It's still the same old story....play it again Sol...

Telstra CEO, Sol Trujillo, weaving his magic to conjure up my High Definition Foxtel service.

You may be wondering how I have progressed with my attempts to lure some service out of Telstra.

The answer is not that far.

My formal complaint to Telstra generated a speedy automated acknowledgement stating that a consultant would endeavour to reply to my correspondence within two days. Two weeks on, there has been no response.

I approached the Telephone Industry Ombudsman and was told they can only pursue complaints about Telstra's telephone and Internet services, not its provision of pay television. When I asked whether the TIO would pursue Telstra's failure to respond to my complaint, I was told the same thing; only in relation to telephone or Internet services. The TIO referred me to the NSW Department of Fair Trading.

I approached DFT and their immediate reaction was to refer me to the TIO. When I pointed out that the TIO had referred me to them, they told me how to make my referral to DFT which I did the same day. So far, a week later, no response, not even an acknowledgement.

I also wrote to my Federal Member of Parliament asking for his office's assistance with Telstra but so far no response or acknowledgement from him either.

I have also made two further calls to Telstra (making five calls in all) and spoke to three further operators (bringing to eleven the number of operators I have spoken to). The latest of these operators, An, seemed the most clueful so far and also is the first to acknowledge how appalling Telstra's service must seem to me. An kept me on hold for over half an hour whilst he attempted to sort out the problem and it may be that some progress is about to occur. According to An, he has been able to update my current Foxtel package on Telstra's system which is a prerequisite to then processing the High Definition upgrade.

However for reasons I don't understand, the package update takes 48 hours to work its way through Telstra's system so I have to wait that period before Telstra can then process the upgrade.

Watch this blog.