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01 July 2006

Voice over IP. A cheaper way to phone?

I'm sick of paying so much to in phone bills. Every month I pay about $100 for landline, broadband and mobile. I don't even make many calls. $80 of that is for the privilege of having landline and broadband connections. All I really want is the internet but how do you get broadband internet without having to tack it onto a phone line? In the past, the only way was if you were lucky enough to be in a cabled area*, or you were unlucky enough to live in student accommodation with broadband. Now there's another way, Wireless Broadband. Plans range from about $30 per month & I'm looking at getting one at about $35 - $40 per month. There are some special discounts here in the ISP area.

So what's the point? Once you have a good broadband connection you can use it for your phone calls too. Fine, you can use all the free PC to PC services, and PC to phone eg(Skype Out) but you can also get a "normal" phone service from Engin at a cheaper price than the landline telcos. One of my friends has been using it for the past couple of years & there's no way she'd change back. At $10 a month, she gets voicemail and 10c untimed calls around Australia and doesn't have to keep her PC switched on. As a bonus, with Engin her number isn't listed in the white pages, so she doesn't get sales calls from call centres.



*Find out whether you can get cable from the major telcos' websites, eg bigpond broadband availability.

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