bevissa65

Hello all, for those of you lucky buggers "over there" are the phone sockets the same? Can we use our English phones cos we've got loads of the things Thanks, Bevissa

cappuccino

Yes we have the same 'BT' type sockets, but remember the electrical plugs are different.

Matewx

Who's the best landline phone provider?

Can i get a multi deal (Phone, Internet, TV) like in the UK?

pricklykina

I am really, really happy with Orcon. I have my phone and broadband with them

zummerzet_lou

Yes - bring your UK phones with you.

We're with Telstra clear for our phone and broadband .. had a bit of a bargain as they offered us 6 months free broadband which has turned out to be 9 months (shhhh) Really can't complain about the $100 bill this month!

Lou

newkiwi

Phone and internet packages yes. Tv is seperate.

For phone and internet, look at telecom total home package or orcon.

for Tv, if you want more than the free channels, you need a satellite dish and subscription. check our sky tv in nz, its not the same a sky in the uk though....

Wellington Will

I would recommend NOT going with Telstra.

My broadband has been off for a few hours over the months and that's irritating enough.

But our phone was out for FOUR days. It took them that long to come and sort it out.

and then, they charged US $50 for the priviledge. They said there was nothing wrong with the phone.

I was furious, and the manager said, "We do things differently in New Zealand."

Not Bl**dy kidding.

Add that their telephone support system is very slow and you have to wait 20 mins to talk to anybody and I'd say they are very poor.

cappuccino

I had Telstraclear in my rental house for phone and broadband. Had a few problems with the broadband connection, or lack of, over the 12 months but the biggest problem was when I ended the contract due to moving to an area that Telstra didn't supply.

They 'forgot' to terminate me and collect the modem. Then when I sent back the equipment to the address they gave me, they claimed they never received it and tried to charge me $300. Fortunately I had the courier reference and after a couple of months they relented and agreed they had received it.

Telecom are weird too - their billing needs someone with a maths degree to understand. They also claimed they never received my direct debit form 3 times! In the end I found that they had an online form (not one of their operators advised me of this) and all went through ok in the end albeit that the dd didn't take effect straight away and I was charged a late payment fee.

TeamEmbo

We're with Telstraclear, can't remember the name of the package but some home thing with phone and broadband. Big Back yard calls (all local calls in the CCh area) are tollfree, there's a cheap rate international dialling code to save money on calls back to UK and broadband is $24.00 a month with additional gig packs at $2.95 if you go over the basic pack allowance. Our monthly phone/internet bills are between $80-$100 (incl GST). Have never had any problems with broadband service or contacting customer services, just a day or two delay in getting set up initially as previous provider to house was Telecom.

I'm quite happy with the service/cost but TBH have never really shopped around since setting this up 2 years ago to see if there's anything cheaper now elsewhere.

Oh, and yes, we brought our BT phones over and they worked just fine but there's no 1471 or 1571 service like UK - least not that I've found anyway.

Wellington Will

Blimey, that's cheap.

Our broadband and phone line is $80 per month without any included calls. I nearly fell off my chair, but I haven't looked too hard for a different package yet.

pricklykina

No there isn't 1471. Some people have caller ID instead.
My orcon is $80 for 5gb data (plenty for me) and phoneline with voicemail, callwaiting etc and local calls of course. I have capped rate calling to uk but tend to use slingshot for my international calls by dialling a code first.

Oh and skype too to reduce costs.

Mgee

Do you still have to have a landline phone in NZ? I mean, are the mobile costs so high that you'd need a fixed phone? You see, we haven't had a fixed phone for over 10 years... Of course we have the cabling left and use that for the broadband, but practically nobody I know has a landline phone anymore. The mobiles took over really quickly here in the 1990's and by early 2000's most people had given up the landline phones completely. In fact, they are already ripping down the old fixed phone network. I know we have really cheap mobile calls here, but what are the costs in NZ?

pricklykina

I'm too scared of brain fry to use my cellphone much!
The calls are getting cheaper but not that cheap as calls to cellphones are dear, which means you will be a norman no mates as people are too tight to call them.
There are deals to chosen numbers but in NZ we have free local calling as standard so a mobile deal is unlikely to surpass that...yet.
Vodafone are coming closer though
What do others think?

Am Loolah

There isn't the competition in the mobile market here due to fewer consumers - so mobile calls are on the pricey side, plus you have to purchase the handset, $200+

There's only Telecom and Vodafone.

I know some Kiwi's who won't phone mobiles because of the cost.

Persephone

Well I brought my mobile over but buying new over here is much more expensive than the UK.
Our last phone bill was almost double simply because I'd rung Mr Sue twice on his mobile when he was away for the week. So basically we only use them to text now Couldn't believe how much the calls cost-it wasn't that thrilling a conversation either so wasn't worth the $$