Telstra, Optus, Vodafone etc Discussion Thread

[dglewis80]

If you get a phone in an Optus plan it's covered for the life of your contract, so two year warranty on any phone

But its a Optus plan....

[poita]

True that. Rumours are Telstra will be doing the same soon too

[adam_92]

Not many phones backing a 2yr warranty these days. Good find.

There's a few around that do...


If you get a phone in an Optus plan it's covered for the life of your contract, so two year warranty on any phone

Same with 3/vodafone


Come on, who keeps a phone for two years these days? :-$

Um, me?? Haha

[Jen]

Um, me?? Haha

Yeah me too

[chris_r]

Have had my S2 for almost 18 months. Will probably keep it till the contract expires towards the end of the year. Thinking about buying my next phone outright and switching to Telstra or Optus, seeing as reception sucks at the new place on Virgin. Powered by Optus, yes, but on the same piece of crap they run Optus prepaid services on. My mate on an Optus plan gets near on full reception, yet I struggle to get one or two bars at the best of times.

I'm probably gonna look at the S4, but I want to see how the battery life is gonna turn out. It's got a bigger battery, but the real question would be does it compensate for the extra power requirements of the high spec hardware?

[nick_sixx]

Have had my S2 for almost 18 months. Will probably keep it till the contract expires towards the end of the year. Thinking about buying my next phone outright and switching to Telstra or Optus, seeing as reception sucks at the new place on Virgin. Powered by Optus, yes, but on the same piece of crap they run Optus prepaid services on. My mate on an Optus plan gets near on full reception, yet I struggle to get one or two bars at the best of times.

I'm probably gonna look at the S4, but I want to see how the battery life is gonna turn out. It's got a bigger battery, but the real question would be does it compensate for the extra power requirements of the high spec hardware?

Mate after spending 5 years on Three, the swap to Telstra was like going to mobile phone plan heaven.

On Three, I was on the $49 cap and I think the lowest amount I ever paid was about $65, the most was $2200 after turning on 3g for 5 mins and downloading an attachment (approx 5mb) related to my itinerary while traveling abroad. Managed to get it down to $800, but obviously still a ridiculous amount. $90-$100 bills were also common.

With Telstra I am on a $59 plan, with a $6 phone payment, and the most I have paid in the past year is $64.



When I was with Three I was averaging a call a month to customer service trying to find out why I was being charged for data use/WAP browsing fees/55c text messages not included in my plan etc. Have not had to call Telstra a single time in 18 months.

Other things like the reliability of the reception, customer support apps like Telstra 24/7 etc make it all the more worthwhile.




Also, encouraging my HTC One purchase is this:
http://blog.gsmarena.com/htc-one-benchmark-scores-are-here-ready-to-blow-your-mind/

[dieselhead]

Just chuck a Kogan sim in for $30 a month unlimited calls and 6 GB data a month. Well, is is not really unlimited, don't talk for more than 6 hours a day and don't exceed 400 MB a day for more than 3 days a month. No 4G but then who cares when everything works on Telstra 3G network as it should? I stream a lot of music and all good.

Had areas in the building at work where calls wow drop out and data simply would not work with the Gala Nexus. Xperia is rock solid though. I think I am done buying cheap Korean hardware for now. Had pretty poor experiences with both Samsung and HTC so far.

[chris_r]

The Kogan sim seems like a good idea. I'd be lucky if 4G covered us out here in Davoren Park anyway, so I'd still be happy with Telstra 3/3.5G. I don't even exceed those sort of limits anyway, as I'm on a $49 cap with Virgin ($400 calls, free text and 2GB). The other reason I'd consider Telstra or the Kogan sim is that my parents live about an hour and a half out of central Adelaide and mobile reception sucks less on Telstra than any other network out there.

