Thread: Internet options

If you have had the luxury of cable, you are not prepared for the situation you will face away from cable. Before you can consider plans, you need to find out what infrastructure you have. This is neither simple nor easy!

With luck, you can get ADSL2+, but there is no mechanism to tell you in advance whether it is actually available (in some cases you can find out it is definitely not!).

Failing this you are likely to have either wireless (expensive and a a bit shaky in most cases) or satellite (slow, expensive and high latency, but NBN interim service is now taking orders for almost immediate installation).

It is probably a good idea spending a bit of time browsing http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/. Other things apart they have lists of plans, but also look at the problems others have had.

John

Go to this website
http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/
and type in your new phone number
or a phone number of someone / business etc near where you are moving

plus how much you want to pay etc etc and it will give you a list of choices.

Originally Posted by goingbush

Go to this website
http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/
and type in your new phone number
or a phone number of someone / business etc near where you are moving

plus how much you want to pay etc etc and it will give you a list of choices.

Not very accurate though,

Tried it for my place, as far as it's concerned I can get Optus Cable. bzzzzt wrong answer Tony



Martyn

Ok, at the risk of getting shot down in flames, I would go with Telstra...

I have cable, 50gb per month.

It is very rare that I have any sort of issues, and on the times that I have, it has been fixed quickly.

Why you are at it, I would never recommend VOiP for a home phone. Why? If the power goes off, you have no phone. Yes, I know you have a mobile (probably), but if the service is dodgy, battery is flat, you left it in the car, drop it in a mad scramble....

I know personally of some people that had a fire in their range hood. As expected, the electrical safety switch tripped, so no phone. She dropped her mobile ejecting the battery... finally called the firey's on his mobile.

I will, for as long as possible, have a fixed land-line phone - not just a cordless.

I agree with Basil.

Telstra always with me, as it just simply always works and when there is a problem they are quick to fix it.

I just got ADSL connected last week and needed a line connected as well for the ADSL to work from. 50GB a month plus line rental is $72.00 per month. Call Bigpond connections direct, for a better deal, dont go to a Telstra shop.

To cut a long story short, went to connect Modem on Xmas Eve, found out I had no dial tone on newly installed line (connected at exchange) rang Telstra faults at 9.00 pm. Line was tested faulty, with a request for Tech to come have a look. With the Xmas break, line was repaired Thur 29th as guaranteed.

I looked on the Net and could have got cheaper deals, but I doubt if I would have had the connection problem fixed so quick and easy, particularly this time of year.

Greg

Originally Posted by Basil135

Ok, at the risk of getting shot down in flames, I would go with Telstra...

I have cable, 50gb per month.

It is very rare that I have any sort of issues, and on the times that I have, it has been fixed quickly.

Why you are at it, I would never recommend VOiP for a home phone. Why? If the power goes off, you have no phone. Yes, I know you have a mobile (probably), but if the service is dodgy, battery is flat, you left it in the car, drop it in a mad scramble....

I know personally of some people that had a fire in their range hood. As expected, the electrical safety switch tripped, so no phone. She dropped her mobile ejecting the battery... finally called the firey's on his mobile.

I will, for as long as possible, have a fixed land-line phone - not just a cordless.

I too use Telstra, it works well most of the time and is usually fixed quickly when it goes down. I manage easily with 5GB a month, as I don't do movies.

As for power drop outs, I strongly suggest a decent size UPS on the computer, modem, phone base station etc, make sure you can get at least 1 hour economical usage out of it. And a small inverter you can charge small accessories off in the car.

Check out the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman website. The keep statistics on how many claims are made against each ISP to them and how far the claim is carried.

A while back if you wanted good service from an Australian call centre you'd use Internode. I'm currently with TFG Servers who are small enough that I know the names of the people who work there.

Had Optus Cable for a few years now. Nothing to cheer about but works well and no problems with drop outs or after sales. $79 per month, includes home phone 120GB download.

(Also, recently learned if you ring the call centre, just keep pressing # and you get Tim from Sydney rather than Kevin from Mumbai)