[plug] consolidated supply

[Kirk Turner]

I'd second Tim's suggestion. That is basically what i was planning to
have had the telephone gods (aka Telstra) not decide to expand the
exchange I'm on using rims instead of building a new exchange (I hate
to think how overloaded the Canning Vale exchange is... there is a lot
of new development around here) - except our mobiles are with 3 to
give us the free phone calls to each other.

For naked DSL when I (re)did the comparison in April this year iinet
came out as a better deal over Amnet - the quality of service (not
necessarily support!!) on Amnet is better from my experience so I
would have preferred to stay with them but I was going to switch to
iinet because Amnet's naked dsl is no cheaper than their ADSL2+ plans
and the budget line rental from Telstra (now about $21). Plus iinet's
calling rates on naked dsl are better (although I rarely use the
land-line so that wasn't really a factor).

The other advantage of iinet is that it is a telco as well - i.e. they
have been offering telephone services for a while - hence when I
originally looked at this iinet could take your old number over to the
naked dsl service, whereas Amnet could not (this might have changed
now - this was back when naked DSL was first being offered).

That said - if you wanted to go down to 1 bill for all your
telephony/internet needs - i think you're pretty much limited to Optus
or Telstra... both of which I haven't seen to be price competitive
(even with the all-in-one discounts).

Now ... if they would just offer ADSL2+ to rim connections I would be
a happy and better off - paying $50 a month instead of $95 for a
slower Internet connection with way too much downloads and a land-line
I don't need.

Kirk

.2009/10/30 Tim <weirdit at gmail.com>:
> Like others, I would highly recommend naked ADSL if you are trying to
> bring your bills down. That way, you can do away with the telstra
> phone line rental, and also with the landline bill. Unfortunately,
> you'll probably still have to have mobile phones separate. As for
> iinet bob, if you already have adsl hardware that supports voip, you
> don't need bob, but if you are considering purchasing new hardware
> that includes voip, then consider bob.
>
> My internet bill, with iinet and voip included (no bob) is roughly $50
> a month, which gives us 2Gb + 2Gb, unlimited landline calls (australia
> wide) and there are a few extra calls on top of that to mobiles or
> companies with 13something numbers. (btw, I have a dialup modem device
> that needs a landline to "call home" weekly, it has no idea it's not
> on a real landline and works fine).
> On top of that $50 bill, my wife and I both have Virgin mobiles on
> prepaid, with my topups working out to about $15 a month and my wifes
> working out to about $30 a month. We get unlimited free calls and text
> between us and anyone on virgin (which includes a large portion of my
> family in perth, and a large portion of her family in qld). My wifes
> bill is higher as she is on a prepaid cap, and we use that for the
> majority of our calls to mobile numbers, as it usually works out
> cheaper and more convenient that the voip line.
>
> Quick question. Any major reason to not do direct debit? I believe
> iinet is credit card or direct debit, but do have alternative options
> if you are paying early. Don't quote me on that, as I've never used
> the early options. As for the email you got from them, I'd aggree with
> other members on the list, you managed to get someone not having a
> nice day, in general, most iinet staff are very good, to the point
> that they would give me as much information about my local exchange as
> they could (before I was even a customer) when I was trying to find
> available connection options. i.e. They gave me information that would
> have assisted me in connecting with other providers, when I wasn't
> even a customer. That was part of the reason I eventually signed up to
> them, no BS and great customer services, wanting the best for me as a
> customer and not the best thing for them, plus it was one of the
> cheapest options I could get in my area.
>
> Tim
>
>
> --
> Timothy White - Somewhere in Australia
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