Help, moving to Country Victoria and seek feedback on best internet deals?

Peter 14.7

Peter 14.7

Dear All

Wife and I and Isabella ( now 7 months ) are moving to Woodend in the Lovely Macedon ranges, 100km North West of Melbourne. We have bought a Heritage Cottage and Property with plans for a BnB, Cafe etc.. as we escape the city.

Well it is five weeks away to our tree change and I seek advice from fellow Victorians on internet services.

Both Optus and Telstra do not offer cable but ADSL

Wireless seems to be no go either being small town in the mountains.

Therefore, it would appear we are to be phone line driven so what do fellow forumites and Victorians members recommend for an office and internet use.

I will be back in Sydney regularly running my business so I will be in and out of airports via a laptop as well.

Dial up from a hotel room has advantages but the new mobiles we are looking at Nokia N70 can send emails and link to computer they say.

We are presently with Optus for cable and mobiles but looking at Telstra which offers three mobiles and one land line can call each other for nothing for the first 10 minutes.

Vested interested welcome here or PM me.

Thanks,

Peter 147
 
Peter,

I would have thought any ADSL service would work given you've got Telstra copper coming into your house. I'm with Exetel (www.exetel.com.au) and can highly recommend them. My 512/126 service with 8Gb of free included downloads costs $40 a month. You might also consider their VoIP service, (another $15 a month but includes $15 worth of calls). At 10c a call anywhere in Australia it would help keep those phone bills down when Anne calls Kay twice a day to complain about the cold and the need to go to the outside dunny... ;)

There's a whole raft of other ADSL Broadband offers out there such as Internode and others which also seem to get a good rap.

Just my thoughts...

Cheers,
Michael.
 
Take care on those roads..

Peter, unable to help you with internet...but you and your family please be careful on those roads around Woodend/Macedon especially coming into winter and black ice season...
We don't travel there regularly, but often enough to see accidents contributed (partly and especially) from the black ice conditions.
Beautiful country tho', enjoy your new tree change.
 
From another forum.

If you want the most reliable connection go Internode.
If you want the best customer service go Westnet.
If you want to go cheap go TPG.
If you want to pay through the nose and like frustration choose Telstra or Optus.

The first 3 also have VOIP, so get a Billion 7402Vxx modem, plug in a standard phone as well as your PC and get vastly cheaper calls, usually free to same VOIP provider.
 
Thanks All

Re Black Ice

Supports our decision to sell Alfa 147 and buy Subaru All Wheel Drive Forester. Also driven by baby. Thanks for the comment Our Obsession.

Re: Suppliers

It seems get the cheap line from telstra and look into the a VOIP provider with ADSL. Wiull try them all. Thanks for Michael and Doreilly.

Regards,

Peter 147
 
Buggar the internet.
Wow what a change you will have and to such a lovely part of the world.
Enjoy.
I will be very interested to read your post in the future of the world of B&B.
It aint all bacon and eggs:(
good luck to you and well done on making the move.
cheers yadreamin
 
yadreamin said:
Buggar the internet.
Wow what a change you will have and to such a lovely part of the world.
Enjoy.
I will be very interested to read your post in the future of the world of B&B.
It aint all bacon and eggs:(
good luck to you and well done on making the move.
cheers yadreamin
Click to expand...

Thanks Yadreamin.

Our tree change is a culmination of a very long-term plan and proves goals, whether written or expressed, are powerful!

FYI Wife and I dated from 16 in Shepparton and honeymooned at 22 in Bnbs along the Great Ocean Road. We love old historic towns and homes and often stayed in grand hotels or homes on holidays. Never been to Bali! I also enjoy people so it has always been the plan to go into tourism be it Bnb, Cafe or Shop.

As we were working class we moved to the big smoke and built our professional careers and investments but I always said "when we hit 40" we move back to the country lifestyle and gear down.

Many thought it I was "yadreamin" when I talked about our plans, bought Bnb books and researched the market. I agree it is not easy and needs deep pockets to stay afloat.

In the last three years, we have checked out all the viable spots: Hunter Valley, Blue Mountains, South Coast NSW and the Macedon ranges.

Woodend in the MR won being close to airport for access to my business in Sydney, close to family and guaranteed to stay country due to bushfires restricting building outside of the town.

Our new home is a very large block 500m from town CBD with 50 trees and a 150 year old timber ( inside and out) house. After living in Surry Hills Sydney for 10 years we will be in shock at the change! It has great development potential for passive income a fabulous heritage garden.

Hope you enjoyed our story!, Peter 147
 
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Peter 147 said:
Dear All

Wife and I and Isabella ( now 7 months ) are moving to Woodend in the Lovely Macedon ranges, 100km North West of Melbourne. We have bought a Heritage Cottage and Property with plans for a BnB, Cafe etc.. as we escape the city.
Click to expand...

The very first thing to do, once your settled, is invite all your friends to a picnic at Hanging Rock.

For your B&B its fairly easy to provide your own WAP, for your and customers convenience, add a wireless router between the adsl modem and the hardwired pc. (we got 10Mb full cable)

Full time FWD is great on black ice, ours is a toyota rav. Here winter snows can be 7-8 feet deep for 5 months, you'd think that everyone would have one. Every year ten or eleven neighbors slide off the road, small town bout the size of woodend, everyone is a neighbour, specially for me, "Look, he's the Australian, 'Gday mate put a shrimp on the barbie';" damnyou Paul Hogan.
 
Hi Peter,

Congratulations and best of luck for your new adventure!

