Not with those shoes, pal.

On 26 October at approximately 4pm, latency hits 650ms (funny that this degradation of service is very close to school finish time. My, what a coincidence.)

Both the Internode service and Bigpond service are showing the same latency.

As instructed in the email from the @BigpondTeam, my partner places a call to Technical Support while the problem is happening.

I arrived home at approximately 5.15pm to find my partner still on the phone to Telstra, trying to log a fault. He was not a happy camper.

You see Telstra had told him he wasn't authorised to operate the account. Really?

He has *always* been authorised to operate the account. *ALWAYS*

If he was not authorised to operate the account, how did he manage to have the second line brought back into service and apply for Bigpond ADSL.

Just so we're perfectly clear:

It was my partner who arranged for the second line to be recommissioned.
It was my partner who arranged the Bigpond ADSL connection.

When he wanted to spend money, there was no problem with him signing up for all manner of services on an account that is in my name. Telstra/Bigpond could not have been more helpful.

Now there is a problem on that service, suddenly he's not authorised to operate the account. It's *his* name on the order number for ADSL, *his* email address as a contact.

In the first hour of this call, Bigpond rang his mobile to verify his identity while he was on the other line. He confirmed his identity with his name, address, date of birth, secret password on the account.

The Verdict? Not. Authorised.

It should be noted that the identity confirmation sequence he failed today, was the same identity confirmation sequence he passed when the line and ADSL service were ordered.

My partner asked to be transferred to a supervisor and after being passed up the food chain a couple of times, eventually landed at Bigpond billing who told him he was not authorised to operate the account.

He asked again to be transferred to supervisor and was told they would not escalate the call without first speaking to a person authorised to operate the account.

He gives up at this point.

1hr and 45 minutes later and we still haven't managed to log a fault with technical support.

Latency is 564ms, first hop.