[Waverley ARS] FW: RE- ISP bandwidth

[George Georgevits]

Hi Simon,

> Both Optus and Telstra tend to be very expensive even with all the 
> bundling limitations and especially so when they also include 
uploads in 
> your bandwidth allowance. I wonder why anyone chooses either of these 
> suppliers except that they are the biggest and most heavily advertised. 

I think I can answer this one, being guilty of same. I am with 
Telstra cable. My original reasoning was the support they give. 
You can call them at midnight on New Year's eve and someone will 
take your call! Having said this, I recently had a problem with 
my modem (I had to restart it every ~2 hours to keep it working). 
It took them the two site visits and the better part of 2 weeks 
to replace it. It replaced the new Motorola 5100 they forced on 
me some six months back, so it was still under warranty. 

SO my question to this learned group is: What is the support like 
with some of these cheap offerings? Anyone had any experience? 
Some places only work 9am to 5pm Mon to Fri, which is not a whole 
lot of use for an internet service.

When I originally chose Telstra, both Telstra and Optus had cable 
outside my front door. So I rang them both. Optus said: "you're 
the only guy down your end of the street who wants our service, 
and we would have to install an amp on our cable to do that, so 
the answer is NO! (so much for the organisation who says YES). I 
got bad vibes from this experience, but undaunted, I checked with 
the guy next door. He was also thinking of signing up for cable, 
and seeing he worked for Optus, it would have been great for him 
(presumably he would cut a better deal). So now two customers 
down my end of the street wanted to sign up, so I rang them back. 
Well, you guessed it, the answer was still NO!!!**. Well, I 
though if they were this stupid ... so I gave it a miss. This was 
some 4-5 years ago, and things have probably changed. For one 
thing, my neighbour has quit Optus, he couldn't stand it anymore.

Also, the second reason I have resisted the urge to change is 
that everyone knows my internet address, and I assume changing 
addresses is like changing phone numbers - a real hassle? Any 
advice on how to do this more or less painlessly?

Cheers,

George Georgevits
VK2KGG