for it they told me it was a necessary part of the installation anyway. That added $20 to the advertised monthly cost of the service. Maybe I was gullible.
Anyway, when I rang and queried the whole deal 18 months later (slow of me, I know) I was told the handset could go but I still had to have the line because it serviced the modem and would have to continue to pay $10 per month for that. This means that the advertised monthly cost of the broadband service was shonky and it was dearer than people were being told.
That got up my nose so I recently changed over to Unwired. Saves money, is an excellent service and I can take the modem elsewhere where reception exists and use it with my laptop. I fool around with 3 computers, all running Windows alongside Linux and the Unwired service is a trouble free installation even a beginner can understand. A router means all 3 computers share the modem without cable swapping which I was doing with Optus gear.So I am in front.
I apologise for this long reply but I warn anyone considering Optus Broadband to check that they are actually getting the service at the advertised price with no non-essential add-ons that are a disguised cost.
Maybe the pricing is more transparent now - I hope so.
John.
Grant Parnell wrote:
On Wed, 6 Apr 2005, john gibbons wrote:
I can give you some feedback. I was with Optus cable broadband for 2 years and just recently discontinued to transfer to Unwired. Glad I did. An excellent service and cheaper.
Just for fun I have run Fedora 3 and other distros on Optus but also experienced a lot of headaches at times getting some of them configured. I never succeeded with some. Fedora 3, Red Hat 9 and Mandrake 10 gave no trouble with Mandrake and Red Hat actually connecting themselves up with virtually no help from me. I am still a beginner with Linux and am not a text man - quite confined to GUI clicking. So you can believe me when I say something is easy to set up.
BUT - and here is my gripe with Optus Broadband. It is advertised at one basic fee for 1 gig but they do not mention the compulsory rent for the telephone line they put in and, in my case, a spare telephone I did not want. So it actually cost $20 per over the quoted fee. But maybe you will not get caught as I did.
Are you talking about Cable or ADSL? The subject is about cable, the stuff you get the TV through. I am aware that they can actually provide telephone over the cable though.
I've got a customer that's got 2 optus cable links at different sites, neither of them are a problem. The trick is if you switch ethernet cards or plug it into a different machine pull the plug on the cable modem to reset it. It will only talk to the first MAC address it sees. I spent half an hour figuring that out. (Same for i-burst ethernet).
-- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
