The pond discovers a vast international conspiracy, perhaps involving Optus ...

(Above: so what do you know. First Dog has a choice image for Optus, and a few choice words to match, here).

Thanks Madame chair, I'd appreciate getting into today's agenda for the pond right away.

 1. IT Department:

Let the record of this meeting show that, after bitter personal experience, the pond's IT department has advice for the world in relation to broadband:
(a) if you're thinking about Optus for broadband, forget it. Life's too short, and you might end up with a nervous breakdown or a heart attack.
(b) if you're thinking about switching from another ISP to Optus for broadband, why? Are you a masochist, a loon or simply a glutton for punishment?
(c) if you're wondering about Optus broadband versus a carrier pigeon service, consider the pigeons. They cost less - wheat is relatively cheap, and they'll eat breadcrumbs - and they only need to deliver one message a year to put them way ahead of the 0% reliability offered by Optus (remember, you can buy a bunnch of breadcrumbs with the amount of moola Optus gouges on a monthly basis for a measly tapered peak and off-peak cap). 

2. International Conspiracy Involving the Singapore Government:

Madame Chair, thanks to extensive time spent with Andrew Bolt and Janet Albrechtsen and the like, the pond is fully trained in the art of spotting an international conspiracy.

It hasn't escaped the pond's eagle eye that Optus is owned by the Singapore government (if you delve into the deeper parts of the labyrinth), and has received all sorts of generous help from the Australian government, ostensibly on the basis of competition and improved service. With broadband and the service sector booming in Australia, think of the conspiratorial benefit of Optus providing a dodgy, half-baked, third rate service to its Australian customers.

Poor old Barners and the farmers have got it wrong, with all this chit chat about buying up the farms. Fuck up the intertubes and you're way ahead of Anonymous.

You see, where does stuffed connectivity leave Australian businesses and consumers up against Singapore suppliers? Up shit creek without an IT paddle.

 The pond has yet to discover what the Australian government thinks it gets out of coddling Optus, and cosying up to them, but it's easy enough to see how the double play benefits Singapore. Screw Australian customers up hill and down dale, and then point out how in Singapore citizens do IT much better. Next thing you know George Lucas is out of the old Sydney showground and off to Singapore (remember, you can make crappy animation anywhere, but it sure helps to avoid Optus).

 3. International Image of India, its government and people: 

Madame Chair, thanks to News Ltd, the pond is aware of the need for public relations and a good public image. It is therefore disturbing to consider the role of Indian call centres in relation to the image of India abroad, and more particularly those hired by Optus to deal with "problem Australian clients". 

Two hours of endlessly and fruitlessly discussing technical problems with Indian call centre staff might well lead to the conclusion that India isn't a land of IT specialists, so much as a land of cretins. A concerned soul suggested this word was a tad extreme. Perhaps it would be better if it was noted that India seems to have mastered the art of bureaucracy. But as Forrest Gump said, cretin is as cretin does. Or some such thing.

The pond comes to this conclusion reluctantly. The pond knows enough about connecting to the intertubes to be dangerous; Indian call centre workers seem to know enough about connecting Optus clients to make the head of a pin look exceptionally expansive.

In its reluctant research, the pond has discovered several fascinating tidbits. There are special levels of Indian call centre pin heads - the first lowly level seems to consist of employees given the job of asking "why are you bothering me, when it's all your fault, or the fault of your computer", even if it's clearly, obviously, blatantly, nakedly the fault of Optus equipment.

Then there's the higher level of consultant, experts at their work, and able to deliver a much higher level of gobbledegook - "yes our detailed analysis confirms that it's all the fault of Optus equipment, but unfortunately there's nothing much we can do about it at the moment. Just suck on it and see how it feels".

These are people hired not to sort a problem but simply to keep someone on the phone until exhaustion, depression and a deep sense of futility kicks in. Or better still, get them off the phone so they'll just go away and the call centre can operate efficiently and in peace. In much the same way that Fawlty Towers always ran better without any pesky guests.

Does the Indian government have the first clue how Indian call centres have made the country an international joke?

It's been suggested to the pond - by some of the most adept of Andrew Bolt's conspiracy spotters - that the Indian government might in fact be in league with the Singapore government, to reduce Australia's IT fitness and readiness, and introduce what is known as an "IT gap".

On the surface this is an attractive theory, but the presence of so many certified cretins in Indian call centres mitigates against it (the pond intends no denigration of useful idiots, or disadvantaged people, as opposed to wondering why useless idiots are given first call on jobs in Indian call centres).

An alternative theory, which takes account of the skills level of people hired by Optus in India suggests that the Singapore government might well be involved in a high level conspiracy to defame India and Indians. Think about it. India has a reputation for IT skills. How easy to dismantle it by getting them to fail in every imaginable way possible in an Optus call centre. Singapore wins!

 4. Conspiracy involving Malcolm Turnbull, the Indian government, the Singapore government, Optus call centres and Optus: 

Madame Chair, the pond is aware that dedicated conspiracy theorists - originally trained by Andrew Bolt in the matter of debunking climate science - have contended that Malcolm Turnbull is involved in this international conspiracy to produce third rate, half-arsed, weak as piss broadband for Australian users.

The pond once sacked Telstra for crimes as great as those of Optus, and can't go back because that way lies madness. The decline and fall of Telstra can be traced back to the Howard government and its cocked-up flotation (why not try a flotation tank instead), the three amigos, and the attempt by the federal government to buy the current flock of executives' silence in relation to the NBN.

