Currently with iinet for both phone and broadband and have just joined the Optus fusion plans. The optus person said that installation date is 20 May and have asked me to cancel my broadband with iinet ASAP and do not need to worry about the phone with iinet as Optus will take care of that.

If I cancelled my broadband with iinet today, I will be left with 10 days without broadband!!!! Is this normal???? I thought the ISP can do churning and have just a couple of hours of downtime????

You're on iiNet's ADSL2?

There's no Telstra procedure for people to churn from LSS ("iiNet ADSL2 with Telstra phone (resold)") across to ULL ("Optus ADSL2 with Optus phone").

If that's what you're doing... you need to disconnect from iiNet ADSL2 first. Then there is a simple procedure to churn from "Telstra phone (resold)" to "full Optus".

edit: so yeah, it's normal to have that downtime. For now. Not sure if there's anyone you could complain to so that Telstra has to improve their procedures.

GregAlex writes...

You're on iiNet's ADSL2?

Yep

If that's what you're doing... you need to disconnect from iiNet ADSL2 first. Then there is a simple procedure to churn from Telstra phone (resold) to Optus.

Do you know how long that takes? I spoke to Optus and said that as installation date is around 20 May then can I cancel with iinet closer to 20 May and he said nope you should cancel ASAP as they may be complications and delay the process...

So should I cancel broadband with iinet today and live without internet for 10 days or cancel a few days later? I read somewhere in this forum that I can call iinet and cancel today without any notice period?

I think 10 days is about the minimum... so I'd cancel now.

It's a similar problem even moving from iiNet ADSL2 & phone across to iiNet's own Naked DSL - since that's an LSS->ULL move too. My point being that if you switch to Naked DSL with iiNet they talk about 10 days downtime (iirc)...

edit 1: I think iiNet won't put in your order for Telstra to move you across to iiNet's Naked DSL until the codes are off your line, which puts you in a 10 day queue. Since you're jumping to Optus, you could be really lucky and have the iiNet codes taken off your line co-incidentally a day before Optus takes over the line... but your luck could go the other way too.

edit 2: As for notice - you'll have to check with iiNet. I think you can cancel immediately. You may have penalties for leaving < 6months, or have to pay extra for your modem if it was subsidised and you're leaving within 24 months.

GregAlex, many thanks for your advice on this!

I will give a iinet a call now to cancel. I should be ok on notice, I have been with iinet for more than 24 months. Fingers crossed the transfer takes 10 days or less! Thanks again!

No worries.

Hey get Optusnet to give you dialup until you're connected. At least you can use your phone line to dial in.