Commentary In an ironic twist, less than 24 hours after we posted our feature "Is it time to ditch your landline?", Telstra announced three new homeline pricing plans which are designed to stick a finger in the dyke of its leaking fixed-line revenue.
It may be a case of too little, too late, as our story investigates the growing number of options available for both voice and Internet access without relying on copper wiring to connect you to the local telephone exchange.
And signs are that the trickle of water leaking through the dyke is set to become a flood. CNET.com.au recently partnered with Connection Research Services (CRS) to survey 3,320 households in Australia about how they are adopting digital technologies. We'll share more results with you in the coming weeks, but some of the findings will rock Telstra even further.
Not only did ninety-eight percent of the respondents own a mobile phone, nearly ten percent have already experimented with Voice over IP (VoIP) and another third are considering doing so this year.
That's an astonishing result if it extrapolates to the population at large -- a third of all Australians looking to make phone calls on the Internet! We certainly saw a big VoIP push by vendors at the CeBIT show in May, and we've got lots more reviews on VoIP services and handsets in the pipeline, but what are your experiences?
Have you tried a VoIP solution yet? Why or why not? If you're a VoIP fan, how much money do you think you're saving? Share your experiences with us below!
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pam.carroll@cnet.com.au
27/06/2006 02:47 PM
I set up VOIP on Bigpond cable 12 months ago using a voip enabled router with www.faktortel.com.au and found it ok. The upload speed of cable was causing dropouts etc, and if someone in the house was surfing the net or their email app was polling, then we had dropouts as well. Talk about every cloud having a silver lining! A thunderstorm necessitated buying a new router and www.iinet.net.au had recently upgraded our exchange to ADSL2+ so I purchased a Billion 7404VGO and haven’t looked back. Calls are as good as the PSTN service Tel$tra provides. I have bundled the phone line and internet into one with iinet. We have friends living in regional Australia so I stayed with www.faktortel.com.au for the untimed 10 cent calls Australia wide which saves us roughly $50 per month. The service provided by www.iinet.net.au and www.faktortel.com.au are both reliable and more importantly, their billing systems/software seems effective. I have also set up several family and friends with VOIP using both cable (no copper phone line with www.faktortel.com.au) and ADSL2+ with iinet, and all happy and saving heaps. Robert
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pam.carroll@cnet.com.au
27/06/2006 02:50 PM
Have you tried a VoIP solution yet? Yes, I have using Freshtel Firefly for STD calls since 22/07/2004. We have been using Skype to communicate with my daughter in Seattle since she went to live over there last year. Why or why not? To save money, and reduce stress ... free or very cheap calls are less stressful, you can just talk without worrying about the bill. If you're a VoIP fan, how much money do you think you're saving? Probably not that much, since we do not make all that many calls. But it is great being able to call people when you want, without worrying about the cost. We will save more money when we get rid of the landline. Since we are hoping to move in the near future, I will reassess that possibility then. John Stevenson
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pam.carroll@cnet.com.au
27/06/2006 02:56 PM
In response to voip I have been using it for three months now and I'm very happy with the reduction in monthly call costs. Examples like monthly cost pre-voip $140.00 including line rental and engine fee, now my costs are between $45.00 to $80.00 including rental and ten dollar engine fee. The service down side is some times when talking you get an echo or delay, which is a bit distracting but they say it will improve with time. Score out of ten - nine. Dave
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pam.carroll@cnet.com.au
27/06/2006 02:59 PM
I’m the biggest critic when it comes to the big telco’s. ESPECIALLY TELSTRA! I looked at Broadband 2 earlier in the year when I noticed the advertising start on buses etc... I found that the competition between the services were not competitive enough nor were there a great deal of choices between providers. I achieved 3 quotes for the VoIP service from Optus, Ozemail and Ozemails parent company (Can’t remember who they were). All were way out of my price range. There products are relatively new along with the technology and I suspect that as it becomes more popular, prices will reduce and we will find more people making the switch. But for now, for most people like me who can’t afford the greatest of technologies yet but who still enjoys the speed that Broadband 1 is capable of, we’ll just have to continue to bare with paying for calls nationally and internationally until the competition explodes. Everyone will join the VoIP band wagon soon and I can’t wait. In my opinion it’s the way of the future. Kinda makes you wonder though, doesn’t it... What crazy products and offers do you think Telstra will provide to keep up their extensive profit margins in the future when everybody will eventually cease paying for their copper wiring????
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deej99
28/06/2006 11:38 AM
I have a line paid for by my employer for ADSL internet access. I've now shut down my home line and run VoIP with Engin. My new local number follows me if I move, my phone bill doesn't exceed $20 a month and best of all I pay Telstra nothing! They were theiving $28 a month for the line rental plus massive call costs. Sites like ww.jajah.com allow non-PC owners access to VoIP now too. May Telstra die a lingering death!
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greenbeanie
28/06/2006 12:17 PM
Yes I have actually ditched my landline, gone for a wireless broadband connection and utilise VoIP as my main form of communication at home. The broadband connection is $10 more than my old DSL but I am saving heaps not having the landline or the expensice calls calls made on it. All my family live interstate so the 10 cent untimed calls represent a large chucnk of my savings...and I have a DID telephone number so people calling from normal phones can still get me. My only regret is that I took so long to make the changes.
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star2b
28/06/2006 05:19 PM
I've been using VoIP for around two years now and tried a number of providers. My phone bills whaich used to be around $100 with Telstra are now around $15 a month. Fanatastic!!
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Trevor
07/08/2006 11:12 PM
I switched to engin about 8 months ago & apart from a few hiccups its been a good sevice. I have gone from a $60 dollar a month bill with telstra to a $14 dollar a month bill with engin, voip rocks
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Mark
14/09/2006 07:23 PM
I have engin set-up on my broadband service for about 2 weeks now. it has been fantastic! call quality is great (not much lower than a standard phone line) and for the fact that i'm only paying 10c it is fantastic. if only i have cable, i could give the line rental from telstra the flick. though it is handy to have a back up phone is cases of power-outages. my broadband speed is 512/128 and i can stream music at 128kbps, surf the internet, have outlook checking for emails and not notice drop in quality of the engin system. i like it!
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amiaq
15/09/2006 06:25 PM
I ll just try it for the sake of ohh its so fashion at his time, i m sort of sucker for this kind of things. even though my previous experience with Wi-fi, bluetooth not very encouraging. and telstra??? who??
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jaysblueaus
21/01/2007 12:26 AM
I have been using voip since 2005, using a casual plan with gotalk, costing me no monthly fee, just 15 cents per std and local call. Last year I went further, and brought a billion bipac7401vgp, and now run all my phone services via the modem router. I was told by a tesltra shop about their new line rental deals, i would be pulling my hair out if i had a bill for $70 a moth. My router has paid for itself, by the hundreds in what i have saved since using voip. I look at it this way i can make 10 voip std calls for the cost of one std telstra one. I wont be leaving voip any time soon, and think others should think about it too.
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DouglasB
23/01/2007 10:49 PM
I've been using an Auckland VoIP service here in Sydney so my VoIP phone's local (and free) calling area is in Auckland. I set my parents up with one in another city in NZ so we can call each other free. (There VoIP phone is also based in the Auckland calling areal.) Local calls in NZ are free.
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