Optus cable Network Status

I appreciate your reply, Hollie, but it shouldn't be up to us (customers) to individually chase tech support for upgrade schedules. How about Optus customer service doing their job and informing us, using this forum and the network status page, about the progress of upgrades etc.

Your comments on internet usage is just wrong. Internet banking, online shopping and even gaming need very little bandwidth. Streaming video is the biggest bandwidth hog. Even 720p video can use 1GB per hour (about 2Mbps). Yes, Netflix isn't the only culprit... there's YouTube, Twitch, Presto, Stan, Foxtel Play, ABC iView, SBS OnDemand etc etc.

At 3Mbps or less our service has degraded to the point where most of these services can't be used.

Calling tech support does very litle except waste time. You can spend up to an hour on hold and then the call may drop out and you have to start again. When you do speak to someone the coversation goes like this.

I expalin problem: They suggest re-booting router: (this doesn't improve things): They suggest checking the RF cable and then ethernet cables: (this doesn't fix anything either): They then check the 'node' and inform me that there is a lot of congestion (I know this already because of this.

If you look closely you will see that the 'Collisions' figure is much higher then the 'Rx Packets' figure. Every time there is a collision the data is either lost or the router has to request the the packet is re-sent.)

Ok... back to tech support. I ask when the congestion is likely to be fixed: They can't tell me or it's 'next month': But it was 'next month' last month. very frustrating.

This is about as far as it gets, every time. I am not calling tech support again. I would like someone from Customer service to 'own' the bandwidth problem. Optus may not want to post its upgrade schedule on a public forum, but you know our email addresses.

As I have posted in another thread... Long-time Optus cable customers have developed work/social habits that are based on access to a reliable, high-speed internet connection. We are now not getting this service yet we are still paying for it. Many of us are incurring extra mobile phone charges as we are using 4G data at home instead of switching to wi-fi because any more than one or two devices connected to our routers degrades he service even further.

Please. let us know when the banwidth issue will be fixed and do it soon. This forum is rapidly filling up with very annoyed Optus customers. A lot of them will very quickly become ex-customers if we feel that we are not being listened to.