I do miss the Last Number Redial function

These days that function is often built into the handset itself.

But also blocks friends and relatives who have silent listings.

"To unblock on a call-by-call basis (if your number is permanently blocked): If you're calling from a home phone: dial 1832, or from a mobile: dial *31# then the number you are calling."

Friends and relatives should store those unblock codes in their speed dials / mobile directories in front of your number.

BTW: Telstra sells a phone called Guardian which allows you to screen callers, as callers from unrecognised numbers have to announce their name before the call is connected through to you:

https://crowdsupport.telstra.com.au/t5/Announcements/Telstra-Call-Guardian-301-Never-answer-a-nuisance-call-again/ba-p/465103

A story from The NBN From Hell File: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-29/at-war-with-australian-internet-providers/10925254

NBN is allegedly due to be installed here in May. I am not looking forward to that. I will delay cutover from copper as long as possible until I see how my neighbours are faring with it.

Re that story above, about 24 hours later my own copper line went dead. Trundled off to the local Telstra Shop expecting problems. The staff there wanted to simply give me the fault number but I told them I wanted to use their phone as being on hold for an extended period on my mobile was out of the question. So, they eventfully agreed to my using one of their phones. Immediately got the message about unusual number of calls and that the wait would be 30 minutes. After 15 minutes of so on hold listening to a monotonous message telling me that I could use the internet (to report my lack of internet access?), I got switched through to India and was told that there is a general outage in my area due to "cable damage caused by an independent contractor" and that the repair was expected to be completed by April 4.

After the first 24 hours of no landline or internet, and knowing the approximate cable route from the local telephone exchange to my house, I decided to tour it looking for any evidence of a cable repair team at work. I saw none. This made me suspect that I had been told a convenient porky and that in truth my pair had been 'stolen' by a careless Telstra contractor or, worse, Telstra had cut me off thinking (like in that story above) that I had been ported to the NBN.

Eventually this morning I spotted a contractor sitting by the nearest pillar with his test gear. I asked him what's happening and he told me that water ingress to cable ducting had caused widespread loss of service in my area and that he estimated the fault would be cleared by 2pm today -- and, thankfully, it was.

QUOTE: The chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) used a speech in Sydney this afternoon to highlight how entry-level NBN plans are getting more expensive.

When moving onto the NBN, he said, consumers were having to pay more and, in some cases, getting less.

“We were never meant to get to a situation where some consumers, in switching to the NBN, will be left worse off by paying more, or getting less,” he said.

The NBN — a wholesaler who sells to space on the network to service providers like Telstra and TPG — changed its pricing structure recently to encourage greater take-up of bandwidth by making mid and top-tier plans more attractive.

But the ACCC blames the new pricing model for making basic plans more expensive, meaning many ISPs have moved away from selling them.

Prior to the NBN, consumers could find an internet and voice plan with 100GB of data per month for $50, or unlimited data for $60 per month.

“We are now observing prices of low-speed NBN plans offered to new customers that are at least $10 per month higher than what consumers paid for equivalent ADSL plans,” Mr Sims said. In some cases, plans with bottom-tier 12Mbps speeds cost nearly as much as 50Mbps plans.

Finally went to use the complaints form on the Telstra site... and no surprise, the form doesn't work.

There's empty random fields, fields that are cut in half, and no submit button. When I finally found the submit button by mousing over it, it did nothing. Utterly useless.

Guess I'll have to ask about it when I visit the Telstra shop.

the form doesn't work.

Yep, sounds like Telstra. I'd use this method from their Complaints page. I'm told that you'll be connected to someone onshore, not India:

QUOTE: Phone: please call the appropriate number and say "complaint". All Telstra services: 13 22 00

Received this SMS text today from Telstra:

"nbn has arrived in [my suburb] but there may be delays connecting. For now, we recommend staying on your existing Telstra home phone connection and hold off switching to nbn."

Well, as it happens, I'm in no hurry to go NBN. My intention all along has been to let others go first and uncover any issues.

" let others go first and uncover any issues"

The main issue with my NBN installation (Optus) was the phone dropping out. This was my old phone and extension plugged in to the "normal" phone outlet on the router. This was not evident just looking casually at the phone and you didn't find out until you picked it up to dial, or someone said they weren't getting through. Internet, wifi continued OK after reboot.

Just rebooting the setup didn't fix this - the modem needed to be rebooted, then the router for the phone to be connected. In desperation I fitted one of the filters that the old system needed, but drop-outs continued.

Eventually this problem resolved itself, and at the time I put the phone drop-outs down to continuing NBN installation activity in the area, but I don't know for sure.

Telstra has the most ridiculous Auto-moronic phone answering system possibly in the world. I can only come to the conclusion that it was designed to get rid of customers. And from what I have observed complaints & losses indicate its working.

What a strange attitude? With ICI we were told the truth: Customers were our bread & butter. Without customers you don't have a job, therefore it it's everybody in the organisation's job, to look after them. Any company that can buy out another for billions of pounds cash sale, has to have its finger on the pulse.

If I ring a corporation I am of course P'd off by some stupid machine asking me why I rang & then sends me some where I did not want to go?

If I want billing I want billing
If I want Copper wire I want Copper wire not unreliable NBN
If I want NBN I have an issue

Whatever happened to #1 for billing: #2 for general Faults (which) can be expanded ....................# 9 to change to another ISP

They did do some "work" on the tower that feeds here. That started about Feb & was still going on in April with around 4 days off line all day.
Of course one still gets to pay full price for a service during that time running at the speed of a tired snail, if at all.

It is no wonder the Kiwi's make Jokes about it & More than high time that the ACCC or Government (do we have one?) brought Testra & NBN under control. From what I see of NBN, we got a Pig in a Poke.

NBN in my suburb is via HFC installed by Telstra many years ago. From the text message they sent me, I'm guessing that Telstra knows what condition that HFC is in.

Im just wandering if they are going to try and change my fibre to the house to fibre to the node. Hope I have a choice.

I would think from the experiences with Telstra infrastructure & maintenance here and what I noted after attending a Senate NBN hearing. If you think that you are going to get your system updated this century you may be living with false hope.

This country loves installing failed technology That is at least twenty years out of date. Things like road barriers that have failed & are being puuled out in many places in the word as they are dangerous. Classic: They installed them on a road here and it is now too dangerous for the school bus to stop & pickup & drop of kids. We also had a "flash flood" where people were trappedby Police who would not block the road allow cars to turn back and the barriers that stopped the cars, also stopped them turning onto the verge where in many cases they would be above the waterline & could have escaped.

We are a country so blessed to have such bureaucratic genius.

if they are going to try and change my fibre to the house to fibre to the node. Hope I have a choice

From my experience NBN will take the cheapest route. They flagged the business complex where my workshop is located as Fibre to the Basement, but then delivered Fibre to the Node. We got no choice. NBNCo is a faceless bureaucratic operation. It doesn't like to communicate with anyone.

It's different for Carl's situation I think. If I am reading this right, Carl is on the former TransACT fibre. I don't think even NBNCo would be that stupid that they'd rip it out and install copper. It'd be like Velocity fibre in Brisbane. A simple transition from one logical network to another.

That's assuming they take the sensible approach. Having worked for a few government department's it's no always the case.