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Share your experiences with ISPs below.
I have been happily with the same internet provider for 18 months but they have notified me that they are raising their prices by 25%, which is a large increase. They say a rise of that magnitude is needed in order for them to stay competitive.
I am connected to the NBN (full fiber) and receive 100Mbit/40Mbit Unlimited download plus a home phone that includes free calls to anywhere in Australia as well as mobile numbers. This has been costing me $100.00 per month which is quite reasonable. I would be willing to accept a 10% increase to $110.00 per month but I just can not afford $125.00 per month. Other than the increase they are very reliable.
Can anyone recommend a reliable ISP who would charge me around the same as what I have been paying for the same level of internet service plus home phone? As it is in Australia we pay far too much for internet services.
Thanks
Ruth
Check iprimus. It looks like they may have a comparable plan for $110. I have been with them for 14+ years on ADSL. They have had their moments now and then but have mostly been a good provider.
Disclaimer: There are also a number of customers and previous customers that are vocally unimpressed with iprimus. In honesty they did slip after M2 took over, and NBN service experiences could be totally different from ADSL.
Looking at the iPrimus site the same service that Ruth has now would cost $120 as Ruth currently has free calls to mobiles which adds a further $10.
Cutting speed to the Fast package would cost less, about $90, but it would depend on Ruthās usage whether that would be acceptable to her.
TPG (no lock in contracts) have after $99.95 inital fee (no fee for 18 month contract) - superfast (up to 100Mbs) unlimited data, unlimited local and national landline calls and 100 international minutes to selected countries. For an extra $10, unlimited mobile and international calls to selected countries plus 500 minutes to India are added
Not sure why India is special but maybe since it is where some call centres are, maybe one can ring them direct?
We are with TPG. Service has improved from being poor a few years ago to adequate.
Might be worth considering. See TPG NBN bundle site
It would also be good to know the ISP you are with so you donāt get any unsuspectingly recommendations.
Ta, I missed that pulldown.
We have been to hell and back with telcos over the past year. Will be happy to see the end of 2016!
We were with Optus for over a decade but never again. This company disconnected our service because of its negligence, refused to reconnect for 2 months and then refused to pay the correct (legislated!) compensation. As expected the coalition federal Minister for Telecommunications (coalition member - Mitch Fifield) sent me links to legislation not worth the paper it was written on. So we moved on.
A couple of suggestions:
Be aware you are in a minefield when dealing with ISPs. I do not understand why Choice does not blow the lid off this bad bad industry. I am assuming that the industry may be handing this bad government election donations so that may be a part of the reason. Welcome to Australia and no rights as a consumer other than bogus ones enacted to shut the troops up whilst the reality is business as usual.
Good luck.
Iāve been with iiNetās VDSL for a few months now. Despite one outage (not their fault) that required a tech to visit which left us offline for over a week (their fault), Iāve been pretty happy. Speeds are great (consistently ~70Mbps down, ~30Mbps up) and, other than during the outage, everything just works. Call centre staff are pretty helpful and patient, though the thick South African accent can be a little hard to understand at times. The prices very reasonable.
If it hadnāt been for the outage Iād have given them 95/100, but with the fact that it took them a week to get the tech here , 65/100.
Hi Ruth, before you go off and get gouged again, do yourself a big favour and go look at what My Republicās offering is here in Australia: https://myrepublic.net/au/ I think you will be surprised.
Hi Ruth my sympathies - I was with Dodo to start 14 or so year back - then when trouble hit and kept losing net I changed over to Telstra. I have stayed with them phone wise since 72 and they have been wonderful to me. Came and sorted out why trouble by rewiring from road into my home free and put in separate points so no need for a filter and have not had an outage since - even over this New Year when phones in the area went out and mine too, still had the internet.
