Paul Wright22 August 2008, 12:03 PM
Telstra has yet again jacked up line rental again, just after announcing a record-breaking company profit of $3.7 billion — up 13.5% from the previous year.
From November this year Homeline Budget will increase from $19.95 to $20.95 and Homeline Complete rises from $26.95 to $27.95 making a large majority of Australians dig deeper in to their pockets to fund a larger record profit for Telstra.
As is if another twelve dollars a year to fund next year's profit increase wasn't enough, all calls to mobiles on both the above mentioned plans and the more expensive line rental plans will be charged per 30 second block of the call, rather then by the second.
As a vast proportion of calls from landlines now terminate to a mobile caller, this new windfall should bring in millions of additional revenue to Telstra. For mobile calls, Telstra will be able to claim another 30 seconds of call revenue, even if you only encroach into a 30 second block by one second.
The charges to basic line rental fees will also affect people who make very few calls or simply keep a landline service for an ADSL based internet service, though iiNet's recent financial results showed a massive upswing in takeup of Naked DSL services that do not require an active phone service on the line in order to have DSL. iiNet's profits are up 50 per cent, and it is signing up 1,000 people a month to Naked DSL.
However, Telstra's habitual price hikes for landlines are also creating good opportunities for other carriers to offer 'landline-replacement' services over mobile networks.
Optus recently launched unlimited calls under the brand 'Yes Timeless', and Three, Optus and Vodafone have all increased the value of their mobile capped plans to coincide with the release of the iPhone. Increasingly, the case to keep a Telstra home phone line is withering.