Telephone Information

Get Connected!

Before moving into a house be it your own or rented, check that there's a telephone line. If the property has a cable system or other phone network then you don't require a Telstra phone line.

To have a telephone line installed or re-connected you can call in at any Telstra shop or speak to their customer service centre on 132200 between 8am and 5pm Monday to Friday. Telstra will then arrange a suitable date and time to connect your phone service. 

If a line already exists (it will do in most cases unless it's a brand new build home that you're moving into) connection costs approx $55. Credit assessments are made for all customers and your billing period may depend on your credit assessment (don't be worried by this, our credit was fine and Tesltra still wanted us to pay monthly rather than quarterly, just because we were new to the country).

Even though you need to have your telephone line installed or re-connected by Telstra, there is no need to go through them for your billing. Other companies are available (although Telstra and Optus dominate) like AAPT, Primus and BT Australasia and, as usual it pays to shop around. Most of the other suppliers have deals but you need to have a think first about what part of your bill will be the highest ie calling internationally.

Mobile Phones

There are plenty of mobile phone shops around as you would expect; Vodaphone, 3, Telstra etc etc in all the major shopping centres. Do what you would normally do and shop around before buying. If you are here for a short visit you can also pick up a local sim card just for calls between you and your partners mobiles which can be useful.

Internet

There are Internet Service Providers in all capital cities and also in many regional cities where the most popular providers are Access One, Bigpond (Telstra), AAPT and Dodo.

Broadband is usually no problem in metropolitan areas.

If you have relatives abroad then Skype is a completely free service where you make telephone calls over the Internet. To do this you just need either headphones or speakers attached to your pc and a microphone. See www.skype.com for more details.

Codes & Numbers

Each state has a two digit code. If you are calling within your own state you do not need to add this code before the number that you are dialling. If you are calling a number in a different state then you dial the number with the state code in front of it.

Australian Capital Territory - 02 / New South Wales - 02 / Northern Territory - 08 / Queensland - 07 / South Australia - 08 / Tasmania - 03 / Victoria - 03 / Western Australia - 08

Toll free numbers - these are prefixed by 1800 but you will still have to pay for this call if you dial from a mobile phone.

Reduced rate numbers - numbers with the prefix 13 or 1300 are usually charged at the local call rate from anywhere in Australia.

Emergency Number - 000 for police, fire, ambulance, coastguard, cave & mountain rescue services. For other emergency numbers (maritime rescue, poison information etc) look at the front of the white pages and yellow pages telephone directories.

Comments

[Bruce Clark]

Dear Perth,

On a recent cruise out of Tahiti, we met a wonderful couple named John and Pat Dingle from Perth. They gave us their address but we lost it. Now I've got a bunch of pictures that I want to send to them and I cannot figure out a way to find their address or phone number on the WWW. Can you do anything to help us? We would be eternally grateful.

Regards, Bruce & Pam