Finally I'm on line in Aus!

[MathewA]

Gday all

I'm almost human. Just hooked up my bigpond account and I thought it would be good to start here.

How ya goin?

To sum up what I think of this place... The other day I'm in a shop and the lady asks why would I want to leave canada and live in Aus. If she'd asked that before I got here I wouldn't have been able to answer her very well, since I never got to Maroochyshire on the first visit. But since getting to Mooloolaba it's obviouse. So I say to her "this place is as close to paradise as you can get without dying first" This is one sweet! place.

Now if there was only something that could be done with the bloody phone and internet network here. Midge and I went to a telstra phone store the other day to get me set up. By the time we left we were both bleeding from the ears - all the details the poor bugger had tried to explain to us had completely mashed our brains to pulp, you need a degree in accounting to understand it all.

[ozwinner]

Now all ya need is the operation to make you a true dinky dy oz.
Its really painless, all they do is take these two bricks, and......................

Al :eek:

[Kev Y.]

Almost human !!!

You have bigpong account, no aussie worth his sawdust would sign up with bigpong

however you will be forgiven WHEN you throw your first BBQ and invite ALL of the BB regulars

[bitingmidge]

Howdy stranger!

Nice to see you up and about at last! Now... how many sleeps was it till SHE gets here???

(Your lathe I mean, the missus isn't quite so important!)

P (oops!)

[Gumby]

- all the details the poor bugger had tried to explain to us had completely mashed our brains to pulp, you need a degree in accounting to understand it all.

That's nothing. wait 'til you get your first bill. They have a University degree in decifering them.

[ozwinner]

Try here Matt

There are much better plans than Bigpuddle, and much cheaper.

Al

[MathewA]

Howdy stranger!

Nice to see you up and about at last! Now... how many sleeps was it till SHE gets here???

(Your lathe I mean, the missus isn't quite so important!)

P (oops!)

LOL I repectfully decline to answer that on the grounds that it might incriminate me.

[bitingmidge]

Now before we get all thingy about bigpiddle, I must confess that from the perspective of one wearing a Canadian Rugby shirt and standing silently beside a bloke who sounded like he was on the run from the mounties there are more to this than meets the eye.

Didya know for instance, that the saving on the connection fee for the phone alone was an incredible $200 in this case? That the first six months of the contract are at half price, and the "installation" was free?? Of course the visiting the shop fee, the colour levy, the rebates for people who call you and all the other stuff soon adds up impossibly.

After that... well go somewhere else if you want, but I know so many in our town who have done that and come back because of lack of reliability.

Anyway, as soon as I took off the red shirt, normal service resumed.

P (Bloody migrants!)

[Rocker]

Matthew,

Many native Australians have no real idea how lucky they are to be born here. Every day they see on American TV programs Americans saying that America is better than anywhere else to live; and they believe that Australia must be missing something wonderful which is present in North America. North America has many wonderful attractions for the visitor, but in my view Australia is a better place to live. Our weather is infinitely better, and we are not afflicted with the prevalence of religious and political bigotry that is such a feature of American society. Canada is very different of course, but the weather there is even worse.

Anyway, it is good to hear that your first impressions of Australia are favourable. But then I can hardly imagine a pleasanter place to live than Maroochydore.

Midge,

It is rumoured that Elimbah will be enabled for broadband this month; but my computer guru is advising me against signing up with Telstra; he has an axe to grind probably, but he says that Telstra make you sign up to a 12-month contract, whereas other providers do not. I realize that you must be busy preparing for your trip. But I would be grateful if you could elaborate on the pros and cons of Telstra. I currently have two phone lines and Telstra provides my phone service.

Rocker

[MathewA]

Almost human !!!

You have bigpong account, no aussie worth his sawdust would sign up with bigpong

however you will be forgiven WHEN you throw your first BBQ and invite ALL of the BB regulars

I think you're on to something... Stay tuned... We'll maybe waite a bit, atleast til Pete gets back from Siberia. Then I'll plan something for anyone who wants to come up to the house for a bbq or something.

[Stuart]

Try visiting New Zealand next- if this is paradise, it is still a flat dust bowl compared to what's next door.

Ducking now!

[bitingmidge]

It is rumoured that Elimbah will be enabled for broadband this month; but my computer guru is advising me against signing up with Telstra; he has an axe to grind probably, but he says that Telstra make you sign up to a 12-month contract, whereas other providers do not. I realize that you must be busy preparing for your trip. But I would be grateful if you could elaborate on the pros and cons of Telstra. I currently have two phone lines and Telstra provides my phone service.

Check out http://www.whirlpool.net.au/ for a less biased comparison!

Here is my take (and I don't have shares in them!)
Cons:
They're big, almost a monopoly and everyone hates them.
They don't treat customers fairly with pricing. (Regularly change their plans and don't tell you that you could get more for less! :eek: )
Support for Macs is non-existent (just as well we don't need any!)
They are a LITTLE more expensive than many.

Pros:
Despite what people say, the service round here is excellent with no down time. We have used two other providers at work through the same telephone exchange as home, and both have had frequent service interruptions, blaming Telstra. Several of our friends have experienced the same and gone back to Telstra, one is just waiting for the "O" contract to expire, as she's had more downtime than up.

The 12 month contract is a con, but pays for the modem so isn't too bad. We get a 10% discount off our total bill including mobiles and phones. (This may not be enough to sway some, but just about pays for the internet some months).

There is always a current deal which gives discounts for the first six months or free modem or some other incentive to ease the pain.

I am not aware of a free install, free modem, no contract deal, but they may exist. My take is that there is very little difference in cost between providers, and it's hard to know what you need till after you've been using it for a time. I'd go Telstra, then change in a year if it's not working for you!

Installation by the way is another con; if you can plug in your computer you can install broadband.

Cheers,

P

[bitingmidge]

Try visiting New Zealand next- if this is paradise, it is still a flat dust bowl compared to what's next door.

You are perfectly correct Stuart, VISITING New Zealand can be quite pleasant.

P (Baaaaa)

[Grunt]

But I would be grateful if you could elaborate on the pros and cons of Telstra. I currently have two phone lines and Telstra provides my phone service.

I struggle to find any pros with going with Telstra. They are more expensive and make you sign up for a 12 month contract. Their service is pretty ordinary.

Telstra do provide the infrastructure that all the ISPs in Australia use. This doesn't mean you will get better service though.

I have had just about the full gammut of broadband offerings in Australia. By far the best is Optus Cable but if you can't get that then go Telstra Cable, ADSL, satellite and ISDN in that order.

With ADSL, you can use just about any ISP. I use Internode who are based in Adelaide because at the time they had the best deal. Netspace was marginally cheaper last time I looked but so much to make me change.

If you go ADSL you can probably drop one of your phone lines. You can be online (it's a permenent connection) while talking on the phone.

[MathewA]

I struggle to find any pros with going with Telstra. They are more expensive and make you sign up for a 12 month contract. Their service is pretty ordinary.

Telstra do provide the infrastructure that all the ISPs in Australia use. This doesn't mean you will get better service though.

I have had just about the full gammut of broadband offerings in Australia. By far the best is Optus Cable but if you can't get that then go Telstra Cable, ADSL, satellite and ISDN in that order.

With ADSL, you can use just about any ISP. I use Internode who are based in Adelaide because at the time they had the best deal. Netspace was marginally cheaper last time I looked but so much to make me change.

If you go ADSL you can probably drop one of your phone lines. You can be online (it's a permenent connection) while talking on the phone.

Hey! did I tell ya... Being Canadian (we have maple sirup for blood) I make pretty good pancakes.