My views on the state of phone and broadband in Australia

Important things to keep in mind when connecting to a wireless connection

The Phone Expert — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:29:42 GMT

Hi,
I have recently spoken to a lot of people who are a bit lost when trying to find out info about wireless broadband.
So I thought I will put together a list of things & sites which will be helpful in the process.

The main thing to remember is that as long as you are in a 3G zone which at this stage covers 65% of the Australian population (this is what I gather from the Optus website & higher coverage from Telstra) you will be able to achieve practical speeds between 500 kbps to 1500 kbps (although the companies claim the max speed possible is 3 mbps). However when you go outside a 3G zone you will be on the GSM network which means you will only achieve speeds between 20 to 50 Kbps.

So before you go out and buy a 3G connection please make sure you are in a 3G coverage zone - I have provided two links for the wireless coverage checks for Soul/Optus and Three:

http://www2.optus.com.au (Optus/Soul)
http://www.three.com.au/cs/ContentServer?pagename=Three%2FPage%2FIFramePageTemplate&cid=1185943280265&c=Page&p=&homeId= (Three)

Another important factor to keep in mind is that some companies diffrentiate between the charges for the 3G zone vs the GSM zone. E.g. from what I can understand Hutchison's 3 Network charges users roaming charges when they go outside Hutchison's 3 zone and this can hit your wallet big time as the roaming charges are very expensive ($1.65 per MB above the roaming allowance)

Telstra is supposed to have the best coverage amongst all the players & from what I can gather they cover more than 95% of the Australian population. However they are much more expensive than Optus, Three and Vodafone. I would recomment Telstra wireless to people who desparately need broadband internet at whatever cost.
http://www.beeneverywhere.com.au/html/pricing.htm (Telstra pricing)

One of the best networks I feel is the Optus network as long as you are in a 3G coverage zone because they do not charge you excess fees in roaming charges for wandering between 3G and GSM zones and further their modem/software automatically selects the best network which is available.

The Optus wireless connection is sold via many resellers and one of the best plans around for people on a budget is the $19.95 for 1GB download plan from Soul and at the time of writing they were giving away a USB wireless modem for Free on a 24m contract. Please see www.WirelessInternet.net.au for more details.

However for people who want to do more with the Internet, check out Vodafone's wireless internet option $39 for 5GB download
http://www.vodafone.com.au/Personal/PricingPlans/VodafoneMobileBroadband/index.htm

Internet without a phone line - what are the options

The Phone Expert — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:41:31 GMT

Hi,
You have a few options if you want broadband internet without a phone line and each option has its own pros and cons.

Option1- Naked DSL - very few companies are offering this service & the main problem is that although they say No need for a phone line, yet the plans are priced in a way that you actually pay an extra $10 or so per month when compared to the normal ADSL pricing. Although it is still cheaper because with ADSL you still need to add the cost of the phone line on top. I would rather pay an extra few dollars so that I have the option of using a landline when required.

Option 2- Cable broadband-This is another good technology but the problem is very limited availability. Also as more users in your area connect to the Internet your connection will slow down as everyone is sharing the same neighbourhood cable.

My personal favourite is Option 3 -3G Wireless mobile broadband
This option has become really popular this year because all the mobile phone companies have started building infrastructure to increase the speed of their mobile networks & this has helped them introduce TRUE wireless broadband to the Australian market. The technology behind this vast improvement in the 3G network is called HSDPA.

One of the main reasons I have been impressed with this technology is that it is truly mobile & you can essentially take your laptop and work while you are in the shopping centre, in a cafe, at the beach, at a client's office or even while on the train/bus. Basically you can take your Internet connection anywhere.

Three cheers and a beer for Wireless Internet

Wireless Broadband in Australia

The Phone Expert — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:00:05 GMT

Dear Diary,
Today I wanted to express my view on the state of Wireless Internet in Australia. In the last few years we have come a long way to providing quality wireless broadband services to Australians. It was not long ago that we used to find ADSL broadband Internet very expensive.

We would pay $60 for 10Gb of download for a fixed ADSL connection at 256k speed & this was just 3 years ago. Then came wireless Internet in the form of Unwired & iBurst. Both these Wireless Internet providers took a great leap forward in the area of true wireless broadband connectivity. The only problem with these providers was the proprietary technology they were using.

I used Unwired broadband for quite sometime as I found it really useful to be able to connect in many areas across Sydney. I have even taken my faithful rabbit & plugged it to my laptop & worked in sunny darling harbour. What a feeling that was! When Unwired introduced their wireless laptop modems I jumped on it because no longer did I need to carry the Rabbit (which now started looking big & clumsy to me) everywhere.

