Telstra introduce bucket plans for PSTN

Stuart Corner
Friday, 23 June 2006 08:13

Your IT - Home IT

Faced with increasing competition from cellphone bucket plans, and from fixed line bucket plans recently launched by Primus and by Optus, Telstra has launched three plans bundling line rental, fixed price or unlimited local calls and fixed price or unlimited STD calls.

Telstra revealed in April that it was planning a capped offering to select fixed line customers, a move widely seen as Telstra's first specific move against the growing army of VoIP service providers offering cheap calls.

That service, which Telstra says has proved very popular, will now be launched as HomeLine Ultimate along with HomeLine Reach and HomeLine Together. All provide untimed STD calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week. With the HomeLine Ultimate plan, customers simply pay a single monthly fee which includes all local and STD fixed line calls.

HomeLine Together costs Telstra $69.90 per month and includes line rental, unlimited local calls and STD calls at $0.75 each. The $4.90 per month HomeLine Reach plan has local calls at $0.10 each and STD calls at $1.00 per minute. HomeLine Ultimate costs $89.90 per month with unlimited local and STD calls.

Telstra says it will also adjust some aspects of its existing HomeLine plans. These price changes take effect on 1 August 2006. The new plans will be available from 26 June.

Primus last month launched three plans for customers bundling their phone service with Primus' Internet access: a $15 plan that includes $50 worth of local, national, fixed to mobile and international calls; a $35 plan that includes $120 worth of calls; a $65 plan that includes $250 worth of calls.

Under the Optus $59 HomeOne plan, customers pay $59 a month and receive "competitively-priced" local, mobile and national calls up to the value of $59. For customers with higher telephony usage there is a $99 HomeOne plan which includes $150 worth of local and national calls and calls to mobile, presumably at the same "competitively-priced" rates. Both plans include line rental and require a 12 month contract.