Best Internet Bundles

[jjjnettie]

My contract with Big Pondscum runs out next month, so I'm looking for a new bundle.
Any suggestions??

[GeoffW1]

Hi jjj,

You have most likely had a look at Whirlpool to see what they say? You can enter different user profiles.

http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/bc/?action=search

Cheers

[Jen]

LOL @ Big Pondscum :lol: i hear TPG have great deals check them out JJ

[jjjnettie]

http://broadbandguide.com.au/queensland
this seems a good place to start too

[Barrykgerdes]

When looking for alternative ISP's that advertise great deals remember that Telstra supplies all the copper and the exchanges. As such they would normally be expected to be the most reliable. Even if more expensive.

Barry

[jjjnettie]

They are the lowest of the low. Actually pondscum is too kind a word after the way they treated me, and countless others.
With their "oops, did we clean out your bank account just before xmas? we thought you would like to pay months ahead for services you haven't received yet , don't you like that idea, no? we'll fix you back up after xmas" and their "didn't you read the fine print that you will be charged an exorbitant fee per mb if you go over your allotted amount, " My bad, sure, I should have read the fine print. But keep in mind that the cheaper plans are the ones that most pensioners use, and I know of others who have been burned badly. People like us on very low incomes, have to go without food to pay these scum off because they don't make their terms of service clear.
You could say I have a Hate/Hate relationship with the company.
Rant over.
I think I will be following Jen's suggestion and go with TPG. :)

[tlgerdes]

JJJ, have a look at services that also bundle your voice via VoIP. I pay $70 per month for my phoneline, phone service and Internet. All calls to other landline phones across Australia are FREE, calls OS are cheap as chips, 30mins to NZ was like $2.

I use IINet but there are many others that bundle the phone line and VoIP services

[jjjnettie]

LOL I'll have to read up on that Trevor. VoIP?? what the hell is that?? LOL
I make like 6 phone calls a month on my home phone.

[Saturn%5]

HI JJJ
well may i say (glad you got my barlow) i finally read the message after 4 or 5 years :lol: yes i have been inactive, TPG are very good and if you have children who play online games they will be also happy, my son plays World of Moneycraft and is very happy with the latencey he gets under 180 he tells me :shrug: we were with slushpond and latencey was 500 :shrug: but in saying that we have also moved from Queensland to Tasmania maybe that is the difference but TPG seem very good and willing to help if you have any problems not that we have had any.

cheers for now.

Graeme

[Liz]

I have used westnet for internet and phone for a couple of years, and find them pretty good. Friendly service and talk to a REAL person when you ring up. :eyepop:

[jenchris]

I had a major row with Pondlife and told them to vacate the area in short jerky movements. Sadly there is no landline alternative in my area (monopolies commission?)
I went WIFI with 3 which has now expired so I changed over to WIFI with Vodaphone - I'm getting 4Mb/s download so it's quite good and expected to get quicker as the network improves.
39 dollars buys 12gig a month.

I'm contemplating dumping my landline if the prices go up - Skype is now very capable and free.
Pondlife rang me recently and tried to get me to change back - very hard too. I told them that they not only won't get my business ever, but that I will continue to bad mouth them at every opportunity in the foreseeable future.

[Exfso]

Hmm yes Bigpong..I think they have big problems, I have had issues with download speed since I connected to them had all the excuses under the sun, mainly from the call centre people based in the Phillipines, they are worse than uselesss. A couple of them have said I am stuck with the speed I have sometimes as low as 120KBps when I was getting over 750KBps with my previous subscriber out of the same exchange. One clown told me I was not getting ADSL2+ speeds and he would re connect me to plain ADSL, not damn likely! I have had 2 modems supplied by bigpong, both Thompson and they are useless. Bought myself a Billion 7300RA and my speed jumped immediately up to over 700KBps. To put it bluntly, their off shore call centre people are nothing short of cretins. :screwy:

[andrew2008]

Have had Optus cable and home phone bundle for the last 2 months and it hasn't let me down once. 120GB downoad split into 50/70 on/off peak and line rental + $10 calls for $65 a month.

Getting 20MB/s on smart phones, laptop and desktop all connected over WIFI.

[asimov]

Well that's interesting Pete, VERY interesting! As you know, I'm having ID trouble to you, with basically the same excuses supplied by them. They will only guarantee 112 Kbps. Just before I go for the throat though, did your old provider own some of its own lines, as most of the lines throughout AU are owned by Telstra. However a small amount of lineage is owned by other ISP's. If lucky enough to be with one of these providers they can usually offer way better speeds than the congested Telstra lines.

We also have been running the standard Bogpond Thompson modems (TG782T)..:help:

[Exfso]

John, the lines were/are only telstra. Get rid of the bog Thompson modem, it is absolute rubbish. I just did another test in supposedly peak time and getting 830KB/s, one helluva improvement just by changing modems I reckon. If you want to really test the speed and it does not affect your quota go to bigpond.com then click on help then at the bottom of the page under big pond online storage, there is a download highlighted in blue print. This is a 13 meg file and this gives a genuine download speed consistently. This just showed the 830KB/s shown above, it ripped through the 13meg file.

[Davros]

Another vote for TPG, it how i get my Doctor Who a week before usual release :p

[asimov]

Thanks for that Pete. I've noted they no longer supply the Thompsons, & I can't right now find the current crop they are supplying, but do you think I should hit them up for one of these newer ones (for free)?

Then again...What the hell am I saying! I trust those bunch of wackers as far as I can spit! Ignore that question! I'll buy my own..:D;)

[asimov]

Found the 'Premium' one they are offering for what its worth: http://www.technicolor.com/en/hi/digital-home/mediaaccess/dsl/service-gateways/adsl/technicolor-tg587n-v3

[Nortilus]

i've got internode naked 150gig a month adsl2 for $59.95 a month...no contract...works great...

