I can't believe the cost of telephone calls here. I've tried doing comparisons on the net and there is little difference between suppliers. We don't even use Telstra for calling the rellies, we use an international card.

Just a whinge: feel much better now!

Tony

Really, I find it really cheap.

I got my first bill last week - $8.15. That was for four weeks, and we call the UK at least four times a week for over an hour at a time.

I put $15 - $20 a month on the international phone card and $20 a month on the mobiles.

How much was yours?

have you got broadband at home?
could you look at a voip service?
just a thought

we use international calling cards too and a $10 gives us over a 1000 minutes and in my world, that is cheap. we get our local service through our broadband provider and never pay more than 18c for a call.

I've found the mobile charges to be much cheaper. My mobile bill now is about 25% of what it was in rip-off England. I'm saving the equivalent of about 30 quid a month, minimum, just on the mobile. Plus here of course there is no tv licence to pay for, the gas bill is much lower and the car insurance is much lower. Get in!

my mobile's also good.

I've got optus prepaid... buy a $30 recharge, get $120 credit!!!! with that I don't have to worry about getting pi**ed and phoning all my mates back in the UK!!! couldn't understand how I ran out of credit yesterday when I only bought a recharge the other week.... then remembered I'd been out on friday night! oops!!!!!! hehehehe

Does that include your line rental?

We get charged $19 a month by telstra for their basic line rental - we use a phone card to phone the UK so the line rental and dial up internet are really the only costs to us.

afaik anyone with a landline will be paying the standard telstra line rental of $19, to whoever their phone provider is

Is your internet connection dropping out and it's having to reconnect, or do you keep connecting / disconnecting for any reason? At 30c a call it soon adds up.

No, it usually stays connected so its just 30c for each internet session - tbh we don't use the internet at home much - that's what work is for

So our phone bill is usually just the line rental and a few local calls. Comes to about $30 a month.

No, they haven't charged me any

How did you manage that?

I have no idea.

Didn't have to pay a connection fee either
I bet they'll put it all on my next bill though.

My phone bills average $150 a month that includes ISDN [2 lines] I recieve all my work via a fax and invoice the same way so Sky mesh or similar is just not viable yet. My internet access is limited to 500megs a month and is included in the $150.
Mobile bills are approx $100 for 2 CDMA phones on a business tariff.

My line rental is $26.95 to Telstra inc GST - what am I doing wrong?

Monthly bills between about $50 and $120 - and we have broadband (not Telstra) and use internal and international cards too!