11 June 2007

Transact came a'knocking...

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What’s the state of competition in the ACT electricity-supply-wise? Transact knocked on my door, knowing that my bundling contract ends soon. The rep candidly stated that the bundling on my gas had been misleading – being a percentage of the supply and not my consumption. Frankly, I hadn’t noticed, but if gas/electricity prices rise sharply, I will start to! Said rep vaguely mentioned that other players are entering the ACT market – and if so, I will jump ship. Transact’s ‘broadband’ has been so slooooow it’s been a joke. If anyone out there knows the state of play, please advise!

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i had a call from energy australia and they seemed to be offering 9% off gas and 5% off electricity if you signed up for 2 yrs (and that is without bundling phone, mobile phone, internet etc)

I need to call them back and check the fine print though. If it is as good as that I will be taking it up.

New grapevine broadband plans that don’t include shaping until you have paid huge overrun charges was also a factor. Check 5 gig plan $130 per gig so $390 in overrun charges before shaping. I am going to debundle and go with velocity.

soulman,

as much as I don’t like Transact, ADSL technology which is what Transact (Phase 2 suburbs) and telstra, Optus etc use in their exchanges is distance limited as well as limited by the quality and guage of the copper line from the exchange to the house. 20megabits is only really possible if you are very, very close to the exchange. The futher the distance the slower it works.

Just the way it is….

Oh, and to paraphrase TransACT’s great “customer service people”. You sign up for a 20mps plan. When asked what speed I would get, she said that 20mps was only theoretical and that my plan may reach that speed. But it won’t be less than 8mps.

I asked what the typical speeds were. She said around 8mps. Maybe less, we don’t guarantee speeds.

I’d swap to TransACT if they didn’t keep screwing me around over swapping from Telstra and Bigpond.

I have an ADSL connection, multiple ports for telephone + ADSL in my home, and an ADSL2 modem/wireless router. I told them this and they quoted me over $250 for installation + $90 for admin costs. I asked what these install and admin costs were for.

The girl at TransACT told me that the admin was to handle swapping me from Telstra and Bigpond to them. She said the install was for the modem and for an installer to come around and install ONE port. Extra costs for extra ports. When I again pointed out that I had existing infrastructure and that it was a lot better than their cheap OEM modems, she said. Well, you don’t need to take the modem, or have out installer put in the port(s), but the charge remains. WTF!!!

Watch out for a pushy Indian guy doorknocking for energy companies. He says he’s there about Government rebates for electricity. I only realised he was from an energy company when he started insisting I go and get my electricity bills for him.

les, I have had little problem with internode. I am currently having a lot of dropouts but that is due to my network having a problem with and IP address.

I am incredibly happy with Internode though. They have been great 🙂

If I go with the others, will I be charged less for electricity than the upcoming price rises from ACTEW?

electricity wise there’s energy australia and country energy if you want to negotiate cheaper rates than actew. it’s worth looking around now there’s options.
and internet wise we’ve never had a problem with internode. they are fast and never break down. we download endlessly with no complaint.

Yep…actually mine seems to be getting slower by the minute….Thought it may have been due to not rebooting for nearly a week, but that doesn’t seem to have helped any either.

opps.. and I meant to say, where as my business connection has always been a full 240k a sec all day every day 24/7..

yah.. in a fantasy world where every node from you to the server you’re on is fast..

but business generally is pretty good with transact. My 2 meg connection at home gets a solid 240k a sec only late at night or early morning.. the rest of the time you’re sharing it with everyone else in the neighborhood downloading upskirt… drops down to about 80-120k..

10 meg MAX, groonsnout.

Mine claims up to 24000kbps (ADSL2), but for the past few days it’s been a tad lethargic (seems there’s a lot of folks having problems across the ACT though)

Transact are a little under the pump at the moment, but as a company that sells through reps, I’d recommend negotiating the best deal you can.

For instance – the first time I signed up here at home I managed to get the full channel package thrown in for free ($17 month value) and 2 years later when I renewed I got them to upgrade my connection to a 2meg connection for $0 extra, a $40/month value. It’s just up to the rep, he just has to fill in a variance on contract form and off you go!

At my business, they just came in the other day and offered us a deal I couldn’t refuse. They knocked 40% off our phone call rates, our line rentals went up slightly ($36 per line from $30 – we have 6) but the internet went from a 2 meg to a 10 meg connection (FAST) for only $59 per month (CHEAP) and we got a grapevine plan out of them with 50 gig per month for only $79/month..

a 10 meg connection with 50 gig a month? .. should just start my own ISP.. hmmn..

anyway – just negotiate people!!! the sales company (VIP sales) is separate from transact themselves and will basically say yes to almost anything to get a sale.

Snout.

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