Comparison Chart

Telstra

Optus

Vodafone

We offer Optus and Vodafone plans far cheaper than what is available through either provider directly. You can combine your mobile and landline services on to a single bill from Business Telecom and have just one point of contact for all of your telecommunications needs.

Call 1300 721 100 to speak to one of out consultants.

Transcript

Reduce communication and operating costs with external and internal IP lines. With a Panasonic IP PBX installed at your main office there is no need to incur the cost of installing an additional PBX when you open a secondary location. All you need to do is add phones and terminals and your able to make both internal and external calls through the PBX located at the main office.

Use our Dect wireless handsets and you can also avoid additional wiring or installation costs. Even if you secondary location is in a high rise building or located in a heavily congested area there is no need to worry about blocked signals or poor reception, just add Panasonic cell stations wherever you want to use your phones. A Panasonic IP PBX with wireless Dect handsets is also the ideal solution for short term applications like construction sites or event halls. Best of all its easy to expand your network and system as your needs change. Now you can improve communications while minimizing equipment and installation expenses with a Panasonic business communications system.

Communicate, Collaborate, Create…

With Panasonic the global leader in phone systems for small to mid-sized businesses.

Skype, like most large service providers, charge a connection fee (flag fall) for each call that is made. This is charged as soon as the person you are dialing (or their voice mail) answers the call. Consumers often look at the call rate per minute as the main factor in deciding which provider to choose but often forget to check the call connection costs.

Skype connection fees (Flag fall) in AUD

Skype per minute call rates in AUD

For convenience purposes Skype can be great and it is still the most widely used VoIP platform in the world. As a landline replacement in 2013? Definitely not. Skype’s pricing for calls within Australia is only marginally better than Telstra and we all know that Telstra is the one of the most expensive providers in Australia.

Business Telecom is a leading telecommunications service provider catering to small business.

See the comparison chart here.

Still convinced skype is the way to go? For cordless phones we recommend First choice phones.

Choosing a provider

The 2 main things that affect how good your signal will be are your distance from the mobile phone tower and the technology your phone is using to connect to the tower.

With this in mind, it´s important to have look at the coverage maps for the major providers and make sure they actually have towers in your area. Telstra´s NextG network has the most extensive coverage map due to the number of towers and the distance the NextG technology allows the user to be from the tower. Currently Telstra´s NextG network is the network of choice when it comes to signal in remote country areas.

Choosing a handset

If you are going to use the NextG network, to take full advantage of the 850MHz band you need to buy a compatible handset. If you are after basic functionality the Nokia 6120 classic is the phone of choice for many people living in Outback Australia. The most highly recommended smart phone is which I can attest to myself is the Nokia E71. Other models which people have found reliable and to have good signal strength are the N95, N97.

Whether your a single mum or a multinational company, you should always be looking at ways to reduce your operational costs, especially if it can be done without lowering your standard of living in any way.

Analyze your current phone bill

Residential phone bills can be broken up in to the following sections:

At the time of writting (July 2012) I believe the best possible deal for the average Australian household is with TPG. Their service may not be the best but for the cost saving it seems like a worthy trade off.

For a extra $10 a month for the BigTalk bundle, you get included unlimited local calls, STD calls and 100 minutes of international calls. If you are planning to call mobiles from your landline, this may not be the plan for you. Mobile calls are charged at $0.39 per minute and incur a $0.39c connection fee. This is very expensive and would quickly blow any savings you have made by choosing TPG.

Line rental (service and equiptment) charges are unavoidable. Telstra owns the infrastructure in Australia, the ACCC sets the wholesale pricing that the other providers must pay to use this infrastructure. Since all providers must pay line rental, it stands to reason that they will be passing this cost to you somehow.

For a Telstra dialtone (can come from any provider which uses the Telstra network) you can expect to pay $31.77 + GST for a business landline and $27.22 + GST for a residential landline. These are the standard rates at the time of writing.

Local calls usually make up a very small part of the phone bill and so should not be taken too heavily in to consideration when looking for a new provider.

If you have recently changed provider but are still getting billed by the previous company for your calls then you may need to have the ARS / LCR programming removed by a telephone technician. We provide this service in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne on the complete range of Panasonic, Samsung & NEC phone systems.

There are hundreds of telephone service providers in Australia catering to the small to medium sized business sector. Use this knowledge to your advantage and make sure you get the best deal. The internet is your best friend. Many companies advertise their call rates on their website. (although they can be difficult to find at times).

