Telstra Cable Connection & NBN Question

MissLouise on 28/11/2016 - 21:01

Hello everyone,

I need your help! We are moving house in December and are trying to sort out our internet.

We are 12 months in to a 24 month contract with Telstra for 200GB cable internet for $79 per month.

The new house we are moving into is in an NBN area. Telstra cable internet is not available. Telstra is offering us NBN 100GB per month for $75, or 500GB for $99. We are really surprised at how poor these deals are having looked at a few other providers that are available.

We mentioned their offer was worse than our current deal but there was no movement on their behalf. As we have a 24 month cable contract with them, they said we have to pay a fee if we want to get out of the cable contract and join the NBN with another provider. We think this fee is a bit unfair, we would happily continue our cable internet service if it was available at our new address, but now we are being forced into a worse deal because there isn't cable in our new area.

When we moved into our current property I was on a contract with Optus, but because Optus didn't service the new address we were able to cancel the contract without penalty.

How would you deal with Telstra in this instance? Would you just lump the additional fee for the NBN package or pay the cancellation fee and move to a new provider? Or, do you think there is a chance they would waive the cancellation fee as Optus did for us previously?

We have only been with Telstra for 12 months so not sure how easy it is to negotiate with then… and so far not so good!

Many thanks in advance for your help,

Louise

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Comments

  • Baysew on 28/11/2016 - 21:12

    What are the deals with other providers in the new area?

    Can only weigh up once that is known.

  • MissLouise on 28/11/2016 - 21:18

    Hi Baysew,

    Thanks for your reply. We are quite interested in Skymesh having read a bit about them here on OZB. Maybe the 120 GB anytime data and 240 GB off peak for $79.95 pm. We don't do a lot of downloading and never exceed our current 200GB plan.

    Do you have NBN? If so, do you mind sharing who you are with??

    • scrimshaw on 28/11/2016 - 21:48
      +1

      I'm with Nuskope and they are pretty good. While their plans are not considered 'bargain-level' like TPG's or MyRepublic, they mainly cater to light users and who don't mind paying between $75~99 a month. Check them out on WP as well.

      myRepublic offers a $60 a month, 100megabit plan for 12 months.

      • MissLouise on 28/11/2016 - 22:02

        Nuskope look great scrimshaw, they do such a better deal than Telstra! I'll do a search and see what other users are saying about them. I wonder if these other providers will eventually force Telstra to lower their prices/offer better value for money? Can't believe how poorly Telstra compares!

        • scrimshaw on 28/11/2016 - 22:28
          +2

          Price is not the only thing that ISP' compete on. Nuskope is more expensive than say, TPG or Dodo, mainly because they have staff that are based in australia and their support team is all australian english-speaking (so no Phillipino tech support).

          The other thing is contention ratio — contention ratio is the number of users sharing the same data capacity. The lower the contention ratio the higher the quality of service. The more budget companies usually have high contention ratios, meaning that they have a lot of internet users using the same pipeline, resulting in poor speeds when everybody is using it at peak time.

          TPG for example frequently over-subscribes — they take on more customers than they can actually service at peak hour, and this results in customer complaints.

          as for telstra… Telstra is expensive because they have brand recognition and being the oldest company in Australia they also have a fair bit of infrastructure installed, so in many remote regions Telstra is often the only choice for a lot of people.

          And given that monopoly in these badly-connected regions Telstra can charge a higher premium.

  • isthisreally_me on 29/11/2016 - 01:53
    +1

    You signed a 24 month contract to get a better deal than you would have otherwise, so of course its fair to pay a fee if you want to break the contract considering they can service you in the area youre moving to.

    • MissLouise on 29/11/2016 - 08:42

      Agree with you completely, perfectly fair to charge a fee for people who want to break a contract.

      What I'm saying is unfair is that we are being forced into a much worse deal as Telstra does not offer our current contracted deal at our new address. We had no choice but to sign with Telstra in the first place as they are the only operator servicing our current address. Was disappointing when we spoke to them that our only two options are to accept a worse off deal or break the contract, it's a lose lose situation!

      • Scab on 29/11/2016 - 12:15

        Agree with you completely, perfectly fair to charge a fee for people who want to break a contract.

        Which is exactly what you're doing.

        The agreement was for the service to be provided at that address and is not transferrable.

  • SuperC on 29/11/2016 - 08:43

    Do your research and find some better deals, and go back to Telstra and say I found this deal for this price, see what they say. Sometimes the online chat can be better than calling. They may be able to match it or at least get close.

  • garetz on 29/11/2016 - 12:11

    It's impossible to renegotiate with telstra. Morale of the story is if you think you are going to move within your contracted time period (24 months), then dont go on a contract. The only way you can get out of a contract with telstra is if your service is not to the standard you would expect, ie constant dropouts, bad latency, terrible upload or download speeds. Moving house is your choice, not Telstras, they are not responsible for you not being able to get the same service in your new area, so why do you expect them to let you out of the contract you agreed to early without a penalty. Just cause Optus did it doesnt stand to reason you should expect it from every provider.

    They basically gave you your options, if you arent happy with them you can complain to the ombudsmen, but they will probably side with telstra.

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