Hi,

I have recently had a bill from Telstra [landline] and it is really expensive.
All my calls are to mobile [oz] or landlines within oz. I have a SayG'Day card for international calls.
Does anyone use any cheaper companies other than Telstra. This month bill was $200 !!!!
I use westnet for my internet, who seem ok.
Any help much appreciated.

The Bread Knife
Noosa
Qld

We are with optus for home phone. Our recent bill for the previous 3 months was $135. Of this - $87 was for line rental. We use phone cards to call the uk so are just charged for the local call here.

Thanks for that!!

The Bread Knife

If you have a microphone & speakers on your pc then try www.skype.com you can even set up the account on there to call International Land lines & Mobiles.

Though with Skype you do still need the line rental from a phone company - but cuts down on the call charges.

Yes we are getting that, it looks great.
My problem is expensive standard and local calls [within australia] using Telstra.

The Bread Knife

Dont use Skype, as it costs to call a landline. We use voipcheap.co.uk to call any UK/US or Australia land line for free. Good service

http://www.voipcheap.co.uk/en/index.html

Or you could do what we do and set up MSN messenger, Get your freinds to do the same, add webcam and headphone and mic and voila! Just the cost to the internet, you really need broadband for the camera to work ok but voice is fine on a dialup.

My Telstra phone bills are damn expensive too

calling mobiles is an expensive thing no matter what you do in australia, mainly due to the termination fees. i find it's cheaper to use my mobile than a fixed line to call another mobile.

STD calls also work out cheaper from my mobile, unless i'm talking for a long time (like 20+ minutes) when the telstra caps come in.

aapt seem good if you call a lot, though my call costs are usually less than $3 on my landline so not much worth it for me.

as for international... can't fault the calling cards which are usually cheaper than voip.

As well as line rentals Telstra charge 25c to connect every call then charge by duration on top. That is like paying 3 times for every call. Big Pond is costing us a fortune too but at least by having both we get 50 free local calls per month.

Cool!!!! I just downloaded that and it's great!!! Free calls!!!!

Thanks for the link

Rudi

I put a similar question on a couple of months back and got a few useful pointers. See here:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=334075

This site says you need a sound card and headset. Does anyone know if a sound card with a webcam and speakers will work in place of a headset?

www.aapt.com.au we got a $59 cap which allows us cheap call all round oz and when we ring uk its only about $1.20 per 2mins for the first half hour, then you hang up and ring again and it starts again...we think its excellent, our friends recommended it and they have cheap bills now, whereas with telstra theirs was expensive.

hope this helps

Trish