mobile data

mark and kerry · Veteran Member

mobile data

Tony Bev · Guru

Hello mark and kerry

From speaking to many other travellers on the road

The majority of travellers in the free camps (away from the towns) use Telstra

Some said that Telstra own all the towers, so rented bandwidth to other telephone carriers
When the towers were overloaded, the Telstra customers got first dibs

I have never bothered to check this advice I had received

Perhaps others could have different information, as mine is only word of mouth

Santa · Guru

Have to say we have always found Telstra pretty good.

Tried a couple of the others over the years, couldn't get back with Telstra quick enough. wink

Aussie1 · Guru

Have to say we have been with Telstra for many years. On occasions I will admit they have been a "bit off the ball" so to speak. However the few time we have to "have a bit of a chat" (some times with raised voices) the end result has been to our satisfaction. Overall we are more than happy with the service they provide.

Ron-D · Guru

We have had great coverage with the Telstra network and the price of our plan is very good with them,to get a great deal you need to deal direct with there call centres and hammer out a good deal, The Telstra shops with there high rents and wages you will be lucky if you get a good deal there, call centres with very low paid workers treated like battery hens and no overheads are the way to go,deal hard with them and you will be surprised at how low your Telstra internet connection can be.

brickies · Guru

If Telstra can't keep you happy nobody will.

Krusty · Senior Member

I'll go,against the grain here. I was with Telstra many moons ago and found them far too expensive. My Phone plan now is with Optus. I get Unlimited everything, 21 GB's of Data for $85 a month. Never had a problem with reception although I mostly hang on the East Coast.

Hetho · Senior Member

Hi All.
In WA you will be fine in Perth with most providers; however, if you are more than 80 km`s outside of Perth the only guaranted reception is with Telstra.
Regards.
Hetho.

Grubbygypsy · Senior Member

Its as good as it gets regretfully. Simply not enough towers for my liking.
On the other hand....they do always sort things out (bar putting up enough towers).
Annoying though when they say they're 'fixing that or taking the charge off' 'as a courtesy'
They've clutched up!!! They're not doing me a favour!!! It might be just the language barrier.
It's happened to me twice in the last 6 weeks. Plan change....handset waiver....still being charged....phone twice....bill rectified 'as a courtesy' to me.
Amusing.....

Krusty · Senior Member

My plan with Optus has just gone up to 26.5Gbs with unlimited everything else for $85 month. :) these plans seem to be getting better by the week.

Santa · Guru

Krusty wrote:
My plan with Optus has just gone up to 26.5Gbs with unlimited everything else for $85 month. :) these plans seem to be getting better by the week.

Probably fine if you live in or near a city, not much good if your a Grey Nomad who likes to travel in country area's, and I suspect that applies to most of us. smile

jules47 · The Happy Helper

I have had very little trouble with Telstra - never been with another provider - ever - since the first home phone. The internet is fine - we have a Telstra 4g dongle, works like a dream, picks up signal easily - but we have a 15ft antenna if we need it. In some remote places I wouldn't expect any service provider to b available, though we see more and more towers going up all over the place.

Santa · Guru

jules47 wrote:
I have had very little trouble with Telstra - never been with another provider - ever - since the first home phone. The internet is fine - we have a Telstra 4g dongle, works like a dream, picks up signal easily - but we have a 15ft antenna if we need it. In some remote places I wouldn't expect any service provider to b available, though we see more and more towers going up all over the place.

"but we have a 15ft antenna if we need it"

Have been contemplating an external antenna Jules, can you provide a few details of what you are using? smile

Joe50 · Guru

I have a 5.7m telescopic fibreglass antenna which I'm thinking is the same one that Jules has (and which I discovered from Yeoeleven's blog in December 2014). It came from Telco Antennas but they don't appear to be selling it now as I couldn't find it on their website www.telcoantennas.com.au and the link Yeoeleven provided now comes up with an error. From memory it was rated only for 3G and Telstra's NextG services, so I'm thinking that with the expansion of 4G services it was dropped from their catalogue. However it works pretty well with 4G, generally boosting the signal level by 1 to 2 bars on my Telstra wireless modem in patchy reception areas.

Joe

jules47 · The Happy Helper

Santa wrote:
jules47 wrote:
I have had very little trouble with Telstra - never been with another provider - ever - since the first home phone. The internet is fine - we have a Telstra 4g dongle, works like a dream, picks up signal easily - but we have a 15ft antenna if we need it. In some remote places I wouldn't expect any service provider to b available, though we see more and more towers going up all over the place.
"but we have a 15ft antenna if we need it"
Have been contemplating an external antenna Jules, can you provide a few details of what you are using?

Hi Santa - presume you have read the post after yours re our antenna - and yes our is the same as Joe50 - haven't needed to use it for a while, but has always worked pretty well. We store it in a poly pipe on the back of MH. Need to have a suitable connection on phone or dongle to connect. Sorry for delay in answering - travelling.

GypsyRose1 · Member

Lots of data and very cheap pre paid rates - Ovo. They use Optus network - when out of range we have pre paid Telstra whose plans are not so good but at least we have cover.

PeterD · Guru

I have found Bigpond to be troublesome at times but when I got through to their to their service number I got things sorted out. I had overheating problems with my 3G modem and it it kept closing down. After a long talk with them I received a new 4G modem gratis.

The only friends and acquaintances I have that have had real problems are those who are a little antagonistic and seem to relish a fight. Maybe you could change your approach to them.

-- Edited by PeterD on Tuesday 8th of November 2016 09:48:32 AM

the rocket · Guru

Hello mark and kerry, we r with telstra.