We have taken the Telstra and Optus call rates from their websites and put them in an easy to read format:

Tips

Avoid bundling

Bundling hardware and phone calls was very popular a few years ago. Most finance companies these days wont touch these types of deals anymore in part due to questionable business models which came in to light after the ACCC did an investigation on the largest phone system company – Clear Telecoms. Phone system bundle deals are reminiscent of the sub prime crash in the US. Would you like a new phone system sir? Yes but actually I can’t afford it…no problem sir, sign here please etc.

Bundle deals usually require a long contract of 4 years or more. In that time call costs are likely to drop further, line rental reduced as more an more business convert to VoIP based solutions. Ultimatley locking yourself in to a contract with these companies is just silly.

Business Plans

Residential Plans

These plans almost never makes sense for business. Here’s why: A typical small business usually has more than 3 phone lines. If you are getting unlimited local calls then you are also paying a higher line rental. Multiply this higher line rental across all of your phone lines and you soon realize you would have to be making hundreds of local calls for there to be any saving.

Telstra Unlimited Local Calls – Residential

Telstra has 3 residential phone plans that offer unlimited local calls. The cheapest plan has a line rental of $49.90 which is about $22 more than the standard residential line rental rate. You would need to be making well in excess of 110 local calls per month for this plan to make any sense.

Optus Unlimited Local Calls – Residential

Optus do not currently offer an unlimited local call plan to residential customers

TPG Unlimited Local Calls – Residential

TPG offer an unlimited local call option for an additional $5.00 monthly. This service is only available to residential customers. The best thing about this plan is that it also includes calls to 13 and 1300 numbers which are normally charged at $0.30 per call.

Telstra Unlimited Local Calls – Business

Telstra do offer unlimited local calls although it will add $30 to the standard line rental – PER LINE! Do the math: if you have 4 phone lines then this plan will be costing you $120 more per month. That’s 600 local calls per month just to break even.

Optus Unlimited Local Calls – Business

Optus offer a plan to small business which gives free local calls for a higher line rental of $45. This is about $20 more than their standard business line rental. Lets say you had a small business with 4 phone lines – you would need to be making 400 local calls a month for this plan to work for you.

PBX was the name given to the first systems used to replace the switchboard operators that manually connected calls by physically patching a phone call through to a certain extension.

Sometime after large organizations started to adopt the Automated systems, smaller, more flexible systems were designed to accommodate the needs of the small business market. These smaller systems were initially called “multi line key systems” but due to the similarities between the two, the name PBX was often used for both. Traditionally a PBX system had an operator who would answer calls on a large console and transfer them out to the appropriate extension. Because the multi line key systems were design for small businesses, many without a full time operator, lines needed to be able to be answered on any of the handsets.

IP PBX

The term PBX was quietly disappearing until it was revived by the latest wave of VoIP technology. Telecommunications equipment manufacturers who where designing the new VoIP Capable systems were eager to distinguish by name their new products from the existing telephone system models. The IP PBX was born. Almost all phone systems released post 2008 are in fact IP PBX systems or at least have IP based functionality. The largest small business phone system manufactures such as Panasonic, Samsung, NEC and Avaya have all produced IP based PBX systems for at least the last 5-10 years under various names such as Panasonic’s Hybrid IP PBX.

Hosted PBX

A hosted PBX is a new trend developing in countries where high speed broadband is readily available. Using a hosted PBX removes the need for the end user to purchase an entire system which would need to be installed and maintained by a qualified phone technician. Instead, the IP handsets can be plugged in to an existing data network and connect to the hosted PBX via the internet. This PBX is usually shared between hundreds or even thousands of businesses and is managed by the company providing the service.

Open Source PBX Platforms

In 1999 a company called Digium released an open source software PBX called Asterisk designed to be installed on standard PC hardware. This system was responsible for completely changing the face of the PBX market. Overnight thousands of new phone companies came in to existence all over the world run by IT professionals eager to get in to the telecommunications space. Many of the major PBX companies have only added VoIP capabilities to their systems in response to the Asterisk software. Many hosted PBX and VoIP providers though out the world are using the Asterisk platform.

Business Line Choice

Business Line Complete

Business Line Choice – Details

Business Line Complete – Details

Rates taken from the Telstra website on 26/04/2011

Compare Telstra to Business Telecom

Contact Us to get these rates.