Freakin OPTUS!

[BUSGO]

I have been a faithful Optus user for quite a while now. With about 2 years of dial up Internet and 1 year of Broadband + home phone plan.

All was going sweet until about 1 month ago.
I got a letter stating that Optus will be starting a new home phone plan with benefits for all customers..


Here is the sweet bit.

Our home phone bill has gone from an average of $50 per month, including line rental all calls and 16c local calls. - To a new plan with an additional cost of $50 per month.

We get exactly the same service as before, except that now we get all our local calls for free.

Yes, that's right we only pay an extra $50 per month and we save an average of $2 per month in local calls.

Isn't that just great. I can't stop telling everyone about this.

[GlenTC]

Yep, wife bought this too my attention a couple of days ago. She went off to find a better deal and come up with telstra. Go figure?

[Tag 13]

Yep, wife bought this too my attention a couple of days ago. She went off to find a better deal and come up with telstra. Go figure?

hahahah they are all as bad as each other. i am ditching my home phone all together when we move next...

[Mutha]

I WANT A BETTER DEAL TELSTRA

[jessie928]

I WANT A BETTER DEAL TELSTRA

yeah scrap the home phone
i havent had one in ages!

[Macbusa]

i'm with optus... they are shit.. telstra was good when i had them for about 4yrs

[Madmax]

One's as bad as the other.

I had Telstra ring me with a great offer to bundle shit. Then the operator asked me for my identifyer (pin). Brought to him the stupidity of him ringing me and wanting me to identify my account - "f*** off stupid" seemed a little gentle at the time, but it worked!




Max

[Louwai]

Do any of you guys use Internet Phone.

If you have Broadband you can do it. (minimum 512 speed) If you have cable BB then you don't need a ph line. If you have ADSL BB then you need at least 1 standard ph line, but you can choose the cheapest line rental, with high call cost because you don't make any outgoing calls..

Here's what I have.
1 x std ph line (Telstr $25 / mth)
1 x ADSL Broad Band acc (TPG $80 / mth) I have extras for the business & so the higher cost.
1 x Engin Internet Ph account ($19/mth) which inlcudes
1 x Local ph number in Bris (so the family can ring at local call cost)
1 x Local Melbourne ph number.
1 x Telstra Local Melbourne number

The Brisbane number is atomatically re-directed to my Melb home at no charge to me or the caller.

Outgoing CALL CHARGES
ALL national (Australia) calls are UNTIMED and FREE
ALL international calls are UNTIMED and AU$0.20 / call
ALL calls to mobiles are AU$0.20 / minute

When you set up the I-phone you receive a "voice Box". This is connected direct to your BB modem. You also connect your standard home ph (single or multi system).
When a call comes in on any of the ph numbers the house ph rings as usual.
When an outgoing call is made the voice-box automatically sends the call out over the internet. If the power to the voice-box is cut, or the internet is down the outgoing call will be sent via the standard ph line. (with std charges from carrier)

I have the import business so I'm in the ph to other countries a lot.
Last mth my total INTERNATIONAL call time was 37hrs on the ph. The ph bill (Telstra line + Engin) was $65.00

[BUSGO]

My Optus situation turns out to be NOT QUITE AS BAD as I thought at first.

It appears that they still deducted the Telstra line rental on this bill but will refund it on the next bill. However the line rental has gone from $35 a month to $55 per month with the only benefit being the free local calls, that we don't use.

I told the customer services team that I will continue to look elsewhere.

P.S. Optus have been advertising a new deal nationaly that includes 1.5 gig broadband access and full home phone usage for $69 per month. The catch is that this deal is not available to current Optus customers and you have to have cable access to your residence.

Considering that cable is only available in a minute section of the country, all this deal offers is false hope.... for non Optus users...

[ROD]

I think every one needs to get msn mesenger on the computer then pick up a cheap head set from $10 then no phone calls again

[GlenTC]

I get quite a few emails about skype from the lads. I don't really understand the trickery. So, I plug a handset into the laptop, is that right?

[Louwai]

I get quite a few emails about skype from the lads. I don't really understand the trickery. So, I plug a handset into the laptop, is that right?

If you've got a fairly new laptop it should have a mic & speakers built in, so all you need to do is talk to it. (when connected to SKYPE)

[GlenTC]

Yeah, I tried that. It was roughly equivalent to talking into a soup tin at the end of 50 feet of string. I take a lot of details and getting them wrong isn't a option. I want to be able to go to Jindy without body armour. I should think the D smith has some sort of hardware that makes it better. I might look into this, or I might ignore it (like I have the past decade).