Reason for excellent service is boots on the ground, all ADSL is looked after tech wise by Telstra and they do their own Broadband first as is normal. So I have stayed with them first off had 50 Gigs and home phone rental included for $73 a month then they UPPED it to 100Gigs for same price and still with them now as another contract runs out. I dont use anything like 100 but its there if I want to stream movies etc. Still only $73 a month.
So give them a go no frills just plain good service these days. And the blokes who do the work give you their mobile and can ring them etc. Very friendly and come in minutes as local. They are attached to the area you are so never far away. BTW my download speed is good too for ADSL2 even the techs say so I put it down to that new wiring.
Good luck and a Happier New Year
Iām with Southern Phone, and am very happy. Their current rate for an NBN / home phone bundle, providing 200GB per month at 100/40Mbps and landline with free local and national calls, is $100. Call 1800 238 390.
I have just signed up with Barefoot Telecom: the main reason being it is 100% Australian owned, threfore no offshore call centres! Worth checking out their offers anyway.
iinet, they seem to be helpful, friendly -knowlegable and if they donāt know something - THEY will call YOU back - no waiting for days on end wondering if the next shift can assist you!!! their prices are REALLY reasonable - unless you need satellite - but - can not compare with overpricing by our national non-communications companyā¦unlimited internet - $80 per month!!! Now thatās a reasonable price!!!
The techs are outsourced, private or telstra - not their fault re timing.
LOL i had the worst experience ever with iinet, ended up at the TIO. I went into the details in another post so i wont repeat here but the complaints manager i finally spoke to was awesome, and i sent him feedback on all the issues as requested.
When iinet works, its great. I pay $59.90 a month including netflix data (I pay separately for the monthly netflix account but not streaming) and ive never come close to the 250gig a month.
Im still smarting from recent experience so i wont comment on their staff or their calling you back, or resolving issues at a call centre level. Its abominable, but i was assured action would be taken to rectify that.
Thanks for that info - donāt worry - it took a few tries to get help - maybe your visit to TIO did some good - also thanks for going through THAT ordealā¦TIO only help with any company but, not their Franchiseeā¦our national non-communications JOKE - they can screw everyone into the ground or wherever they chooseā¦they are a Protected Speciesā¦we are Gouged by telstra - remotely/regionally/rurally at EVERY opportunity - so, it was a pleasant experience with IINET compared to the corporate bullies at telstraā¦no service at all thereā¦
My son recently signed on with TPG. He is Very Happy with them. The initial connection was not running as expected and they ended up visiting twice to ascertain the real problem to get it right. No dramas involved.
When you pick an ISP ask what they offer and check the street prices and reviews. You can get good used modems on ebay for $20-30. Since NBN will happen, look for one that is VDSL capable (from your description it is unlikely you will get fibre). (My son got a used Billion 7800N on ebay for $20+post - great modem but no VDSL)
I have been with iPrimus for 14+ years. There were some early rocky patches and they rose to excellent, but that once excellent operation has taken a hit since M2 took them over, but overall not enough angst to go elsewhere, yet.
FWIW since NBN is coming to my street soon I am getting letters from ISPs wanting me to sign up with them. I have noticed their plans look very similar. It reminds me of the electricity-gas market where what you get is the same, it is just the smiling faces who answer phones and send you bills who vary.
Most plans will be similar as they all package a similar product (NBN sets the specifications). The difference is not the package they sell but what CVC (Connectivity Virtual Circuit) the provider has paid for. The provider is charged by the NBN for the amount of traffic in Mbps (Mega bits per second) across their user base so if for instance if they wanted 12 Mbps for every connection they would need to pay (current cost I think not including the discounts available) $17.50 X 12 per household. A smaller provider to offer this would have a huge bill to pass on to their consumers/customers. By the way the average CVC that providers pay for per user is close to 800 Kbps.
