leaving Telstra for another Co

[mic-d]

I'm about to transfer internet, home phone and two mobiles from Telstra to TPG and save about 50% on monthly bills. Internet allowance, talk/text/data on mobiles all much better than Telstra offerings. Optus network coverage seems a bit worse than telstra but since we live in Brissie that seems to be immaterial. Anybody got anything else to think about before we jump ship?

cheers
Michael

[petersemple]

The only thing I can suggest is that we have sometimes managed to call up the company we are with and tell them the deal we are looking at taking, and they will usually manage to equal or better that deal in order to stop us jumping ship. That way you don't need to worry about changing payment options and email addresses. If they can't match the offer, then you can always still change as planned. Good luck.

Peter

[rsser]

Wot Peter said.

When 3 pulled the plug on CDMA I still had one of their mobiles under contract and went in to a 3 shop to see what to do. They offered me a std 3G package, inc a monthly payment of $10 over 2 years for a new phone. I told them what I thought about their breach of contract and they instantly dropped the monthly phone charge. Sometimes called a loyalty bonus in the industry ;-} So I got a swish new phone for nix and a $29 monthly cap.

Good news at that time. Since that phone has developed probs roaming on the Telstra network in the country, the contract is up in a couple of months, and so the prob arises again.

So I'll be using that magic phrase when dropping into a Telstra shop soon as I already have a cheap blue tick Telstra prepaid mobile for country trips.

Otherwise, I rent my landline from my ISP. No cheaper than Telstra but there's some bonuses for long-distance and international calls.

[watson]

And its your Nana here Michael...if you change providers....don't forget to change your email addy in your User CP.

[Ozkaban]

I'm with TPG. I can always tell people if they're paying too much for internet - just ask 'Are you with Telstra???'

TPG are pretty light on customer service, but I've found them to be pretty good. I've been with them for a couple of years now.

For what it's worth, I use TPG for internet (the $50 plan with about 70GB peak/60 off peak data), Telstra for line rental, MyNetFone (Voip) for home calls and 3 for mobiles (don't get me started on this one... )

One thing to be aware of with TPG is some of their fine print is a little dodgy. Not sure about their mobiles, but they once were offering '500 minutes of free voip' with their internet. It was counted in 10 minute chunks, so 50 x 10 second calls was enough to empty the allowance, hence my decision to go with another Voip provoider. I'm not saying their all dodgy, just that it pays to be sure of what the allowances they give you actually mean - ie, read the fine print carefully!

Cheers,
Dave

[Woodwould]

I had a contract with TPG quite some years ago which lasted all of one day. They introduced three clauses after the fact (once my complaint alerted them to a problem - they advertised a web hosting package with FrontPage Extensions which it turned out they didn't) and refused to honour their side of the original contract.

With unexplainable forseight, I took a screen dump of the original contract and sat on it. I contacted the Telecom Industry Ombudsman who initially told me TPG didn't have a case to answer as TPG's contracted said nothing about supporting FrontPage Extensions and I was wasting everybody's time. I then forwarded the screen dump to the TIO who went to town with TPG. Months later TPG were still beating around the bush and the TIO made a judgement in my favour and in his letter to both parties, stated he'd not previously encountered such underhand, devious and behavious on the part of a telco. After I was reimbursed and compensated (TPG had refused to relinquish my domain name), I received a really lovely call from the account manager hoping I was now satisfied and they were going to blacklist me. Back to the TIO and on and on it went.

[mic-d]

I'm with TPG. I can always tell people if they're paying too much for internet - just ask 'Are you with Telstra???'

TPG are pretty light on customer service, but I've found them to be pretty good. I've been with them for a couple of years now.

For what it's worth, I use TPG for internet (the $50 plan with about 70GB peak/60 off peak data), Telstra for line rental, MyNetFone (Voip) for home calls and 3 for mobiles (don't get me started on this one... )

One thing to be aware of with TPG is some of their fine print is a little dodgy. Not sure about their mobiles, but they once were offering '500 minutes of free voip' with their internet. It was counted in 10 minute chunks, so 50 x 10 second calls was enough to empty the allowance, hence my decision to go with another Voip provoider. I'm not saying their all dodgy, just that it pays to be sure of what the allowances they give you actually mean - ie, read the fine print carefully!

Cheers,
Dave

Thanks Fellas. tried to talk with Telstra but they are having a national computer outage and can't help today.
Dave why do you have line rental through telstra? I thought TPG told me it wwould cost just $1/month through them.
I checked through phonechoice.com.au for the best mobile deal for my useage and it came up with the TPG $19.99 cap plan. When I called and asked them about it I discovered I could bundle both our mobiles in with the $50 130GB broadband plan at a reduced rate of $14.99 for each mobile ($300 text/talk/data - way more than we get now). Then on top of that they say line rental is $1 and minimum cost for home phone is $10, for a total of $91/month.
It currently costs me $110 minimum just for broadband (12GB) and my mobile. Then the home phone and swmbo's mobile (with a ridiculous $10 included calls)on top of that is usually a further $80 -$100.
I must clarify the charges for the home phone side of things
cheers
Michael

[mic-d]

I had a contract with TPG quite some years ago which lasted all of one day. They introduced three clauses after the fact (once my complaint alerted them to a problem - they advertised a web hosting package with FrontPage Extensions which it turned out they didn't) and refused to honour their side of the original contract.

