Optus bundles line rental, broadband and "unlimited" calls

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 12 July 2007 08:43

Your IT - Home IT

Optus has launched a bundled offering for consumers and small business comprising line rental, broadband access and unlimited standard local, national and calls to Optus mobiles at prices starting from $69 per month.

The service, dubbed Optus Fusion in the consumer version, is available Via Optus DSLAMs or the Optus HFC network on 24 month contracts. For $69 customers get 2Gbytes of data per month, for $89 7Gbytes and for $99 20Gbytes. Beyond these limits speed is capped to 64kbps.

Until that limit is reached, there are no restrictions on access speeds: users get whatever their particular copper access pair will deliver. Customers on the HFC network can get up to 9.9Mbps.

Very similar plans are available for business customers, except that an ADSL modem is included (as well as a wireless USB adaptor on the $99 plan). However for the business offer the cost of calls to non-Optus mobiles decreases with increasing monthly commitment: 37 cents per minute for the $69 plan, 33 cents for the $89 plan and 30 cents for the $99 plan with a 41 cent flagfall on all calls.

Call charges to non-Optus mobiles are not spelt out in the consumer plan information and finding these costs on the Optus web site is no easy task. iTWire tried for several minutes without success.

A logical extension to the offering would be combined fixed line, broadband and mobile offering, but Optus' managing director consumer, Warren Hardly declined to comment on whether Optus had any plans for such a bundle.

Optus will begin a national advertising campaign for Optus Fusion on Sunday, 15 July 2007 focusing on the theme 'we hear you'. The plans will be offered through Optus sales channels including Optus World and Optus 'yes' Shops.