Attempting to get a new modem from Telstra has been, and would be, like having all wisdom teeth extracted in one go without benefit of anaesthetic.

After breaking with Telstra, the pond spent a little time enjoying the delivery of broadband by in-ground copper wire using state of the art ADSL2. Talk about a stateless, graceless lack of art. The pipes were so comprehensively fucked it only needed a drizzle to produce drop-outs and dismal speed.

Oh sure it was a great anti-piracy device - you couldn't even watch the BOM Sydney radar to track the weather.

Download? Are we talking here about unionists going on strike? Or a dump of concrete? 

Contrary to rumour and Sydney Anglicans celebrating the sapphire city, it rains regularly enough in Sydney.

Now big Mal is running around explaining how fibre to the node, with delivery by copper for the last half mile, is more than fine for good broadband. Which means in the pond's neighbourhood, they'd have to install a new batch of state of the art nineteenth century copper wire to the home to deliver a half-way decent service. Which totally misses the point.

Whenever big Mal starts yammering about how copper is good enough, the pond feels like jabbing him with a corroded, corrupted strand of copper. Unless there happened to be an Optus consultant available nearby. Skewer him, skewer him …

After exhaustive, detailed examination, the Bolt-trained theorists concluded that big Mal isn't involved in the conspiracy, he's just a lick-spittle, obsequious, doofus given the job of parroting the luddite Tony Abbott line on broadband, and doing it in a way that disgraces his and his listeners' intelligence.

But not of course the intelligence of the editors of the AFR and The Australian, who are perhaps involved in a conspiracy with Optus and the Singapore government to drive broadband consumers back to tree-killing newspapers.

So this is the reward for the pond telling publishers, film producers and musicians and anybody else who'd listen that the future was broadband, and they'd better get their business plan together.

How foolish, what bad advice. Why didn't the pond factor in the sublime, complete incompetence of Optus, and the competitive strength of carrier pigeons and the telegraph (the wireless too has its charms).

 5. The solution: 

Madame Chair, we regret to advise that there is no solution. Optus has proposed fixing the problem, but when and how has been met with a wave of the hand. Why do consumers insist on asking tricky, problematic questions?

A belief in Optus's capacity to problem solve involves blind faith, and hope and trust.

This is equivalent to thinking that, on reaching Never Never Land, Optus will magically turn into Can Do land, when it's almost certain to be Campbell Can't Do Newman land.

There is simply no evidence for an Optus can-do miracle, which is way trickier than drumming up a few fish, a few loaves of bread, and heaps of wine.

The federal Labor government has ensured Kiama has access to the NBN right here, right now, but in the usual way, those in what are perceived as safe Labor seats can sing until the sparrow farts and the sun sets and still they won't see broadband.

By the time the Labor government is booted out, all the pond will be able to look forward to is a dose of sodden nineteenth century copper, courtesy of Big Mal. So this is the sound of one digital hand clapping ...

Is federal Labor in a conspiracy as well? Who knows, but why not. After all, if Optus is totally useless, think of the edge it gives the NBN. The problem here of course is that there needs to be an NBN rolling out with speed and enthusiasm. It makes no sense to subsidise Optus to hire totally inept people in Indian call centres when waiting for the NBN is like waiting for la la land to land.

Oh wait, Senator Stephen Conroy is in charge of the NBN. Fly, my pretties, fly, and let loose the hounds. Let's sniff out the depths of this conspiracy.

All in all, as a result of the current activities of Optus and the Singapore government, tremendous damage is being inflicted on Australian broadband and on the image of Indians abroad.

Now this involves delicate cultural issues. Indians are routinely portrayed sounding like characters and stereotypes fresh out of running a convenience store on The Simpsons, where it's easier to buy a slurpee than a solution to a simple question of domestic delivery of a barely adequate broadband service at substantial expense.

But what if the stereotypes are real, what if the portraits are nightmarishly accurate, and they take you into the wee hours listening to Apu with no more chance of a solution to your problems than finding a fresh doughnut in the store? By golly, hats off, they have mastered the British art of bureaucracy ...

6. Revenge: 

Madame Chair, as a result of the great IT breakdown of August 2012, the pond's expert committee advises that there is only one useful activity left.

That's apart from roaming the streets hoping for access via mugs who haven't password protected their service, or via visits to the library, or via convenience stores doling out fifteen minute spurts like a slurpee seller, or by just dropping a hat in the street and begging for some spare broadband from a kindly Sydney Anglican.

That activity involves mutually assured destruction, hatred, fear and loathing, and doing whatever damage can be done to the commercial functioning of Optus and the Singapore government in Australia (with relentless abuse of Indian call centres and Indian scammers a useful sideline for stress relief).

If the pond, through this post, persuades only one other person never to touch Optus's services with a ten foot barge pole, then its work on earth is done, and it will have struck a blow for truth, justice, humanity, light, harmony and the music of the spheres.

By this point, readers might have realised they've discovered the longest rant on the many ways that Optus is the vilest ISP in the land.

Put it another way way: loon pond is experiencing currently technical problems thanks to Optus.

No solution seems close at hand, but it's not for want of attempts by the pond to find an alternative solution. The latest is mixing the blood of a first born with the teeth of a vampire to wish Optus into satanic oblivion.

No doubt, normal service will resume, Optus and Satan willing. Or is Satan in on the conspiracy as well? Probably not. Up against Optus, Satan seems like a congenial sort of feller ...

(Below: Newtown graffiti in relation to Optus. What can you say? Optus drove one graffiti writer so mad they thought Vodafone was nice. You sick perverted filthy bastards, what noble mind was o'er thrown?)