Telstra / Bigpond - the price we pay

Fred's internet connection wasn't just good, it was great, but it was expensive because it was connected to a business fax line he no longer needed or used.  Fred had an existing home phone line, so he got a new ADSL2+ connection and disconnected the old business ADSL connection and the fax line.
Fred's new connection was slow, way too slow to browse the web let alone watch anything on youtube - even email was unreliable.  Before Fred rang me he had been on the phone to Telstra for hours on multiple occasions, he even got a technician from Telstra out who after ruling out all other possibilities, left and informed Fred it must be his house phone wiring or his hardware.
When Fred called me in he was almost beside himself with anger.
I checked the PC for Malware, checked the modem, checked with an alternate modem, disconnected everything on every phone point and connected only to a single point, I disconnected all filters/extensions/phones, I checked connection through another PC (mine), I contacted Telstra Faults - all without joy.
In order to give Fred useable access, I installed a wireless USB NIC and configured Fred's Smart phones as hotspots.
After checking all the above I advised that the fault is either in the phone line leading to your house, or the exchange as we had tested and ruled out filters, extension leads, other devices (phones), the modem and the PC. I advised Fred to ring Telstra and if he wished, submit my report to them.
Fred used the phone hotspots when he needed to do anything on the web, but he left the modem plugged in so email could dribble in and lived in hopes that one day the internet would just work, and he rang Telstra Tech Support regularly.

5 months later
Between Xmas and May Fred regularly rang Telstra to complain about his ADSL connection which was to all intent and purpose USELESS!
He was ALWAYS told there was no problem that they could identify and that they were not prepared to replace the phone line to his house.
I got a call from Fred, he had renewed his "fight" with Telstra.  Fred finally got to talk to someone who actually made the effort and had a look - it appears that Fred's ADSL account had never been activated properly.  From Telstra's point of view, Fred's account was overdue and for almost 6 months had been throttled to 64kbps.
Fred was now quite pleased, fast reliable internet on the high speed plan he had been paying for for 6 months.  Once the novelty of high speed internet wore off, Fred rang Telstra and asked for a rebate for the previous 6 months where the connection was unuseable and he had been forced to use his phone hotspot.
Fred is still getting over the response from Telstra.
"If you had asked for a rebate when the connection wasn't working, and you hadn't connected the modem over that time, then Telstra would have rebated the monthly fee, but the problem is now fixed, so you are not entitled to a rebate"