[tlgerdes]

Westnet = IINet, yes I find there service excellent, when you ring up 1) you get a real person 2) if you have to wait they tell you how long you will be waiting 3) when you do wait, they give you the option for them to ring you back.


VoIP= Voice over Internet, all my calls go out as digital bits to my ISP who converts them back to voice. No diff in quality, just different on my wallet.

Well when you look at the total costs

They give you a black box to plug your old phone into.


$70 pm == average cost
- $30 p/m == approx phone Line rental
- $30 p/m == Average phone calls we make = 150 @20c each
____________
== $10 per month for 75G+75G

[Gem]

Iinet gave us months of hell. Little or no working internet and VOIP unuseable. Nearly a phone call per night for weeks on end and no joy.

Telstra then found the fault day one, fixed it and we have had good, reliable service every since. The extra cash has been worth it compared to the nightmare we had with iinet.

[Mliss]

I've never heard so many fond names for telstra :lol::lol:

I've been using iinet for a few years (sorry to hear your experience wasn't so great Gem) and i haven't had any dramas at all.

I pay around $130 a month which includes everything, and as i use voip all my calls within Aus are free. (but after reading some comments below i might need to look into other plans:shrug:)

Sykpe is worth looking into too. it is free and all you need is a mic and speakers and maybe a camera (or a headset) but i find it too hard to sit and stay attached to the pc while i'm talking.

I prefer VOIP and you don't need anything but a normal phone and you plug it in to your modem. You will need to get your isp to activate it at their end and then away you go, just like a normal phone. I pay $9.99/per month for this, but with the number of calls i make it saves me heaps. they WILL charge you for os calls, calls to 13 numbers and mobiles. but if you're only making 6 calls a month :eyepop:it's probably not worth it.:rofl:

Unlike some providers, if i go over my quota for the month, iinet email to warn you to slow down and after that they just reduce your speeds, but they don't charge per mb or anything. so far we've only come close to our quota twice and with all the downloading in this house, that's not bad.

we've got 2 laptops and one pc and with them all running (which seems to be 24/7) and the kids do notice lag in their games during peek times, but otherwise it's not so bad. and it usually has a lot to do with what they are doing. my dining area looks more like timezone and i'm starting to wonderif i even need a table in here :question:

good luck with it all JJ :) life is so much brighter without 'pondscum' :lol:

[astronut]

TPG...200GB per month, $49.95.:thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Mliss]

:sadeyes: TGP broadband not available in my area. awesome deal tho.

[PCH]

Hi Peter,

on the strength of your message here, I thought I'd try the same thing. My speed is typically 300-350kbps so the idea of your 700 sounded terrific.

So out I went and bought one of the Billion 7300RAs, they're only $65 so it's no biggie. When I connected it up and stuck in my username and psw, the speed dropped to just a few tens of kbps - about 40kbps and increased ever so slightly as the file continued to download. I swapped between the two a few times to make sure the results were accurate and reliable. Unfortunately they were.

So I reconnected my Netcomm NB5Plus4 in the meantime.

Did you have to alter any of the settings when you installed yours, and has the speed increase remained so impressive?

Cheers, :thumbsup:

[Glenhuon]

I was with Westnet for quite a number of years, but not having a landline here in the caravan park, I use the WiFi system. Its quite good and reliable (The owner is quite friendly, I'm the only one in the park with a permanent connection, no timed logoff :) )
I kept a dialup service with westnet for a couple of years to retain my email address, ($12.50/month) until they called me since it was'nt being used, and offered a mailbox at $10/year. Good customer service, works for me. :)

[OICURMT]

Then go with Naked DSL and drop your phone line rental and charges all together. Use you mobile instead and that'll get Telstra completely out of your house (the wholesaler can deal with them).

[bobson]

As OICURMT said get Naked DSL and save. I am with iinet for the last 5 years or so. Now they have mobile service SIM card only. I pay $20 dollars and get $450 dollars worth of calls and 1 gig of data free facebook and twitter within Australia.

bob

[jjjnettie]

I just checked and I can't get Naked ADSL.
only adsl off net.
still searching.......

[The_bluester]

What he said. Almost without exception, if you have ADSL you are dealing with Telstra in one way or another. If you are "Off net" (To use an IInet (I think) description) as JJJnettie posted, then what they generally mean is that you are buying a service retail from whoever (IInet, TPG, whoever, just not Bigpond) who are in turn buying it wholesale from Telstra. Your service is entirely on Telstra infrastructure.

if it is "On net" what that means is your provider of choice has installed their own DSLAM (DSL Access Multiplexer) in the exchange you are connected to and your service is coming from that, but the rub is that it still goes over the Telstra copper from the exchange to your house.


The only ways around that currently are wireless services (Patchy, unreliable and performance dependent on the number of active users in your cell and what they are doing at the same time as you) or Optus HFC services or in some areas TransAct/Naighborhood cable HFC (HFC is Hybrid Fibre Coax, basically coaxial cables delivering the services in nodes with up to a few hundred houses in them and fibre transmission to the nodes) Plus some odd trial areas where fibre was installed that is not immediately handed over to Telstra and perhaps a few lucky enough to be getting services on NBN infrastructure already.

I would dearly love to give the axe to the swamp (Bigpond) but on a Telstra DSLAM in my experience you save some dollars and gain serious difficulties if there is a problem with the service if you go to a wholesale ISP buying service from Telstra. Even if the ISP has their own DSLAm you end up with them blaming Telstra and Telstra blaming them when it goes pear shaped.