I was out shopping the other day and rang the home landline only to be greeted with a voicemail message. this apparently happened because we'd had a power failure, and the cordless phone message system had defaulted to it's standard settings which were voicemail on with answering after 4 rings. we normally have our own message and set to 9 rings.
so I rang my wife's mobile phone which is on the Optus network. it immediately went to voicemail. even though we have its setting switched off.
so I rang my daughter's phone which is on the Vodafone network. it also went to voicemail.
possible reason for the mobiles going to voicemail could be because of the work that doing on the mobile tower, in our neighbourhood.
over the last few days my wife has been unable to get any reception from her Optus network mobile. I told her it's probably because of the work being done on the tower. she asked me is there some sort of guarantee for phone networks. I looked it up on the Australian communications and Media Authority (ACMA) web site and found this page about, Customer Service Guarantee CSG:
this specifically says the the CSG does not cover mobiles or internet. so appears it only covers Lane lines. even then it's possible for a provider to not provide all the protections of the CSG, as it is only a standard, NOT legislation.
it appear the only incentive for phone providers to provide a good reliable service is to keep your customers. with the churning of customers (consumers moving between different providers)it would not seem to be such a great incentive for the phone providers to provide reliable phone services.