🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 16 Dec 1997 10:43:55 -0800, aek <aek@gist.net.au> wrote:

>David Stanaway wrote:
>[snip]

[...]

>I'm so glad I didn't now. After finding out what a crock of shit both
>Foxtel and especially, Telstra's internet service is. As a friend of
>mine put it. "Telstra are trying to destroy every ISP who've actually
>built up the net in this country for them. Everyone's worried about
>being stomped all over by telstra. But with a service like that, our
>fears are unfounded. Telstra couldn't run a chook raffle." As I
>understand it, of the 700 odd people signed to telstra's cable service,
>699 of them are trying to get off it. Only the contract is like one of
>those mobile phone contracts. If you want to get rid of it before the
>minimum time period, you have to pay telstra 1200 bucks. So people are
>stuck with it. The word is that as soon as the time period is up, people
>are leaving the cable network in droves. They can't wait to be shot of
>telstra. A feeling that all thinking people who use telecommunications
>share in this country I believe.

The fixed contract is just like any other sweatheart phone deal. They
sell you a phone for a cheap price, and make up the cost in service
charges.  They do spell the terms out clearly in their advertising
(pick up a brochure from Dick Smith, Tandy, etc) or check out their
web site, www.bigpond.com.au/cable

Do you know anybody who does have the service?  10mb onto the
internet, 60KB/s is very good access.   The cable modem box is not
that much different to a cable TV box.  I know someone who is very
heavily into the web and plays doom, quake, etc and loves the no-lag.
He can also forward his mail to himself, work from home, do live video
conferencing with the office, etc.

If Telstra drop the per mb over 100mb download charge, I'll sign up
straight away.  For $40 per month, I get busy lines and share a 128KB
ISDN link with 32 other users, being an average 4KB.  Many other small
ISP's have large number of modems per KB of bandwidth.  For $65, I get
close to 400x the bandwidth with cable.

A 56.6Kb modem costs me $250.  A cable-modem box costs ~$600

>> >It almost appears that false or incorrect advertising may be taking
>> >place.  As one of the lures in the Foxtel advertising is access to the
>> >Telstra Big Pond Cable Modem facility.

You may get a slight discount if you already have Foxtel hooked up.  I
on a pole house built into the side of the cliff.  The road is 6-10m
below the house.   I don't have any power-poles on the street, the
road is a private concrete road shared with the other residents on the
way.   Everything is underground, power, telephones, cable.   If I pay
a flat rate for Foxtel installation and the cable-modem guys
piggy-back on the existing connection, I save several hundred dollars
on the installation cost.

YMMV.  In a best case scenario, you will save money on the
installation cost.  

At the worst case, you will have to pay for another co-axial point
somewhere in the house ~$30.    I doubt if you hook up your computer
right next to your big-screen TV, hi-fi and surround sound setup.

Admittedly, the advertising is confusing, as it seems to imply that
you can get cable internet access for free.

- jimbo