New ISP

It feels great to be free from Telstra broadband. We've now switched to TPG.

Despite Telstra Bigpond being the dominant provider in Australia, they seem to offer the worst deals. You can't fault their system reliability, but you certainly pay for it. I was paying around $100/month for 25GB - now with TPG I pay $60/month for 75GB.

The straw that broke the camel's back was when Telstra decided to get rid of personal web pages. Or rather, you could start paying an additional $10/month for the priviledge. All the other providers still allow you a small site for free. I have a site that shows my family genealogy, and I want to keep it to share it with others and to allow other family members to find me. It has worked well for me for many years.

So finally Telstra forced me to look for an alternative supplier. It seems that they are more interested in getting new customers rather than keeping their existing ones. I was genuinely surprised when I called to cancel my service and the operator made no attempt to get me to change my mind. Maybe I was just one of thousands.

But let me tell you, it's hard being without the Internet for a week. It's like having no electricity or no TV. Fortunately Matt's iPhone can be used as a modem, so Karyn could plug it into her laptop to check her email. Lucky Matt has a 1GB download allowance for his phone.

Karyn rang me at work on Monday with joy in her voice as she said that all 3 lights were green on the modem, meaning that we were back online.