Basically if they skimp on CVC then you suffer speed losses and the more CVC they have paid for the better your connection will be. Plus the bigger players like Telstra Optus and TPG have enough traffic and may also own their own backhaul infrastructure (the part of the network that connects to the global internet) to cover the cost of a bigger CVC budget . Also not all their customers are going to be on the internet 24/7 they can pare their CVC back a bit (economies of scale).
The distance from the exchange or the Tophat if it is in place in your area (DSLAM) is the most important factor in what speed you will get over ADSL/ADSL2+. You say you arenāt far but copper cable can run a funny way to your street. If you are less than about 3 km of copper from the exchange/tophat you will get around 7 Mbps (Mega bits per second) or better. ADSL has a max speed of around 8 Mbps and ADSL2+ around 24 Mbps (you need to be within about 1 km of copper to see this) but will be better than ADSL till about 4 km of copper from the exchange/Tophat. For Netfix streaming you will need about 5 Mbps at least to get best viewing. This doesnāt count anything else you are doing so more will be needed if using your ADSL internet for phone etc when also streaming.
Not really knowing if your habits will change when you get your own place I think perhaps around a 100 GB (Gigabyte) plan should be adequate. I base this on around 30 days X 1.5 GB/streamed show + around 50 GB for other activities eg listening to Spotify, reading/sending Emails and other browsing.
The modems/routers in most cases are adequate and if you take a longer plan not a month to month plan, eg 12/24 months, many are supplied free. Just make sure you get one that has 4 wired ports and wireless. Most Smart TVās these days can connect wirelessly but if you have a dedicated PC it is always better to connect the PC via wire if you can (more stable connection).
Price wise of the larger operators TPG probably is the best cost followed by Optus and finally Telstra. Smaller operators buy their bandwidth from the bigger players and may compete a bit better than Telstra so for example look at Belong (Telstra subsidiary) $55 a month on a 12 Month contract for 100 GB a mth with a Sagemcom Modem that is Wireless N band + 4 X 100 Mbps wired ports so will be more than you will need to stream Netfix. There are others such as Exetel, iiNet (now a subsidiary of TPG), Foxtel (which will get you their basic entertainment bundle as well). All of them have people who love them and hate them, but I do recommend you read about all of them online and see which one may fit you best (remembering you are going to see more complaints than you will see praise).
With the above you will need to pay for a phone line so sometimes getting a plan that includes phone and internet can be a better deal, you donāt have to use the phone so can just pick a cheap combined plan. For example TPG offers a 100 GB plan with phone for $50/month. This plan has peak and off peak limits so watch out for this (make sure the peak times and limits fit you). For $60/month you get unlimited data.
If you get a Naked ADSL plan this will be a bit dearer than a similar data allowance (this does not include the required phone line) plan but will be a bit faster and the phone line cost is included but has no actual phone voice connection. Naked uses the bandwidth of what would have been your phone voice connection to get higher speeds on your internet.
In the past I have used TPG, my Brother in law currently uses them. They can/will take a while to answer your support calls. Price was reasonable for the service I received and my B in L is happy with them.
I have used Optus, a close friend currently uses them and has advised that it is similar to TPG for support calls. Price was again reasonable. My friend is reasonably happy and has remained with them for years.
I have used Telstra, they were the highest cost but if I had a fault they responded the fastest. Long waits at times on phone if ringing for support.
Most if not all providers these days use overseas call centres and this can be a bit harrowing to deal with at times. If your need for support is easy then most get fixed reasonably fast but remember there have been bad outcomes for many users.
Currently I donāt have ADSL and a smaller provider supplies my internet via commercial wireless.
Some comparison sites for you to look at:
https://www.whistleout.com.au/Broadband
http://youcompare.com.au/homephone (click the phone & broadband link down the page)
or this one for pure broadband http://youcompare.com.au/broadband
http://www.comparebroadband.com.au/
@grahroll, Well done on your multiple and very informative posts. I had 40 years in very high end computing and retired a few years back; your posts continue to be enlightening and often educational. Cheers,