As for Three/Vodafail, I used to be with them and yes customer service is absolutely appalling. When I wanted to upgrade my phone (out of contract mind you), the Mumbai call centre said I could walk into a Vodafail store and get one there and then. I walked into the West Lakes store and was told that I couldn't do it. To make matters worse, halfway through the conversation with the dopey salesperson, she just walked off to apparently serve someone else. I pretty much made a scene in the store and said "F--- you" and walked out. Went to the Allphones store about three doors down and switched to Virgin.

But back on to the the topic of this thread, after today I'm now considering something other than a Samsung. My mate who gets full signal on the same network as the better half, has a HTC Desire X. I've got my S2 and the other half, a Captivate Glide (imported slider version of the S2) and it just seems the Samsung phones aren't as good with reception. HTC, well I'm not too sure, especially in regards to the build quality issues I've seen in the past. The Xperia Z as dieselhead said, seems like a decent choice. Sure, as I get closer to the end of my contract, there'll probably be something else out.

[dieselhead]

Forgot to add, my $624 Xperia Z came with a free 12 months subscription to JB HiFi Now, worth $100. Free music until April next year, plenty of data from Kogan and amazing sound by Sony. Heaven!

The thing I like about Kogan is that you can keep your existing number. It takes a few minutes to port it to their network online and an hour later you swap the Sim and that's it. The only downside is that it takes about a month now to get a Kogan Sim.

[poita]

Forgot to add, my $624 Xperia Z came with a free 12 months subscription to JB HiFi Now, worth $100. Free music until April next year, plenty of data from Kogan and amazing sound by Sony. Heaven!

The thing I like about Kogan is that you can keep your existing number. It takes a few minutes to port it to their network online and an hour later you swap the Sim and that's it. The only downside is that it takes about a month now to get a Kogan Sim.

You can 'port' your number to any carrier

[nick_sixx]

You can 'port' your number to any carrier

This

[dieselhead]

Never said you can't.

[Vectracious]

I'm reading this (http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2081956&p=24) thread and it just goes to show, this as with anything - you get what you pay for.

I'm happy to keep paying the "astronomical charges" with Telstra and have a phone that actually works..

[dieselhead]

Mine works very well. Download speed up to 7 and upload 2 Mbps. No dramas whatsoever. It is the Telstra network after all. Switching to Kogan took me 10 minutes for 3 sims. Keen to find a better service if there is one. Will look into boost.

[hazrd]

I'm reading this (http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2081956&p=24) thread and it just goes to show, this as with anything - you get what you pay for.

I'm happy to keep paying the "astronomical charges" with Telstra and have a phone that actually works..

+100000000

Ive had a phone with all of the major networks, and ive come back to telstra and will find it very hard to move to anyone else

[dieselhead]

+100000000

Ive had a phone with all of the major networks, and ive come back to telstra and will find it very hard to move to anyone else

Which part of Kogan=Telstra you guys didn't get? :-) they might have teething problems since got some 100k customers virtually overnight.

[Nurb608]

Work pays for mine, i don't care :)

[dieselhead]

Work pays me enough not to worry about $30 per month. They offered a blackberry so I had to pass. Hate those things!

Now let's see how I overclock my XZ... That pesky One is wee faster...

[Vectracious]

I have Telstra 4G ;)

This :)

[Vectracious]

Mine does too, even without 4G. I was just trying to point to 3dmarks moving to Android... Weird running their tests on a phone, ha? :-)

I use a lot of email on my phone, attachments download basically instantaneously on 4G. Just for that it's worth it.

I don't know about running tests on my phone because I haven't run them on my S3. I ran Vellamo/Quadrant on my old HTC when someone first put the thread up but I don;t know what the S3 is running at.

