I answered the phone and was greeted with the standard telesales greeting that puts you off immediately, "Good evening! How are you tonight?"

"I'm OK, you?"

"This is just a courtesy call to let you know about some new innovations in the telephone industry that can save you a lot of money on your telephone bill. Would you be interested in finding out how much money you can save on your line rental?"

We've had a stable VoIP setup for quite a while now, but it's always good to get things tested every now and then. I was game if he was!

We discussed our personal opinions of Telstra for a bit then he asked what I spent each month on the Telstra bill. I thought it couldn't be over $30 as I knew we hadn't budgeted over that amount.

"How much line rental is that?" he asked.

I couldn't really remember, but I didn't think it was over $20.

"We could do your line rental for $35?"

"But that's more than I'm paying now??" I was a bit confused?

"Let me find out how much we can actually save you, do you mind holding on??"

I didn't mind, I could sense blood.

The manager came on and said "You don't have a high regard for Telstra?"

I said I didn't.

He said it would be much better to have a Telstra bill to work from, and he didn't mind waiting. So I went to find a bill... which I eventually found.

"I found the last one: $73."

"That's a significant amount: you're probably paying too much line rental?"

"That's $73 for the quarter. About $24 per month"

"Really? How much line rental are you paying?"

"We're on the budget plan... (checking the bill...) ...$59 for the quarter, which is just less than $20 for the month"

Sounding just a little flat, "You don't make many calls then?"

"No. We use a VoIP setup."

"That's a very good deal then. Thanks for your time. Good night" Click!!

I guess that means that we're on the right track?? What is disappointing was that I got the distinct feeling that they would have been happy to make as much profit as possible by just underselling Telstra. It felt like they were preying on the unwary?

I gotta say though (I didn't tell them first ) that I'm pretty happy with my VoIP setup:

• PennyTel: great for all our Australian (longer than 9 minutes), Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand calls (they charge 9 cents untimed) and mobile calls.
• FreeCall: great for all short Australian calls (they charge 1 cent per minute)
• SMS Country: we don't have a mobile phone, but SMS Country gives us the ability to send and receive SMS with full email integration... all for less than 5 cents per SMS!!). They offer referral points too. 

Actually, PennyTel has a current promotion to send 100 free SMS to Australian phones each month for FREE!! This is great when I don't need a reply.

VoIP still suffers from a few little glitches now and then, but considering the massive cost savings, we're happy to wear them. The quality is generally pretty good (and that's just on a 512 connection without QoS)... and my wife is able to call home to New Zealand as many times a week and for as long as she likes for only 9 cents a call!! Happy? We're laughing!!