ISP/phone/mobile bundling question

[Falchoon]

Most of you have probably seen deals from companies like Optu$ where you can bundle your internet, home phone and mobile on the one bill and get a reduced rate; do you still need to pay Tel$tra the ~$20 per month for your landline home phone even though you have changed companies?

[thebrunks]

You still need to pay line rental!!!

Unless you use Cable Internet & get voice over IP, which will reduce your costs

ie. you can cancell your line rental & use a third party supplier with no line rental from Telstra!

Russ

[ZAP]

Falchoon,

If you bundle your landline,mobile,internet, whatever else with a phone company you will not have to pay line rental to Hel$tra if you went with APPT, Optass, RSL, whoever, they will kindly bill you for line rental.

The only thing you need to remember is that they will put everything on one bill and if you have a dispute or do not pay the bill, everything will be cutoff. While you can save some $$$'s, you also need to know that they have more leverage over you if you are not happy with them.

[FORDXR]

Most of you have probably seen deals from companies like Optu$ where you can bundle your internet, home phone and mobile on the one bill and get a reduced rate;  do you still need to pay Tel$tra the ~$20 per month for your landline home phone even though you have changed companies?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Falchoon, No you pay your new provider the line rental. (Who then pay's Telstra)

Many telecommunications companies (and some ISP's) will now offer great deals for bundling your Phone/Internet. We give free internet to all our phone users with much lower call rates then offered by Telstra or Optus, you would be surprised how much there is to save.

As for VOIP, we are in the process of offering FREE VOIP services to all our ADSL users, that gives you free unlimited calls (on the network) and STD call prices TBA, but works out to be about 5% of current STD pricing.

[voy74656]

every phone company pays telstra for the landline rental as theres only 1 network...except for us (optus) with our 'LAT' lines where we own the network - only on the east cost though.

if u've got a landline u'll need to pay for line rental unless u ge some deal where they give it to u for free and get u on a contract etc.

Zap - we dont cut off services if u cant pay 1 of your bills as theyre all seperate. U cant pay your mobile - it gets cut off or u call to arrange payment but the other services are left alone.

VOIP is the new thing - should prove awesom for cost saving - only let down is though theres gotta be a VOIP system on both ends for it to work.

atm we've just launched the NGB - 'next generation bundling' where u get 4 months free broadband per year, discounts on the dsl access fee and credits on the mobile phone acct....free calls....discounts on the television - depending on what services you choose to bundle.

me work for optus so anythin more u wanna know fire away!!!

[pym]

Personally, I don't believe it is worth the agro. In the case of Optus and Telstra these are based on signing you up for fixed term contracts, whether it be 12 / 18 or 24 months.

Now we have all seen how mobile phones have evolved over the past few years, and the same is currently happening with broadband internet, primarily ADSL, although wireless is becoming popular. In the case of standard telephone services VOIP is one, which does require VOIP capable handsets at each end, but there are other emerging technologies, such as Skype.

The question is, do you really want to be fixed into a long term contract in such a dynamic changing environment ?. The savings you may make, may be offset by exit penalties should you decide to change for something better within the contract period.

This is my own personal preference, and whilst these types of 'offers' don't work for me, they may work for you....it all depends on what you want and your circumstances.

Just to make you jealous, I can phone any fixed line in the US, Europe for ~ 2.5c / minute using Skype, from my PC. My brother recently called me from Germany - If he was to use Germany's phone system, it would cost him 82 euro cents / minute....with Skype only 1.7 euro cents / minute....As for call quality, absolutely no difference.

So with emerging technologies like this, do you want to gamble with contracts ?

[pym]

atm we've just launched the NGB - 'next generation bundling' where u get 4 months free broadband per year, discounts on the dsl access fee and credits on the mobile phone acct....free calls....discounts on the television - depending on what services you choose to bundle.

And on what length contract are customer's expected to sign up, and what are the early termination fees should you wish to cancel before the end of the contract ?

[voy74656]

12 month contract with the dsl ....termination fee of $300 if you cancel in the 1st month and decreases each month by $25. (no sugar coating required )

[Falchoon]

  In the case of standard telephone services VOIP is one, which does require VOIP capable handsets at each end, but there are other emerging technologies, such as Skype.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's interesting, So you can't call a normal landline or mobile with VOIP, just another VOIP user?

With the phone bundling thing, I was planning on maybe going with TPG for phone calls as I have internet (ADSL) with them now and they are offering flat rate phone calls for 8.8c to most capital cities. Of course I would read the fine print and do some number crunching first before I signed for anything, I just wanted to make sure I didn't have to pay Telstra still for line rental as well as TPG.

[pym]

  In the case of standard telephone services VOIP is one, which does require VOIP capable handsets at each end, but there are other emerging technologies, such as Skype.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's interesting, So you can't call a normal landline or mobile with VOIP, just another VOIP user?

At the moment that is correct, until such stage as carriers (in this case ISPs) sign agreements with telcos to provide a gateway been the Internet and standard phone lines. This is something which Skype have already done.