Bloody Telstra MobileNet

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Originally Posted by p38arover

Tesltra are phasing out the mobile plan I'm on to offer new "enhanced customer care".

So I'll lose my $5.50 per month with $5.50 included calls, zero connection fee, and less than 15 cents per minute to go to $10 per month, NO included calls, 27 cent connection fee and 50 cents per 30 secs or part thereof (oh, and my SMS will costs will rise by 7 cents per message). I presently pay less than if I was on $350/month plan!

Last months's bill which was $14.28 will rise to $83.40

Yes, I can see I'm being looked after with their enhanced customer care. To make it worse, I'm currently on a casual plan and to get "cheap" rats on the new plans, I'd need to go into a contraact for a 12 or 24 months.

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The plan you're describing is very similar to the Plan I'm on at the moment with Telstra on the Staff MRO plan 24 month contract , a Min $10.00 Network Connection fee to Telstra Next-G network ,but I think it's Capped at $39.95 for a 24 month contract, you do get $29.95 worth of very expensive calls to quickly reach that capped limit, however the beauty of that plan is , when I was on the $5.50 plan I used to spend over $50.00 a month when connected to Telstra Mobilenet GSM Network , yes True calls were cheaper ( as you said ) but now I'm only spending $39.95/month and making over $2200.00 worth of calls ,yes there is 50 cents connection fee( flag Fall )and 30c a sec blocks etc , but even then I never reach the $250.00 but I know where you're coming from with respect to "Enhanced Customer care", Telstra forcing it's customer on to plans which are not suitable for everyone's usage.

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Originally Posted by jik22

That did sound like a very good plan though (for the customer), so I'm not surprised they want rid of it. :(

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It was. Whenever I went to a Telstra shop to look at migrating to Next G, they said stuff along the lines of "Wow - where did you get a plan like that?"

For example, last month, my 4 mins 15 sec phone calls cost me $1.12 each. Under the proposed plan, they will cost $4.77 each.

My quickies of under 30 secs cost me between 10 and 30 cents,. Now they will cost 77 cents.

I'm not a good customer. I spend very little on calls. The past couple of month have been exceptional owing to the increased traffic after the death of our son and also to trip away to Cooma. But next month I'll be back to low costs again. I don't want to carry two phones with different carriers.

Mobile phone charges in Australia are extortionate.

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Originally Posted by p38arover

But next month I'll be back to low costs again. I don't want to carry two phones with different carriers.

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If you really make hardly any calls, look at the pre-pay tariffs on the 12 month expiry option. Tesltra and Voda both do them (3 probably do, but I find their coverage appalling outside metro areas) and while Voda is probaly cheaper for calls and definitley cheaper for texts, it's country coverage isn't as good as NextG, and it's 3G data isn't as fast.

On months where you know yo'll have high usage, you can always "upgrade" to the $29 cap for that month alone if it makes sense.

Telstra
When it came time to change over the CDMA i was on, I wrote a letter of complaint to Melbourne / Then faxed them twice / went to the Telstra shop 3 times

Won't repeat the 2 page essay i was on about to them

Basic responce from them was zip / zero
I have canned them totally and am now on the 3 network, including their mobile broadband (love the mobile broadband)

They do as they please and treat you as a satistic

Bugga CDMA, 3G or NextG - I want my analog phone with 3W in-car kit and 30Km range outside built up areas.

My GSM/3G phone is connected to Vodafone and you may as well leave it at home if you go travelling. Although they claim 95.79% of the NSW population it doesn't even cover you on the Barrier Highway to Broken Hill 5 clicks out of Dubbo and it's no carrier.