Comments on: Landlines Officially Going The Way Of The Dinosaur

By: PG

PG — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:55:47 +0000

Those that have ditched their land line, what are they doing about Foxtel IQ and ordering Fox Box Office movies? My understanding was a land line was needed for this, and since you have IQ you cannot use the Foxtel Voice ordering service.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:00:03 +0000

One of the best things about my iiNet VOIP is that I’ve never had a telemarketer call it. That alone has made it worthwhile :)

By: avoidz

avoidz — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:19:47 +0000

I have a landline because it was part of a bundle with Telstra (cable was the only provider option in my area). I still like having a landline to make local calls, and especially for those on-hold calls. It's handy for relatives to phone me, too.

So it *is* still useful, though I can see why people don't want it (the $30 bucks a month for starters).

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 04:17:16 +0000

We recently moved from Syd to Melb. As a part of this move we replaced Telstra services with iiNet naked DSL + Voip.

I've found the cost reduction (from $350pcm to $120pcm) to be the most significant change. Unfortunately this is closely followed by the speed reduction. While both, the new and old service were ADSL 2+, the Telstra speeds were considerably faster.

Finally, I often get asked about the call quality with VoIP. Even internaltion calls have been crystal clear. We won't be going back to land lines any time soon.

By: michael

michael — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:07:22 +0000

@Jason
poor quality only if you have a crap connection, but with naked i get about 8Mbps, so you can be torrenting, playing FPS games and on the phone with no trouble

By: Person11

Person11 — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:53:50 +0000

While naked DSL does sound attractive, I won’t be switching to a ‘naked’ service until ISP’s have decent troubleshooting methods available to them. Having worked with many, many Telstra techs on troubleshooting DSL problems, I find a common deciding factors of fault resolution is the quality of the voice service. Because a ULL is only a ‘voice grade’ service, Telstra techs can easily dismiss DSL connection/sync/attenuation issues by saying that your getting just that. DSL can work with only 1 wire attached, where voice requires the pair to both be in working order. This can be sorted out by re-logging a fault, your usually at tech no.2 before he will have a DSL modem, and be capable of breaking the network apart to spot progress the fault any further. For me as a consumer, as opposed to being a provider, I find that having an extra troubleshooting step also handy in identifying issues. Eg, Do I have dial tone? Is the tone noise? It also gives me crucial right to log faults and complaints directly with Telstra. Naked services rely on your provider logging faults on your behalf. Finally, your home phone number can sometimes be handy. When using automated services. I have nothing to prove or disprove this fact, but its worth having in a pinch. To anyone who believes that your cutting out Telstra from the prospect, your clearly miss informed about the ULL process. It is still Telstras copper between the DSLAM and your premise, and its still only Telstra techs that can work on this copper. Telstra are very much involved in the process, and a naked service is only preventing your interactions with them. In saying all that, I pay the $21 for a phone number and connectivity, and have never made a call on the line in the past 18 months, I don’t even own a phone to connect to the line.

By: b8two

b8two — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:32:53 +0000

It's simple to see that a land line phone is not cost effective. $21 to $30 plus calls just to keep the service. You could have $29 Cap Mobile phone at home for that price and not have to pay for calls.

Naked ADSL line rental is approximately $10 but not charged from Telstra directly but it does make it more desirable then paying $11 to $20 more for a dial tone.

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:35:16 +0000

Questions:

1. has anyone experienced poor quality with Naked DSL calls?

2. anyone know of a good site that breaks down Naked DSL for beginners? Ie, what you need, how to set it up, etc?

By: Anton

Anton — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:52:39 +0000

Yup, farewell Telstra.

btw does anyone else think the phone in the pic is uber-retro-cool?

By: Himanshu

Himanshu — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:04:50 +0000

I am not surprised by this stat at all.

I dumped my landline when IINet's Naked DSL first surfaced. Its been an awesome experience. Naked DSL combined with their free VOIP service means I could even keep the landline number that I dumped (if I wanted to), and still reachable on a "landline" by others.

Not to mention the low-cost call charges, and I certainly don't miss paying line rentals month after month!