So, while trying to get to the Right People ™ to fix one of our remote 3G IPWAN services, somehow I got through to a consumer-grade accounts person. The Telstra IVR is a horrible mess of “Uh, I’ll mash buttons until someone answers”.
After a few minutes of trying to convey the point, he decided to try and transfer me to a Bigpond 3G helpdesk person. Terrible idea, since they wouldn’t have the foggiest idea how to deal with my Cisco 881G router, nor access to our service details.
While sitting on hold the operator offered the exciting opportunity that because I have both a phone and data service, I could speak with a sales person in the interests of bundling my services and saving lots of money! (English fail on his behalf, sigh)
I tried to get the point across that we had a fairly large account ($100k/month?) and that the account manager (whose job is to work solely with us) might have better deals, then gave up because he just didn’t get it.