Not sure what the 4G situation is in Radelaide but in Melbourne it's growing fairly quickly. Theres 4G about 10km out from the city now. Telstra is investing heavily in expanding LTE quickly and heavily (Dad works for Telstra)

[poita]

Bundaberg has 4G at over 30mb so it ain't just restricted to Capital cities

[chris_r]

As far as I know, Telstra still are the only 4G network in Adelaide. It's a bit hard to work out what the 4G coverage is like, seeing as I haven't been with Telstra for some time, but according to some friends of mine, they've been getting 4G in some rural areas of the state's mid north. Optus, well they're supposed to launch 4G sometime this quarter, but I can see that being delayed, yet both Optus and Virgin Mobile have been selling the 4G hardware for some time to Adelaide customers.

Also, I read Vodafail are supposed to be rolling out a new 4G network that's supposed to be faster than Telstra's, but given Vodafone's reputation of late, that will probably be a fizzer.

[preludacris]

I'm using TPG mobile. Great value, and uses the Optus network, but I wonder if we will ever get 4G ...? Would be nice

[Ice]

If tpg uses the Optus network I don't see why not right ?

[JohnBu]

Optus may keep they 4g network for themselves.

Telstra doesn't offer 4G on the Kogan telstra network.


Sent from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk

[chris_r]

From what I've been told, both Virgin Mobile and Amaysim will be using Optus' 4G network. Optus tend to cover the costs of network rollouts by leasing their infrastructure to other providers, whereas Telstra only do it to appease the ACCC, so they don't appear as anti-competitive as they really are.

[Ice]

Optus may keep they 4g network for themselves.

Telstra doesn't offer 4G on the Kogan telstra network.


Sent from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk

Kogan is the old Telstra 3G.....waste of time !

[JohnBu]

Nothing wrong with Telstra's 'old' 3G.

Better coverage than Optus and Vodafone.

While telstra 4g would be nice, telstra 3G is very fast anyway, well fast enough for a mobile phone.

Who really needs the extra download speed for a phone?


Sent from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk

[daves_cally]

Was with 3 about 2 years ago and while I didn't have any issues with customer service, reception was crap.

Now on Telstra (albeit on an old $49 BYO plan) and the coverage is good,and mostly you get some amazingly helpful people over the phone. However occasionally you get a person who doesn't know what they're doing, mucks up your account and wrecks the whole experience.

38 Mbps download and 17 Mbps upload on 4G (faster than my home cable) so I'm happy :D

[hazrd]

I use the online chat service when I have a problem. It gives them more time to look into the issue

[Numbnut]

Make sure you're comitted if you're switching to Kogan mobile. A colleague of mine has been waiting 2 weeks to get her number ported.
She's getting the Ombudsman on to it now.

Personally I'm with Telstra, rolled in the Foxtel + cable internet. It's ok, I mean at some point in your customer lifecycle you will have difficulty with your provider.
I've worked for different Telco's and been a customer of different Telco's - just seems to be part of the experience.
Telco + Banking are a right PITA but you can't live without them.

[metry]

im with telstra. i was with vodafail before on the 45 infinite. it was a good plan but i needed more coverage and was getting pretty fed up with the drop outs. now im paying almost double that but imo its 100% worth it. havent had a drop out. always have internet connection and theres 4g rolling out into most suburbs now. im using the lumia 920 which i am very happy with. but IMO if you barely use your phone and stay mainly near the CBD, voodafone should be sufficient. i cant comment to much on optus but from my friends who have it they seem pretty happy with it. my understanding of optus is that its somewhat of a middleground between Telstra and voda.

[sooty]

I'm with Optus 4G on my xperia z, perfect for reception and speed so far

[Ice]

Nothing wrong with Telstra's 'old' 3G.

Better coverage than Optus and Vodafone.

While telstra 4g would be nice, telstra 3G is very fast anyway, well fast enough for a mobile phone.


Who really needs the extra download speed for a phone?


