Bought a house do I need a phone line for ADSL?

Just bought a house and will be moving into it in May. But before doing so just wanted to hopefully get the internet sorted out first. Am looking at getting ADSL 2+ with perhaps a bundle from iinet, TPG, internode, exetel or Belong. But before doing so I'm assuming that I will need to set up a phone line? How do I know if a phone line has been set up already? And how do I actually get a phone number?

Sorry if this sounds stupid but we've actually always ported our home phone number so completely in the dark when it comes to setting a new one up.

Comments

  • I'm no expert so others might give a better answer, but if you don't want a home phone, you can get Naked ADSL which doesn't require a phone line at all. It's usually a little bit more than traditional ADSL, around $10 a month at the providers I've been with, but it's better than paying $22 for line rental if you have no use for the home phone. Check out the bundle prices with a home phone line against just having naked ADSL without a phone line and see what works out best, depending on the bundle deal it might be worth it for you to still get one.

    If you do want a phone line, I'd leave that to setting it up to the provider you go with and talk to them when purchasing your bundle.

  • +1

    Yes you need a phone line for ADSL2+.
    You don't need a phone line if you get naked ADSL.
    Using TPG's pricing plan, ADSL2+ with a phone line for $59.99 unlimited is much better value than its naked plan $59.99 for 200GB. I recommend TPG, been using it for 3 years. One of the cheapest in the market.Customer service is average though.You need to check if you have active/inactive phone line. When I did it, I just called TPG and they walked me through the process. I had an installed phone line which was inactive, which is most likely the case when you buy houses as the previous owner disconnects the line.
    http://www.tpg.com.au/products_services/home-phone-bundle

    • Thanks, TPG does look like their pretty good value at the moment so am leaning towards them. It seems the majority of ADSL bundles (including line rental) are around the $50-$60 mark.

      • No worries. You can put your address into this TPG coverage website to get a rough estimate of your internet speed, The closer your 'cable distance' is from the telephone exchange, the faster your speed is. For example, TPG's ADSL2+ has speeds UP TO 20Mb/s. Depending on your modem type, copper wire connections, you may get the maximum speed. My cable distance is 400m and my modem does receive the maximum speed.
        http://www.tpg.com.au/maps/

        I don't recommend buying their modem at $99 unless you can get it for free, because you can definitely get something better at MSY.Look at the ozbargain 'internet' forum or whirlpool for modem recs Also they sell telephone splitters for $25 which is a joke, it costs around $6 or so in MSY, or free when you buy a modem/router.

        • If I can get it for free it would definitely make TPG my first choice. It seems like all the ISP providers here will generally charge a fee for activation plus another fee if you want a modem from them. Hopefully, someone comes out with a good deal in the next month.

    • Really? when i got Naked ADSL, i think i had to have a number 1st for them to connect it to. it was a few years ago so may have changed but it went something like this:
      1. setup home line
      2. got TPG to setup Naked ADSL on the line
      3. Cancelled home line

  • Also check out exetel.com.au prices. I am paying $29.95 / month and this includes phone line rental. Its an old plan but I think they have something like $39.99 plan with line rental and 500gb data. Even if you exceed your data limit, you don't get charged extra and lately I did not notice being throttled/slowed down.

    • exetel: worst isp ever. they jacked up their prices too

  • Hey OP, Belong has an offer that gets you free line installation as detailed here: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/184570

    Be quick though, offer expires in 2 days!

    • Awesome thanks for that. In regards to that deal. so free installation plus only $10 for the modem. Seems like a pretty good deal. However, their overall plans don't seem that good value. I have read that they provide pretty good service though.

      • If you decide you are not happy, you can move to any other provider after a month… there's no lock in!!

  • Phone line connection from street to house will normally cost $300 approx, as the builder normally only provides a pull cable from the pit to the house if this is a new build.

  • Just wondering, did you buy a brand new house? Cause I was thinking new houses should have fibre connection, but I could be wrong.

    • no, I didn't. Don't think I can sign up with Belong as I don't move in till the start of May and Belong won't allow me to postpone the installation of their service.

  • I just built a new home. The phone cable is currently coiled up in the corner of my property waiting for a Telstra technician to hook it up so that my ADSL2+ will work. I booked the connection back on Feb 20th…TPG said "TAH DAH!" on Feb 27th…I said "try again"…and it's been not much at all since then. I've given up on any form of reasonable service so got an Optus mobile SIM with 500MB of data per day for $2 per day and installed it in an old Samsung S3 I had lying around and set that up as a wifi hotspot. Works fine.

    As with all things utility…expect nothing…it's harder to be disappointed that way.

  • Did you buy a new house or is it an old one?

    If it's an old place it probably has a physical line and you need to just get them to set you up an account.

    But if it's new (or pretty new) you'll probably have to pay $300 for a connection.

    Or you could be really unlucky like me. I just bought into a brand new complex. It seems that the complex isn't wired up for Telstra at all and our only choice was Transact cable. Which isn't necessarily bad except that it's twice the price.

  • Both ADSL & DSL need a phone line, just with ADSL you can use the phone too.

    Cable runs off foxtel/optus tv, so to use that you'd need the large cable off the street

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