Heavenly Beverley : Oh, The Irony (Again)!

I was going to centre this post around the happenings in the East End Gallery and our Latest Famous Sundowner. However, yesterday's events here in Heavenly Beverley have demanded a literary detour as I describe the saga of misadventures that caused chaos due to a power blackout, a lack of the ability to reboot certain services and the miserable continuing record of failing internet and mobile signals.

I am beginning to suspect that Telstra is telling yet more Furphies to bamboozle and bewilder its monopoly in the Bush. Beverley is hardly the Sticks/Styx. We are exactly one hundred kilometres from the Bottom of the Hill (otherwise known as Midvale) and one hundred and thirty kilometres from Perth City itself. Our mobile phone coverage continues to be dreadful. Signal fades beyond the Lakes Roadhouse (about half way to the Big Smoke) and doesn't reactivate until we are literally on Beverley's outskirts. The road route we take is well patronised so we aren't that concerned about dying from hunger or thirst on the way home.

Telstra claims that their "Blue Tick" phones are Top of the Wozza for regional and remote areas. I have a recent Samsung that has the "Blue Tick". Its performance is overshadowed by Michael's new iPhone, which is proving to be far more reliable and doesn't have the "Blue Tick"...

Telstra's other Trumpeting Achievement for those of us not hugging the Eastern States' seaboard is that their telecommunications provides superior coverage in other more primitive places. Whilst optimally the case, Telstra's system is still rather hit and miss. Yesterday, our Communication Goliath was all about miss...

Our day in Station House began as every appliance beeped in unison, a sign that we'd had a power outage during the night and Order had been restored. Apart from having to reset all the electronic clocks, we were rather unaffected by what we consider a reasonably frequent occurrence.

Our most memorable outage had been five days in January 2011, after a storm line decimated power supply between Geraldton and Narrogin (a distance of around six hundred kilometres). At the height of summer, all perishable food spoiled, all telecommunications apart from landlines failed, there was no fuel, banking or ordinary retail services. Imagine how the Highfalutin Types in the leafy green suburbs might have reacted.

Back to yesterday's misfortunes. We realised soon afterwards that neither our Telstra phones nor Telstra internet were operational. Fabulous. We could still make SOS or Emergency calls - a fat lot of good that would have been in a medical crisis with delays now regarded as mainstream in ambulance services.

More was to follow. Our one and only ATM in town needed to be rebooted after the restoration of power. On a Saturday morning in rural Western Australia, we certainly felt that we were not considered a priority. The automatic fuel station couldn't operate either. Same reason as the ATM - the fuel station needed to be rebooted. Plus, those of us with Telstra phones couldn't ring anybody anyway.

EFTPOS terminals were patchy, dropping in and out with infuriating regularity. A cardigan from the Best Frock Shop in Beverley, "The Lucky Find" was given to me without payment as direct bank transfers were not possible. Proprietor Kylie does know where we live...

The final couple of insults were that Optus coverage was totally unaffected and Telstra was surprised to hear about the fault in our network when finally rung by an aggrieved customer...They apparently missed the point that all Telstra customers in Beverley had been unable to report the aforementioned fault.

Further evidence of Telstra's lack of attention to detail was uncovered, literally, during the interminable roadworks that began last October. Cables that were supposed to be buried to a specific depth weren't. Feeble attempts to keep the cables dry in the Wheatbelt clay had resulted in them being wrapped in plastic bags, rather than in a designated casing.

So, where does that leave us? I was mightily annoyed when Lisa's Optus phone was operating without a hitch yesterday when we had No Telstra Service. Regional Australia deserves better than this rubbish that masquerades as adequate customer assistance. Methinks I will be penning another letter to Andy Penn (Telstra's CEO until September) as Calvin, my current Telstra troubleshooter is currently on medical leave.

I suggest that any of us affected by what amounts to contemptuous disregard by a multitude of organisations complain. Loudly, frequently and as politely as possible - a difficult feat, I know. And definitely not to some poor hapless sap at a call centre.

My Dad always went to the top of an agency when he needed to point out a deficit. Not that he always received a response, but he was satisfied that at least he's tried. Dad is still waiting in a comfortable armchair in Heaven for John Howard to reply to his suggestion of flat rate tax as a solution to our unfathomable tax system. I am actually thinking of writing a follow-up letter, honouring my Darling Dad, to that relic of a former Treasurer as the Liberal Party obviously still thinks he is a Very Important Person.

I should also suggest to Telstra that they provide our Beverley tower with a specially designed raincoat and umbrella during winter and a hat and sunscreen in summer. Failures to their system always seem to coincide with less than ideal weather, so there is a possible shirt term solution!

I rest my case...