Cheapest Line Rental - alternatives for Broadband connections

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Cheapest Line Rental - alternatives for Broadband connections

hamish_t

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#7240 30-Mar-2006 20:37

Hi there, i like many others (I presume) only have a phone line for either a; broadband or b; to receive calls.

Has anybody analysed and found the cheapest plan for such a thing? I cringe every month i get my phone bill and see the $40 line rental charge.

As many posts here, the telecom website is absolutly useless... calling an operator is useless... i've waited for over an hour before giving up as no-one has answered.

When i was in the UK you could opt for a cheaper phone line from which you could only receive calls or dial free phone numbers, it was more than 1/2 the price of normal line rentals.

Have telecom got this one wrapped up?

alasta

6709 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#31817 30-Mar-2006 21:13

To the best of my knowledge, the answer to your question is no, but I would be very interested if it were possible to get a cheap deal on line rental for broadband only use.

At the moment, I pay $20 per month in total for my Vodafone mobile, which is half the price of a Telecom landline with the added bonus of being fully mobile. Because of this, Telecom's copper line rental would be money down the toilet for me, which is the main reason why I'm using Woosh.

There has been some talk about the possibility of some providers offering 'naked' ADSL if local loop unbundling proceeds but, at this stage, we don't even know if LLU will ever happen.

jesseycy

294 posts

Ultimate Geek

#31818 30-Mar-2006 21:16

Nope! Unless you're older than 65, then you get to use Homeline Economy (not even sure if it exists)....

But otherwise, you're stuck with Telecom, Telstraclear (which re-sells Telecom's service at the same price in Auckland), and Woosh (which is the same price, altho you get a free very low data cap broadband, but the tradeoff is the $199 installation price).

Take note that for Woosh, you can't use ADSL then, there is no such thing as "naked ADSL" (meaning just ADSL without paying full price homeline) here.

hamish_t

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#31821 30-Mar-2006 21:24

Cheers guys, as i suspected telecom have us by the b**s... unless you lucky / unluck to be in telstra's install area.

alasta

6709 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#31826 30-Mar-2006 22:03

hamish_t: Cheers guys, as i suspected telecom have us by the b**s... unless you lucky / unluck to be in telstra's install area.

TelstraClear's customers aren't all that much better off. Even in the areas of Wellington and Christchurch where TelstraClear have their own fibre, it's still necessary to pay a ~$35 per month line rental charge before you can sign up to any broadband plan.