Why the insistence on having a 'Home' phone number?

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532 posts

Ultimate Geek

#490122 6-Jul-2011 15:57

pih:

I pay $15/mo on VOIP which gets me 4000 local minutes and 500 minutes a month to US/UK/Oz/etc. I could pay $35 to get 3000 overseas minutes and 50 NZ cell minutes (that's more than 1.5 hrs calling/day!)... etc

How much do you pay for naked DSL and who from?

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blakamin

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#490123 6-Jul-2011 15:59

TelstraClear works... I do it all the time. Easier to put the f*&^ers on speakerphone than my crap cordless and think *maybe* they might answer quicker (but they don't, probably because I've got mobile with them too so they lose sweet FA)

TwoSeven

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#490158 6-Jul-2011 17:00

I found the old landline to be useful during the recent quakes when there was no power.

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pih

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#490159 6-Jul-2011 17:02

John2010:
pih:

I pay $15/mo on VOIP which gets me 4000 local minutes and 500 minutes a month to US/UK/Oz/etc. I could pay $35 to get 3000 overseas minutes and 50 NZ cell minutes (that's more than 1.5 hrs calling/day!)... etc

How much do you pay for naked DSL and who from?

Hah, I knew that question was coming... it's complicated.

I actually use the VOIP line for my business line and broadband is all inclusive in my office rent. At home I'm looking at taking the plunge with VOIP but haven't yet. With Orcon and would have switched to Vodafone naked a long time ago if it weren't for so all the issues I've heard about. For now I'm paying $80/month for 30GB including a homeline (special deal from a while back), I consider that a very good deal for now and don't make or receive enough home calls to justify changing. If I need to make calls to the US or Oz from home I use my work VOIP account (via mobile client over wifi), and I've never run out of minutes.

There's also the cost of a reasonable quality VOIP phone because softphones are a pain I concede. I have an ATCOM phone I purchased for about $120, and I'm very happy with it. So sure, it's not as easy as "$15/month", but if you're already paying for 10-30GB of internet then dropping the landline and going naked makes sense, works out cheaper in the long run, and comes with WAY more features than you get on any non-VOIP line. I wouldn't recommend it for my grandma, but if you have the slightest technical bent I think it's a great option.

alasta

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#490196 6-Jul-2011 18:41

jaymz: I can't remeber the last company that i tried to call from mobile to 0800 that failed (telstra clear, or genesis) but that was a couple of years ago. Does anyone know if the problem is still out there or not?

The only time I've come up against this problem was when calling Inland Revenue. Fortunately there is a recorded message which provides an alternative number.

If I were calling a business and they rejected my 0800 call then I would probably take my custom elsewhere.

ANglEAUT

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#490255 6-Jul-2011 20:52

alasta:
jaymz: I can't remeber the last company that i tried to call from mobile to 0800 that failed (telstra clear, or genesis) but that was a couple of years ago. Does anyone know if the problem is still out there or not?

The only time I've come up against this problem was when calling Inland Revenue. Fortunately there is a recorded message which provides an alternative number.

If I were calling a business and they rejected my 0800 call then I would probably take my custom elsewhere.

I can confirm the IRD issue. Tried to phone them on two days ago.
@alasta There are still many companies that don't accept it. I purposefully ring the 0800 from my cell to check.

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

ANglEAUT

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#490256 6-Jul-2011 20:55

pih:
John2010:
pih:

I pay $15/mo on VOIP ...

How much do you pay for naked DSL and who from?

Hah, I knew that question was coming... it's complicated.

and therein lies the rub.

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

ANglEAUT

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#490259 6-Jul-2011 20:57

MurrayC: ...

So why the insistence that you need one to enter a competition? Visa certainly didn't insist on one when I got my Visa Debit Card...

Definitely bad site design from Visa.

One of the main reasons we have a land line is our children being able to phone their friends.

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

loganjames

272 posts

Ultimate Geek

#490297 6-Jul-2011 21:49

Yeah I got rid of my landline when the the only people who rung it was my mother and telemarketing types (slingshot thrice in a week) switched to vodafone naked 45gb for $65 cos I got my mobile account with them. This is only reason I'm still with them.

John2010

532 posts

Ultimate Geek

#490410 7-Jul-2011 09:01

pih: Hah, I knew that question was coming... it's complicated.

