[plug] Consolidated supply

[Kirk Turner]

2009/11/6 Tim <weirdit at gmail.com>:
> 2009/11/6 Brad Campbell <brad at wasp.net.au>:
>> Gavin Chester wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thu, 2009-11-05 at 20:35 +0800, Tim wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Just a heads up that seems to have been missed. A few years back
>>>> telstra introduced a new thing about their lowest plan (approx $21 a
>>>> month) which prevents you getting broadband with anyone other than
>>>> telstra. To have broadband with someone other than telstra, and a
>>>> telstra land line, you need to be on the roughly $28 a month plan.
>>>
>>> You must have missed my previous post in this thread ...
>> http://www.telstra.com.au/homephone/plans/homeline_budget.html
>> Check out footnote term 1.

Interesting - when I signed up for the plan they asked me if I wanted
broadband and I said no I'm getting it with another provider (amnet).
Additionally you have to verbally agree to the conditions - and that
was definitely not one that I agreed to. However I'm pretty sure they
changed that plan about 3 months ago (and increased it by a dollar) -
that might be when they added the new conditions.

> This brings up another interesting point. How many people are aware of
> optus' sneaky practices? Apparently, they take complete control of
> your line, to the extent that when you wish to change your landline
> provider, you sacrifice your phone number? I believe it's to do with
> going on ULL, which is required for their really cheap land line
> package ($19/month). Once they have your number ported off the telstra
> system to their system, there is no going back. And they usually do it
> with door to door sales people who insist your internet will be fine.
> My Granny was without internet for a few months while my dad argued
> with Optus about it, and they a few weeks later, they tried it on
> another relative of ours!

Primus did the same thing to me, as do a lot of the telcos - it's been
happening for about 5 years now and i wouldn't have know about it (and
the magical word ULL you need to mention when you talk to Telstra)
except for a colleague had the same issue where basically his whole
exchange was owned by Primus. However Telstra welcomed me back with
open arms (they paid the transfer fee) and it was all good to go.
However I took the opportunity to change my number to a silent number
at the time... but I wouldn't have though the number was bound to any
one carrier even if it was 'their' copper running up to your house.

Kirk