Comparing Service Providers!
 

Hi everybody,

I know this thread or simular has (prob) been done a hundread times before, but here goes, anyway!

I've been looking into the various broadband/digital tv/phone/bundle options in Aus on the net and like the UK, seems to be a bit of a minefield...with a few noticable differences...

* There doesn't seem to be the competition there is in the UK offering good value bundle packages, (SKY digital tv/basic broadband/home phone £26 month) about the best I could find was TELSTRA BIGPOND, BUT there is NO discount/cash incentive to have all your services in the one place, JUST free texts/minutes on mobile (hope I am correct in saying this?)

* Broadband seems to be VERY expensive compared to the UK if you want unlimited/fast downloads

* Opus appear to be a nightmare if you want to leave them!

Any comments/reconmmendations?

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

TELSTRA :curse: :curse: :curse: A bunch of muppets!

Would be keen to see any other recommendations.

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

It might be worth your while to visit the Whirlpool Forum.
http://whirlpool.net.au/


This is the link to Whirlpool's 2006 Australian Broadband Survey:-
http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/1711

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

Seconded... The best place by far to find out about this stuff...

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

And it seems that iinet and internode often come out on top. I use internode and they are very reliable, in fact never had one problem.

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

And I use iiNet who are equally reliable... :)

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

seconded Rodders.

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

I went with AAPT for a month for land line and realised that their prices for calls were too high. Now I have put the landline back to telstra and have invested in a VOIP modem (voice over internet) for my outgoing calls. You plug your phone in the back of it. Works well if you have a cordless phone, less well I suppose if you have various phones plugged in all over the place. Calls are very cheap, there are different providers and if you don't mind playing about with the controls you can even specify a different provider for local calls, mobile calls and international calls. I am finding World Dial Point decent and cheap at 2.2c per minute to the UK and 8.9c for local calls, 9.9c for national calls. These prices are for calls to ordinary land lines.
Internode, the service provider also provide their own service which costs slightly more and another is PennyTel. Another interesting possibility which VOIP opens up is having a UK local number which people can use to call you from the UK. This means they only pay the price of a local call - just remind them to remember the time difference. I have not done this yet but these guys seem to offer a UK local phone number for free. If anyone tries it please let me know how you get on. More info on the Whirlpool site.

This does require a bit of an investment in setting up, but it seems worth it to me. Our landline rental is $26 a month with Telstra and for the Internet with Internode I pay $80/month for 20mb ADSL2+ with a 40gb download cap

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

Hi, I use that Sipgate service and I have a UK number here in Australia. Great for rellies, friends etc because they can call me at the same cost that they would pay to call me when I lived in the UK.
For outgoing calls howabout trying Engin (www.engin.com.au) they offer cheap calls (free local and national) for a fixed monthly cost. I've spoken to people who's bills were $200 a month and now are down to $40 or so.

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

I usually get a phone card from the newsagents for my calls home to those that don't use skype. Costs $10 which gives me 1000 minutes to call home and to use within 3 months, pretty cheap if you ask me.

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

What they said, but for everyone, dont use Bogpond as a ISP. They talk in megs for downloads rather than gigs.

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

I now have sipgate working and we have a phone dedicated to receiving calls from the UK on our local UK number - people struggle to get their heads round how it works but its great as many people now are on the bundles where you pay a fixed fee per month for all your calls to UK landlines.
Pennytel (link above) have an untimed call monthly plan option which is A$5 per month. With this the price of calls to the UK and 19 other countries is fixed at 8c per call regardless of length plus you get 50 calls to UK, US, Canada and France free. That's a pretty good offer!
I have not yet signed up for this as it only costs 1.3c per minute to call a normal UK landline with them anyway, which is rather cheap!

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

Kevin,

the link you gave for "Engin" isn't working :(. I tried "engine" but that's not it either.

Could you check it please and re-post the link? Thanks.

Gina

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

http://www.engin.com.au/public/index.asp

Re: Comparing Service Providers!
 

works for me!

Word of warning though - do not buy an engin series 3 box. They are based on a Netgear DG834 router and we have found them to be total crap. We are resellers for Engin and I will not sell these boxes. However the Series 1 and 2 work great. Haven't tried the others.