Sent from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk


While I agree with you some of the way John, when i use the net on my phone i want quick results and it f**ks me off no end when i see Adam jump on his 4G S2 and get everything real quick and here I am still loading my page or have to keep waiting for a video or the like to load. Usually you want the info fast right ?! Im on Optus so this may be part of the reason. As for Telstra's old 3G, it is apparently very patchy, doesnt offer the full 3G speeds it suggests and it wouldnt be as well maintained as say the new 3G/4G. im not speaking from experience but am hearing and reading about it everywhere. when my contract is up, il probabaly make the switch to telstra aswell.

[JohnBu]

I've never had any speed issues with Telstra 3G, websites load up quickly and I get good reception nearly everywhere.

I think your issues is with Optus 3G, rather that the speed limit of 3G.

I was with Optus and Telstra 3G is infinitely better.


Sent from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk

[Ice]

What are they doing differently then ? The signal is there maybe a heap more connections slowing things down ? Grrr Optus

[Younge]

I thought i would give you feedback on my recent experience with Optus!!
So after a very wet Future music festival my black light on my phone had decided to stop working so i did the right thing of phoning customer service and getting proof of purchase to take to "ANY" optus shop so i can send it for repair and get a loan phone in the mean time.

I visited 4 different optus shops and not one had a loan phone, in fact their answer to me not having a phone for up to 2 weeks was credit on my account. Customer service promised me a loan phone and when i couldn't get one because no shops stocked them i was a little annoyed. I sent my phone of for repair and phoned customer service back to complain about this run around and ask them to credit my account because I'm without a phone and paying for a service I'm not getting. customer service gave me the run around and even put the phone down on me twice. (I was very professional to them as i know kicking and screaming doesn't work! the people on the other end of the phone are just doing their job)

At this point two weeks had past and i haven't heard anything. Phoned them one more time and to my surprise they lost my phone and needed some time to investigate! I went straight to complaints and they didn't get back in touch with me for another 48 hours. When complaints contacted me i had so much frustration built up at the poor service from Optus i just wanted to cancel my contract.

The young lady on the phone offered me an early upgrade to an IPHONE i didn't want. So 3 and a half weeks go past and my phone is found and sent back from repair. When i put the phone in my hand i notice the pixels are dead and they haven't done their job probably! Of course the people in the shop where useless and tried to say the phone can't be sent back as i've upgraded early! I went back to complaints and got my way and the phone was sent away for another 2 weeks to be repaired.

So in total i've spent a good 5-6 weeks without the original phone and paying for a service i wasn't getting. I had enough and told Optus to have the iphone back as i'm leaving. This isn't how anyone should be treated.
I was paying more money for an IPHONE i didn't want and had to sign another 24 month contract. I offered to give the iphone back as i didn't want it and they offered me another early upgrade to the new HTC one (which i did want).

I've pre ordered the HTC one and it should be coming next week.

The moral of this story.... I now have my original phone and iphone for sale and can make a little profit from this adventure. Optus has been amazing until i had to deal with them. Kinda says it all.

I hope you enjoyed the read! Maybe when your phone breaks you can ring straight through to complaints and make sure they have a loan phone!

I would like to add the Iphone 5 battery SUCKS!! really bad.. i can watch it decrease. (yes i have the most recent updates)

4G on Telstra is pretty quick though.

[JohnBu]

Optus customer service has always been pretty sketchy.

Telstra is a bit better, but I wouldn't call it good.

Any Optus store can find your purchase details, so you don't need a receipt.

I can't comment on the loan phone, I've always a spare old one laying around.

Last time my phone with Optus had an issue, I just took it to the authorised service agent.

My wife has no issues with battery life with the iPhone 5.

What phone was your faulty one?

Best thing about an iPhone is the warranty. Apple will swap one over instantly if found to be faulty, even when it's not faulty they will replace it to appease you.




Sent from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk

[Younge]

I had the HTC one x which i really enjoyed for every day use.
I had a spare htc desire which i was using in the mean time but refused to just be walked over because "most" people have a spare phone.

The iphone 5 battery lasts for a day if 4g is turned off. but the whole point of a 4g phone is to use 4g :)