But the cost of getting Wireless with Unwired was quite expensive. I remember I used to pay something like $99 per month for about 10Gb download & the speed was not too quick either. I remember most times I did not get speeds much greater than 256 kbps to 512 kbps if I was lucky.

Over the last 1 year the mobile network providers have jumped into the Broadband bandwagon & started introducing fantastic plans with decent speeds. Telstra has its Next G network which most users consider very expensive. But other providers such as Optus, Soul, Vodafone & Three have some fantastic plans.

One of the best plans for Uni students or for general surfing (or anyone on a budget) is the $19.95 for 1GB download plan from Soul, you can check out the plan at www.WirelessInternet.net.au . I think this plan provides fantastic value at a price which beats most ADSL broadband Internet providers and with the many benefits of wireless Internet such as Mobility, No need for a phone line, easy set up & decent broadband speeds of 512 kbps upto 1500 kbps if you are in 3G coverage areas.

Anyway I think a lot of people will make the switch from fixed broadband to wireless broadband, just as a lot of people have stopped installing home phones & just rely on their mobile phones. I personally think this is a great advancement in Internet access for the general Australian public as they can now even get Wireless broadband in areas which are ADSL internet blackspots, i.e. these people in the past have been stuck with dial up internet. Well now your time has come to make the switch to Wireless internet!

Link between Mobile phone usage & Brain cancer

The Phone Expert — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:21:48 GMT

Hi All,

This is an important article I read in today's paper which identifies a link between Mobile Phone usage & increased chances of Brain Cancer - http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/03/31/1206850768836.html

I have summarised the main points made by the Australian neuro surgeon below:

Dr Vini Khurana (specialist neurosurgeon at Canberra Hospital & Associate professor of neurosurgery at ANU), who conducted a 15-month "critical review" of the link between mobile phones and malignant brain tumours, said using mobiles for more than 10 years could more than double the risk of brain cancer.

He has called for "immediate and decisive steps" by industry and governments to reduce people's exposure to invisible electromagnetic radiation emitted by handsets .

He said mobile phone radiation could heat the side of the head or potentially thermoelectrically interact with the brain, while Bluetooth devices and "unshielded" headsets could "convert the user's head into an effective, potentially self-harming antenna".

Dr Khurana, who since 1994 has received 14 awards, said the time between the commencement of regular mobile phone usage to the diagnosis of a malignant solid brain tumour might be in the order of 10-20 years.

I request all of you to pass this information to your near & dear ones.

Some of the things you can do to reduce your chance of getting affected:

1. Whenever possible use your landline phone instead of the Mobile phone

2. Keep your conversations on the mobile phone short.

3. Please make sure that children are not allowed to use the cell/mobile phone as they are the ones who face the highest risk.

4. Use SMS messages instead of using the mobile phone (by the way now days you can send SMS messages directly from your computer so invest in a SMS messaging program) -check out www.BestSMSdeals.com.au

For further information here is a link to another blog that I found which addressed the same topic:
http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives//017763.html

Cheers
The Phone Expert

my first blog on the Australian telecom market

The Phone Expert — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:18:54 GMT

Hi,
We have had this website for many years but this is the first time we have decided to blog. So what inspired us to set up this blog? We just felt that we wanted to voice our opinion on what is happening in the Australian telecom market.

One of the first topics we would like to talk about is the proposed merger of TPG Internet with Soul. I have always felt that with the amount of competition in the Australian telco market it would be difficult for small players to survive and therefore consolidation is inevitable.

Personally I feel that this is a very important development in the Australian telco market. TPG have been at the forefront of development with Internet plans. They have got market leading products with their fantastic ADSL2+ broadband plans. Soul are a mainstream player in the telco industry. With Soul's fantastic home phone plans, mobile phone plans & its own range of broadband plans I think this is a ideal match.

Soul has its own ADSL2+ network of DSLAMs and now we will be able to add TPG's DSLAM to our list making Soul's coverage of the Australian marketplace even greater. We can look forward to some leading edge broadband plans in the future.

For TPG customers the good news will be that at some stage in the future they could expect that they would get access to Soul's home phone plans and mobile phone deals, resulting in one bill for all their services.

I am really looking forward for the merger to go through ASAP so that both our companies can derive the benefits.

I hope to blog on a weekly basis or atleast every time I feel that there is something important I want to convey my opinions about.

Cheers
The Phone Expert