Line rental

[nickalex]

We are currently in the process of cleaning up our expenses and questioning how much we pay for things. We just recieved a timely letter from Optus stating that our home phone line rental is increasing to $38.95, thats a $7 per month increase, thats a plan with 22c local calls. To me this seems extreme and I think we will have to look at changing our plan. It has been ages since I looked at line rental though so I probably don't have a very good idea of what is reasonable.
Our phone bill is only about $220 every 3 months, I don't really want to be paying more than half of my bill on just the privalige of having a phone. We are not big phone users, mostly local calls and I probably call my mum std once a fortnight always at a good time. Anyone have any ideas?

[FourAngelKisses]

Yikes Kylie, that is really steep!!! I'd look at changing companies if you aren't locked into a contract.
We have been with AAPT for about 9yrs and haven't had a problem with them. I'm not sure how much line rental is though as I only have the first page of my current bill here. I'm pretty sure it's only around $31 a month though.

(Though after paying line rental since 1996, I'm sure I could have brought and laid my own damn phone lines.)

[jessgray]

we are with telstra and pay 34.95 a month for our plan we have one with realy cheap std calls so we are happy to pay that much a month:)

[~mia&ryan~]

We are with B and our line rental is $25 per month. We have our home phone, broadband and my mobile all bundled together so I don't know if that makes a difference.

[jade21887]

We pay $30 a month in line rental. We use voip for our phonecalls (comes free with our internet) so all calls cost us 10c

[kiah]

We just hav a line rental for incoming calls...i think around $22 a month we dont make any calls unless on our mobiles...we get prepaid credit and both use $79 each a month..that includes 1 hr a month overseas and all stds...plus a total of $500 each worth of calls. We never go over the limit and im on the phone all the time....works for us:thumbsup:

[OJandMe]

We're with AAPT.

they have line rental for $29.95 and a $29.95 plan which is $50 worth of calls. You can also get a SIM for your moblie with $20 credit for $5 a month. The reason I love AAPT is because there are NO LOCKING CONTRACTS... you don't have to sign up for any length of time.

so I suppose that works out to

$64.90 a month for line rental, $50 of calls (this includes a 17.5c local calls and $1.98 capped STD calls anytime for up to 2 hours), and $20 credit on a moblie. so if you crunch the figures.... $50 worth of landline calls, $20 of moblies calls.... for less than $70.... pretty good deal to me :D (oh and we pay $9.95 extra a month for dial-up. unlimited hours, unlimited download, 6 email addresses, 20mb web space, no contract)

Not plugging it:rolleyes: ... but we've been extremely happy with the deal as we're not heavy phone usuers either.

[Lirael]

I pay 19.95 for homeline budget. telstra. its not got std or mobile calls but i have 900 a month to use on my mobile for std and mobile calls if i need them.

[MrsMiggins]

We just received a flyer from Telstra (whom we are currently with) and they had a deal which is similar to the cap plans for mobiles.

There were a few different ones, but ours we now pay $89.95 a month, which includes line rental, unlimited local calls, including dial-up calls (nope, we're not on broadband yet!), unlimited untimed STD calls, calls to Telstra mobiles only 50c for up to 20 mins & calls to other mobiles are $1.75 for up to 20 mins. This means our bill should be under $100 per month from now on (and usually only $89.95), whereas before we were up to $200+ per month.

I'd suggest calling your current provider & asking them which is the best plan for you (they should have all your calling pattern details already) and then perhaps giving other providers a call. You should hopefully be able to get onto a plan that will be cheaper for you.

[jasminesmum]

We just received a flyer from Telstra (whom we are currently with) and they had a deal which is similar to the cap plans for mobiles.

There were a few different ones, but ours we now pay $89.95 a month, which includes line rental, unlimited local calls, including dial-up calls (nope, we're not on broadband yet!), unlimited untimed STD calls, calls to Telstra mobiles only 50c for up to 20 mins & calls to other mobiles are $1.75 for up to 20 mins. This means our bill should be under $100 per month from now on (and usually only $89.95), whereas before we were up to $200+ per month.

I'd suggest calling your current provider & asking them which is the best plan for you (they should have all your calling pattern details already) and then perhaps giving other providers a call. You should hopefully be able to get onto a plan that will be cheaper for you.

I am on the same deal. It works for us. I like the idea of making unlimited std calls at any time of the day.

[neeky]

gee that seems very steep.
we are with telstra. line rental is $29.95 i think. but we are only on that high line rental because we have all 3 on 1 bill so we get free messages each month. so it works out little better value for us to have the higher line rental.

i would definetely be doing a call around to see who will offer you the best deal.

[bigglet]

I have Telstra pre paid home - it's only $13.95 a month and you just have to top up your account. It's good to control your phone use (if you have shared flat mates etc- they can have their own account). The only problem is having to go to a Telstra shop to top up your account but I hear that soon you'll be able to do it online.

I hardly use my phone - mainly to receive calls and make a call now and then so this was the cheapest option :thumbsup:

If you want to check it out click here: http://www.telstra.com.au/telstraprepaidplus/prepaidhome/index.htm

[borntobemummy]

we're with Exetel for broadband. It's $35 per month for 48gig (or something crazy like that, which we never even come close to.) With that we use VOIP for free, just pay 11c per call anywhere in Australia. And we use Telstra budget line rental $18.95 (it has more expensive call rates, but we don't use them as we use the VOIP.) DH did a lot of research and this is the best he came up with. PM if you have any more questions :)