., Moorooka,

                                    Qld, 4105

                                    11 February, 2000                                        

Dear Michelle,

                        I got your latest attempt to flim-flam me yesterday and have forwarded copies to both Mr Wallace and the TIO for their further attention.

                        I enclose copies of the two emails I sent to the TIO about you.  If you think this matter is closed you will need to think again.  I suggest that you start thinking now. That's your job, isn't it?

                        Yours faithfully,

                        (Dr.) JOHN RAY

                                    Moorooka,

                                    Qld, 4105

                                    11 Feb., 2000                                        

TIO

Dear Ms Mandarino,                        Optus are still trying to wash their hands of my complaint.  And their grounds for doing so are totally spurious.  I reproduce below an email I received from them yesterday.

                        They are trying to use as a red herring the unsurprising fact that the line connected to my place is a normal one.  So what?  The techies tell me that the reason for their system being bad at coping with modern high-speed modem traffic lies not with the quality of their landlines but with the "Gate" connecting their system to the Telstra wires.  It is apparently stable only up to baud speeds of 33.6.  I am told that if I had an older 33.6k modem, I would have no problems.  In other words, Optus do not have the capacity to handle modern modems properly. Modems running at 56k are a recent development and Optus have not kept pace. They are obviously trying to cover that up.

                        All that is by the by, however.  The bottom line for me is that I had no ISP connection problems while I was using a Telstra local line but I have frequent problems now that I am using an Optus local line.  Optus are not addressing that at all. They seem to hope that I will just go away.

                        In a feeble attempt at buckpassing, Optus try in their latest letter to blame my ISP for the problems but I have rung my ISP at times when I have been having problems only to be told that their system was running well below capacity at such times and that they were not having any problem with it.

                        I do not expect Optus to fix their Gate problem overnight but I do expect them to come clean about it and compensate me for the losses it has caused me.  If you cannot get them to do that I will have to see if the media can.  So please get back to them on this.  As I have said before, what I seek is that they credit me for all broken-off calls.  I would be prepared to negotiate details of such a credit if they would climb down off their high horse long enough to talk to me about it.

                        Their letter follows:              Yours faithfully,

                        (Dr.) John RAY