Courtney

I am going to have to get the internet when I arrive on the Gold Coast in four weeks. I spoke to Optus and they can give me a mobile, internet and home phone for $98 a month. However, the internet is by how many MB you use and I just don't get it. As we all know here in the UK we pay monthly for unlimited surfing but I just don't know what they mean in Oz.

Basically I want to download photos (which I don't think has anything to do with MB if it fits on your hard drive??) and download music and listen to the UK radio sometimes.

Has anyone got any advice for me or can explain to me in English??

Thank you guys, I hope I can make head way with this

Courtney

DunRoaminTheUK

Hi.

What you need to look for/ask for is a plan with inclusive MB's/GB's as part of the monthly cost. Beyond this limit it is normal even in the UK to be charged on a unit based usage (it's GB in the UK now, for the most part).

There are other people on here who are also living in QLD and I know for a fact are using plans with inclusive usage limits (ADSL2 seems to be up to 40GB or so).

Maybe shop around before you settle on your provider?

Hutch

If you want that sort of package - go with AAPT instead - they'll offer you a far better home phone/mobile/internet deal. Optus are like BT - a big ugly monopoly with very bad customer service and poor Internet offerings.

Courtney

Thanks for that, I thought Optus sounded really good with their package but I will definately look into AAPT.

Cheers

DagBoy

Amazing how things change when you are away for a while. When I left the UK I lived in a village with no broadband options so was stuck with dial up. Had to pay a monthly fee for the account and then on top of that pay the bastards at BT by the minute for the phone call. I got out here and loved the fact that the phone call had a fixed price, however long you were online. Loved even more the fact that broadband was widely available. It is all down to perception.

As for limited download contracts here - watch for two things.

1. If you go for a limited plan (e.g. 3GB a month) make sure that it is one of the plans that does not charge you when you go over the limit, but simply throttles you down to dial up speeds. That way you may end up surfing slowly, but there will be no nasty surprises on your bill.

2. If you will be in rented accommodation, make sure you are clear on what it will cost you to either break the contract or get a "move and follow" if you move house. Some of the "better" sounding plans will tie you in for 12 or 18 months and if you break the contract you have to pay out the unused months, or they charge you $100 or so to move your connection to your new address.


Sorry to disappoint you, but everything you do online uses bandwidth. Just by reading this post, you are having to download content to your browser. and that cheeky smilie cost you 1.03 kB. If you are downloading pictures - then look at the size of the file when it is on your hard disk - that is what was used to download it. Same for music files. As for listening to streaming content (TV or radio) then you will use even more.

There are free programs you can get that will monitor your usage (do a google search) or your ISP may have a usage meter on their site - I suggest you do that and see how much you are currently downloading.

Cheers,

DagBoy
(that's another 49 kB)

Hutch

48.8Kb, you big rounder-upper you.

Ialibu

Go to this site http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/bc-list.cfm?loc=3 and see what is available.

Yes, all Australians sites monitor and cap download capacities, that's what they base their plans on. It is confusing because of the plethora of plans etc.

I suppose the only relevant advice to give is to steer clear of the large Telcos because they don't really offer the best deals. More pointedly steer clear of Telstra because their plans are "not the best". They charge large amounts for very small volumes of data transmitted and they do count uploads as well as downloads. And Internet transmissions upload around 20% of the capacity that they download. This because of the protocols used in data transmission.

I find it better to stick with the second tier operators, iiNet, Internode etc. If you go here http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/bc-list.cfm?loc=3 and look in the column headed Discussions, it lists that major players.

If you want to continue to listen to UK radio, check out this thread http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=362163

That's enough info for now, I am off to the markets to buy some fresh victuals.

Enjoy the planning, preparations and frustrations, its all part of life and gives you something to crap on about when you finally get here and start swapping "waries" (pronounced "war is", telling exaggerated fibs about your experiences) about how hard it was to get here.

Wol

It's quite importany to work out realistically how many Mb you will be using - it gets expensive if you end up paying for excess usage.

I've just had to change to Internode, with a 500MB limit before the speed is dropped to a fast dial-up: that's fine for me but some people seem to use GB - perhaps they watch TV on the internet! (Internet radio is free of download limits on my plan anyway). I pay $29.95 a month.

Paul&Nic

Yeah watch out for 'capping' as I got stung with a contract with Bigpond for a service advertised as unlimited downloading, but their idea of unlimited is slightly different to mine.

Mine is you can use unlimited forever, ie - unlimited ..... no limit!

Theirs is unlimited UNTIL you hit a certain amount, then it's NOT unlimited anymore ...

Depending on which plan you go for, when you hit your unlimited amount (still gets me this one ...lol) your either slowed down to a speed that really isn't worth bothering with, or you pay 15 cents per MB you go over your unlimited amount!

Handy!

So now this has happened:



I HAVE to either go easy, or pay extra soon for my good old unlimited service! ...

Come back NTL, all is forgiven!

Wol

How on earth do you get to use that amount of data? What am I missing out on? The only reason I even approached 500Mb last month was I spent an evening on Google Earth!

Jonahs_mummy

yeap we have just got a package with aapt for the phone and t'internet ..... just phone them up when you get here and tell them what you will be needing the phone and net for and the salespeople are very helpful
steve

Paul&Nic

Oh this and that. There IS 4 pc's in the house which can all be goin at once in the eve. I'm sure my kids are downloading allsorts as last night we combined 5GB alone!

Or was that me! ...

thebears

Yes we found out but are locked into a 12 month contract.

We will be in a better position to look around in 11 months time. When your desperate to get back on line they snap you up.

Wol

I see! We (only) have one PC - and Mrs Wol won't go anywhere near it in case it bites....

Teliko21

prevents fights over bandwidth at least