You mentioned mobile phones that you can receive emails on. I've been really impressed with my BlackBerry. I receive realtime email without having to dial up and download my emails (which can be really expensive). This means I can run a business and actually have a life as well. I can be out to lunch with friends at the pub and answer clients/staff email queries immediately. You can also read attachments, surf the web and of course receive and make calls! I was in New York recently and found my BlackBerry to be a lifesaver. It meant I didn't have to lug my laptop around. My plan is $99 a month for the lot. Considering I was spending a couple of hundred a month just on calls, this deal is a bargain.

All the best

Kelly
 
Thanks Kelly.

Mobile wise I just purchased new phones for my company being Nokia N70's. I am told by my twenty something staff they are do everything.:rolleyes:

Me I just ring people!

So far the best features is the bluetooth ear piece which is permanently attached. Type and talk technology and it lets me leave the phone in a belt pouch as I can be forgetful.

Blackburry are all too high tech for this 39 year oldie ;) but I may consider in year or so as I tech up!

Thanks for your comment!

Peter 147

PS For those who like Woodend and the cold check out todays temp from
http://www.stormchasers.au.com/currentcr.htm

WEDNESDAY 24/5/06....A cold morning with general frost then a mainly sunny day with light winds...MIN TEMPS -3 to 0c MAX TEMPS 10 to 14°C.

And the Bnb accomodation is booked out.
 
I recently just signed up to a new plan. For me, 1.5Mb ADSL with 10G through Internode was the best value (combined with the Telstra Budget $18 line rental which I don't actually want nor technically need...#$%^ing Telstra...). I am paying $60 per month. Speed is important to me.

An excellent plan search engine can be found at www.whirlpool.net.au on this page http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/bc-plan.cfm.

I have previously been with TPG and found them to be great. Very reliable connection and low price. If you are eligble for their ADSL2+ service (which I'm guessing your not in the country) in my view that kills everything - 18GB, 24Mbits/sec for $50pm.
 
burrah said:
Remember you must be no than ~ 5K from a telephone xchange to receive ADSL
Click to expand...

Don't be so sure on that. My fiance's family lives 30km north of Melbourne CBD and no ADSL available - insane I know, even the phone companies are suprised when I call them up to check time after time, but it's true!

Cheers,
Jen
 
DavidMc said:
combined with the Telstra Budget $18 line rental which I don't actually want nor technically need...#$%^ing Telstra...
Click to expand...
David,

Why don't you go for wireless broadband then? You only need the budget line so you can keep the copper line for your ADSL service. If you went wireless you could kick Telstra completely and just use the old mobile phone on the rare occassion you need to dial 000 or 1223.

I'm only asking as I'm having the same internal debate myself at the moment. I'm ADSL with VoIP and retaining Telstra budget for the line only. There might be a very good reason why I can't go wireless but I'm not aware of any just yet...

Cheers,
Michael.
 
JenD said:
Don't be so sure on that. My fiance's family lives 30km north of Melbourne CBD and no ADSL available - insane I know, even the phone companies are suprised when I call them up to check time after time, but it's true!

Cheers,
Jen
Click to expand...

According to telstra and optus website I can get ADSL in my little "backwater". Will start checkin gnext week with Exetell and others.

Michael's suggestion re wireless is worth it for your city folks.

Funny, until the move I didn't understand what the issue with bush telephone services was all about? I thought it was about mobiles not working out the back of Bourke and poor land line quality.

Now I understand...... if I wanted to start say a manufcaturing business in a Country Town at best I may get ADSL or dial up and at worst nothing.

Does not really help jobs in the Country hey?

Peter 147
 
Peter 147 said:
Now I understand...... if I wanted to start say a manufcaturing business in a Country Town at best I may get ADSL or dial up and at worst nothing.
Click to expand...
I have a friend who lives in rural Canberra not too far out from town. His dialup access was extremely slow and unreliable, frequently dropping out.

At that stage (a few years ago) he was thinking of going satellite. I don't know if he did.
 
MichaelWhyte said:
David,

Why don't you go for wireless broadband then? You only need the budget line so you can keep the copper line for your ADSL service. If you went wireless you could kick Telstra completely and just use the old mobile phone on the rare occassion you need to dial 000 or 1223.
Click to expand...

The last time I looked into wireless it was still too expensive for the large amounts of data I download (iBurst and Unwired). I just checked again then, and those two are still quite expensive once you start looking at around 10G of downloads and over 1Mbit/sec. Although, I just saw these guys - http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/isp.cfm/Chariot-Wireless/57-2.html?p=8936... now those prices seem more like it! (Pity they don't cover my postcode).

As much as I'd like to get rid of Telstra, the TCO was cheaper with the budget line + ADSL. I live in a unit so I couldn't get Optus cable. I used to share a neighbours cable via wireless at my old place which was a setup that worked well.
 
Hi All

Well FYi I went to whirlpool and found it was great and I can get cable via Neighbourhood Cable (NC) and many supply ADSL including Optus my present supplier. Thanks for that advice.:)

However a link from whirlpool to web fourums on the servies and you get lots of angry young IT geeks bagging NCand it seems most others!:eek:

Drop outs, slow speed, non existent service, etc....makes me think simply go with Teltra or Optus and KISS.

All very disheartening.:(

Anyhow my search continues and I will post more.

Peter 147
 
Furthermore, if I stay with OPtus then I get to keep my email address which the business rund. If not I have to change address to @whoever.com or get a website for my business which i dont really need and is more costs.

Of couse I could use @hotmail I guess.

Peter 147
 
Peter

If you want to keep your Optus addy you might want to just keep an Optus email account.

If though you have an Optus ADSL account, but travel enough that you also want dial up while you are away, it costs a quite small additional amount- $10pm. For me, it's worth it just for 2-3 trips away from home pa more than 2-3 days. I think it was a forumite who suggested that- I'd been paying $30pm to keep my dialup alive.
 
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