I actually use the VOIP line for my business line and broadband is all inclusive in my office rent. At home I'm looking at taking the plunge with VOIP but haven't yet.

Hah, I thought there may have been something you weren't telling us

.

I think for those who have low voice volumes then VOIP and even cellular will pay off, especially for cellular if one only has one or two "best mates" i.e. if one is mate challenged if I put it in a politically correct kind way

. And if one is mate challenged and those few mates have VOIP then one is home and hosed for cheap calling although I suggest that having no mates at all would cut ones voice com's bill to zero and if can do without broadband then no com's costs at all

.

But being serious now. For us and I suspect many others who need broadband and have 30 minutes or more a day of local and national calling (we have maybe an hour or so and probably as much national as local), and we have virtually all of our international calling to Australia (perhaps averages 90-120 minutes per month) then the package of "free calling" (sic) for Australasia or just national, broadband and discount on Sky (assuming one takes that) is the better deal and not worth the hassle of the complication of disassembling ones com's across several providers and buying new hardware. Before those package types turned up we used to use the cheap dialling prefixes (whatever they were called?) for non local calls and seem to recall they were only a few cents per minute.

I think this would be typical of many families but perhaps not for itinerants or solo livers. Everyone for their own.

Several have mentioned VOIP over cellular broadband - as far as I know none of the cellular service providers here provide for VOIP. By that I mean it is possible but it is not a service that is supported and so its availability cannot be relied on. Maybe someone can clarify?

jim.cox

220 posts

Master Geek

#490505 7-Jul-2011 11:27

TwoSeven: I found the old landline to be useful during the recent quakes when there was no power.

More so if you have a plain old telephone handest that does not need aditional mains power - this was one of the first things we purchased after September last year....

=mjc=
.

pih

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#491032 8-Jul-2011 12:49

John2010:
pih: Hah, I knew that question was coming... it's complicated.

I actually use the VOIP line for my business line and broadband is all inclusive in my office rent. At home I'm looking at taking the plunge with VOIP but haven't yet.

Hah, I thought there may have been something you weren't telling us .

OK, easy fellas, my point was not so much that having a VOIP line will save you paying any line rental (because clearly it doesn't - you still pay rental/maintenance for the copper wires that bring ADSL to your house, whether it's naked or bundled. But take two cases that I'm faced with on Orcon when my sweet homeline deal runs out:

1. Naked BB ("Purple+"), 25GB/mo $80, plus a 2talk $10 or $20 plan (they don't do $15 on new plans any more)

or

2. Homeline & BB ("Gold+"), 20GB/mo $100, includes "unlimited" NZ calls

benefits of option 1:
- $0-10 cheaper depending on which plan I get, probably $10
- more data (there's no way I'd use even close to 5GB for VOIP calls)
- caller ID, voicemail, call waiting included ($10 extra if I choose option 2)
- 25c/min to mobile (vs 43c/min on homeline)
- plus all the extras that I mentioned previously

benefits of option 2:
- "unlimited" 1 hour calls in NZ. That's about it.

Another neat benefit I didn't mention is that VOIP caller ID through 2talk has reverse lookup for caller ID, so I don't just see the number, I see the name of the person calling (as registered to their phone co), even if I don't have them in my address book. I really like that.

Anyway, I'll stop my rant as it's going OT, but you get my point. It's a very good option if you already use around 15-50GB mark, where most ISPs are targetting their naked plans.

[Edit] Ooops, deleted my last post - I didn't realise that when you click "delete" on an edited post it deletes the original post, not just the edits...

PANiCnz

936 posts

Ultimate Geek

#491473 9-Jul-2011 19:03

Don't most ISP 's do free voip data if you use their service?

webwat

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#491488 9-Jul-2011 19:36

Having a landline phone means I dont have to pay for naked DSL, since the phone cost pays for the line connection and its not much different than having naked DSL on its own. I also think its worth having a line that doesnt die in a power outage, even though most of my calls go through VoIP (which also has a landline phone number). Its basically a cheap way to get an extra phone service that flatmates can use on the same line.

Time to find a new industry!

kyhwana2

2553 posts

Uber Geek

#491490 9-Jul-2011 19:40

Except you can get Naked DSL for $55 (snap) or DSL + phone line for $75.. So Naked DSL is still cheaper than POTS + DSL.

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