Australian phone costs second in world - PBX Info :: Your Free PBX, PABX and Telephone Information Resource

**rixride** · 08-28-2005, 11:21 PM

Can our friends down under use vonage or other voip home service yet?

Quote:

From:
By David Uren

August 29, 2005

AUSTRALIANS pay more for their home telephone services than anywhere else in the developed world, apart from Hungary.
The Paris-based OECD has estimated that a typical set of home telephone services, including calls to mobiles and international numbers, costs the equivalent of $975 a year in Australia.

That is 50 per cent more than is paid in Britain and 25 per cent higher than the OECD average.

Head of the Australian Telecommunications Users Group, Rosemary Sinclair, attributed Australia's ranking to increases in telephone rental charges and the high cost of calling mobile telephones from fixed lines.

"Significant increases in line rental have been authorised by the price-control regime over the last three years," she said.

These rental increases had been intended to attract competitors to Telstra, but this had not happened.

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She said the residential fixed-line network was where Telstra's dominance continued unabated.

A spokesman for Telstra said: "We are one company in a competitive market, so I don't see why it's Telstra's place to comment."

The other area where prices were increasing was for calls from fixed lines to mobiles, Ms Sinclair said.

"With 16 million mobiles and 10 million fixed lines, this is growing as a percentage of people's telephone bills," she said.

Mobile operators charge 21c for terminating mobile telephone calls, almost double the price the ACCC says should be charged and as much as three times the actual cost, according to analysts cited by Ms Sinclair.

But it is call costs that mark Australia out from the rest of the world.

Excluding calls to mobiles and international calls, residential telephone costs in Australia average $396 a year, the highest in the developed world.

Including calls to mobile and international calls, costs rise to $650, higher than anywhere but Turkey.

Phone charges for business in Australia are also higher than in most other countries, with only Hungary, Japan and Mexico costing more.

Australia is closer to the middle of the pack in the cost of mobile phone calls, with an average user spending just under $800 a year

MikeyT · 09-19-2005, 06:52 PM

Does anyone know what the dialing string # from Australia to a US 800 # is, or how it is dialed?

**rixride** · 09-19-2005, 09:23 PM

I don't believe you can.

I do believe on the other hand you can download Skype, and dial 800#'s from there. I know you can dial it without paying the monthly services so its part of skype.

Try it out.

Magpye · 09-19-2005, 11:11 PM

Currently the two main ones are Skype and Engin, but nothing approaching the integration Vonage has provided.

As for dialling US 1800 numbers, you can only do that if it has been set up in Australia (or any other originating country) as well and forwarded to the US.

MikeyT · 09-20-2005, 06:31 AM

I thought so...about dialing direct that is...just wanted to make sure.
Thanks for the responses, much appreciated

Spitfire66 · 09-21-2005, 02:55 AM

I have excellent results calling fron Europe to Australia via Skype - quality is super

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