With unexplainable forseight, I took a screen dump of the original contract and sat on it. I contacted the Telecom Industry Ombudsman who initially told me TPG didn't have a case to answer as TPG's contracted said nothing about supporting FrontPage Extensions and I was wasting everybody's time. I then forwarded the screen dump to the TIO who went to town with TPG. Months later TPG were still beating around the bush and the TIO made a judgement in my favour and in his letter to both parties, stated he'd not previously encountered such underhand, devious and behavious on the part of a telco. After I was reimbursed and compensated (TPG had refused to relinquish my domain name), I received a really lovely call from the account manager hoping I was now satisfied and they were going to blacklist me. Back to the TIO and on and on it went.

thanks, I'm warned. And I won't mention your name if we go with them
cheers
Michael

[rsser]

And its your Nana here Michael...if you change providers....don't forget to change your email addy in your User CP.

LOL .... go Grandma!

FWIW, my ADSL1 and line rental are with Westnet. Excellent service and tech support IME and acc to vox pop. Not the cheapest but they've helped me out of pickles as the domestic network admin of 3 machines when the prob wasn't even really theirs.

They also offer a mobile service IIRC but it roams with Optus. Mates with Optus mobiles call it floptus cos of poor coverage, but Optus has an aggressive tower-building program and are worth watching.

Telstra .... crikey .... account admin is so bad it beggars belief, but I have to have one of their mobiles to get the best reception in the country for emergency purposes. First 6 months there were so many errors in debiting of voice calls and phone-as-modem calls using a Browsepak. In the end, the young women in the Philipines call centre would just restore the last phone and Browsepak credits and I'd start over again. Wasn't mission-critical but it easily could have been.

[Ozkaban]

Thanks Fellas. tried to talk with Telstra but they are having a national computer outage and can't help today.
Dave why do you have line rental through telstra? I thought TPG told me it wwould cost just $1/month through them.
I checked through phonechoice.com.au for the best mobile deal for my useage and it came up with the TPG $19.99 cap plan. When I called and asked them about it I discovered I could bundle both our mobiles in with the $50 130GB broadband plan at a reduced rate of $14.99 for each mobile ($300 text/talk/data - way more than we get now). Then on top of that they say line rental is $1 and minimum cost for home phone is $10, for a total of $91/month.
It currently costs me $110 minimum just for broadband (12GB) and my mobile. Then the home phone and swmbo's mobile (with a ridiculous $10 included calls)on top of that is usually a further $80 -$100.
I must clarify the charges for the home phone side of things
cheers
Michael

I've not had anything to do with TPG mobile, so can't comment. Line rental is a dubious beast sometimes. I pay $22 per month for having the phone, and NakedDSL gets rid of this, but plans are $10 more expensive.

Interesting about TPG's bundle. I will check it out (hadn't heard of it before). Having spend more than a decade working in enterprise IT and watching big ticket items break, I usually like to keep a 'guarantee' up my sleeve. In this case, I have a corded phone plugged into a Telstra socket at home - much more reliable than mobiles or voip.

EDIT: Just noticed that the home bundle isn't available to existing TPG customers. Bummer.

Cheers,
Dave

[Ozkaban]

And its your Nana here Michael...if you change providers....don't forget to change your email addy in your User CP.

Easy solution - I NEVER use the email address from my ISP. Too hard to change!

I pay $10 a year for a domain name through Google Apps (Google Apps), and get 200 defined email accounts and unlimited aliases included. Hey Presto - easy to manage web mail that can be accessed from any computer, almost no maintenance (beyond creating new accounts), and the ability to track the source of spam very easily by using aliases. Would never go back

Cheers,
Dave

[mic-d]

EDIT: Just noticed that the home bundle isn't available to existing TPG customers. Bummer.

Cheers,
Dave

Yep, just noted that too, but we are OK. So I'm a bit confused now. Will telstra keep charging us for their handset (which wwe don't use anyway)? ATM we have cable and phone. If we go to adsl2+ do we still use the phone as normal or do we use the confuser?
cheers
Michael

[rsser]

Yeah, I have 2 email aliases or proxies or whatever you call em ...

One son registered the family name + net.au, the other + net, so I have email addresses with both.

Also have my own domain name which costs SFA, and it points to server space on one son's account somewhere.

Two boys in the business in one way or another. Boy (sic), I'm not short of advice when needed!!

[Ozkaban]

Yep, just noted that too, but we are OK. So I'm a bit confused now. Will telstra keep charging us for their handset (which wwe don't use anyway)? ATM we have cable and phone. If we go to adsl2+ do we still use the phone as normal or do we use the confuser?
cheers
Michael

If you are renting a handset from telstra, best option is to return it and buy a cheapie from dick smith or wherever.

ADSL shares the copper with the phone line (divided frequencies), so it works by installing an ADSL filter on all phones (the modem is connected straight to the line). The Filter gets rid of all of the ADSL frequency noise.

Where is gets all existential is using voip. You can call your fixed phone from voip, so your phone call becomes IP traffic on your ADSL connection out to the Internet, goes onto the Telstra network and back down the same bit of copper. Both ends of the call are on the same piece of wire. Very Cool

Cheers,
Dave

[mic-d]

Where is gets all existential is using voip. You can call your fixed phone from voip, so your phone call becomes IP traffic on your ADSL connection out to the Internet, goes onto the Telstra network and back down the same bit of copper. Both ends of the call are on the same piece of wire. Very Cool

Cheers,
Dave