication on their SMTP servers, whereas Optus do!
So in having set T'bird to use authentication(following the Optus setting), just threw up the server error requiring a password which it didn't understand.

A simple additional line of info on the info page detailing all of the other email settings would have saved THEM! .. at least one hour of their support time.

But Kudos! to the support guy I dealt with for working through the issue.

All is fine at the 'lair' for now.

switching to waffle mode now:

ps. Massive dramas with Open Office of late too.(I'm trying to keep the cost of the PCs down for them too, so all open and free software where possible)
It seems that from OOp 4.0.something that I used to drive, to 4.1.2, the Apache folks have employed ex Telstra support staff to add bugs into the software!
4.1.2 has not only lost the ability to read most file types(xls, xlsx, doc, docx .. etc) properly, they even managed to program the ability to completely mangle the files as well!
Bastards! .. lost many pages of a very important personal workbook yesterday in using the unusable OOo 4.1.2.

Downloaded Libre Office and everything is now fine and dandy. Switched sister to Libre Office too .. all files and formats are now perfectly usable for her ... the 'lair' is now in safe mode.

[Mary Anne]

I just got an email from Telstra telling me its a free data day April 3rd for pre-paid, post-paid, tablet or mobile broadband from midnight to midnight in your local Australian time zone..

Gee that would mean you Southerners on DST will get 25 hours of free data instead of 24 hours seeing daylight saving finishes at 3am that day.

[ameerat42]

Ta, M A. That's interesting.

[Mary Anne]

Looks like its only for customers who buy their Mobile Broadband Plans, as I buy Telstra Mobile Broadband when on holidays.

[Glenda]

Yep I received the same email saying it doesn't matter whether you are on prepaid "to help make up for any inconvenience, we hope you can take advantage of our free data day within Australia this Sunday 3 April 2016. Whether you’re on a pre-paid or post-paid mobile, tablet or mobile broadband plan, you will automatically receive free data, from midnight to midnight in your local Australian time zone, on Sunday 3 April 2016.

[ameerat42]

Hmm! I haven't got such an email yet, but this sounds pretty clear.

[Mark L]

So I still use a landline and Wi-Fi via Telstra to make this post (not sure what these other things you talk about are ) Guess there's no free movies for me to watch on Sunday night then.

[ameerat42]

No. Only if your phone is a Telstra mobile. (Possibly if you get T wireless internet too. I dunno if
that service crashed as well that day.) I think all landline services were unaffected.

[ameerat42]

Well, today's the day for free data from Telstra.

But, I still haven't got a message from them.

Q: I suppose I can use up my call credit FOR DATA until the cr expires?
No way will I make $20 of calls in 2 days.

- - - Updated - - -

I Just made a 1 minute call on WhatsApp using the mobile data: NO change to account balance.

Also, made a 30 sec call. THAT has used up some credit.