Home entertainment review – bundling stuff

Recently I have made a few diary posts about my retirement, this is my last week of work and there are lots of things to do such as a review of our phone, internet and cable TV services. For the last 30 odd years we have had a Telstra phone service, for 10 years Bigpond cable and for 10 years Foxtel (on Telstra cable). In an effort to stem declining PSTN revenue (loosing phone lines) Telstra is offering a range of bundles, I zoomed in on the Home TV bundles:

I decided the $198 bundle was the best one for us. We go from HomeLine Complete to Reach, I don’t use the phone much but ET makes lots of local 20c calls which are included now along with cheaper STD. We have been on cable Extreme since it became available so no change here with Elite – but we save on power. The Motorola SB1501 and D-Link DI-824VUP will be replaced with a single unit - the Netgear CGD24N (which is suitable for use in Cable 30 areas).

Broadband (Cable), Phone & FOXTEL from Telstra - $198/mth over 24 months

• Convenience of a Single Bill
• Unlimited Local Calls, Messagebank®, Calling Number Display & 3-Way Chat¹
• $0 standard FOXTEL installation
• 24/7 technical support
• Unmetered BigPond TV and BigPond Movies viewing on your computer or your T-Box™²
• Home Network Gateway Modem included³
  
  *  Min cost for 24 months is $4,752 plus usage and $9.95 delivery fee.

I figured it would be better to visit a Telstra T-shop rather than phone the 1800 336 028 – I was wrong.

On Monday 5th we went to the T-shop in The Glen at Glen Waverley, you can read about the experience.
So we gave up on that and next day I rang the 1800 336 028 and got Peter from Adelaide who was good, took one hour to work through everything. I went for the cable self install and Peter was hoping would be sent out on Friday – it was!  ET rang AM to inform no modem, she rang again PM the modem had arrived – well done Telstra.

Installing the new modem:

back soon…to report progress on this.