Download: Travelling overseas with a mobile phone50.95 KB

Download: Travelling overseas with a mobile phone346.11 KB

If you are travelling overseas and would like to use your mobile phone you have a number of options to consider.

Read more: Travelling overseas with a mobile phone

The sun is shining, cricket commentators are beginning to take over the airwaves, and barbeques across the country are being scrapped and cleaned ready for the first snags of the season; summer is coming to Australia and with it one of the nation’s busiest travel periods. Whether we’re road tripping across the country or travelling half-way across the world, many of us will find ourselves relying heavily on our phones during the summer holiday season. To help you make the most of your travel and avoid ruining your post-holiday glow with a nasty bill shock, we’ve curated our top tech travel tips.

Read more: Top Travel Tips: How to avoid bill shock this holiday season

Download: What affects the quality of my broadband brochure40.75 KB

Download: What affects the quality of my broadband brochure404.28 KB

Hello...hello...can you hear me..?

Is poor internet preventing you from talking with family and friends, watching your favourite shows or uploading photos of your recent adventures to share with everybody?

Read more: What affects the quality of my broadband?

Sky Muster and Sky Muster Plus (or nbn’s Satellite Services) provide fast broadband coverage to around 430,000 homes and small businesses across regional, rural and remote Australia and its islands.

The 3rd edition of this extensive, easy to understand guide is now available for download in PDF and Word formats.

It covers topics such as:

Read more: Satellite - Sky Muster Guide 3rd Edition

If you live in an urban area, it is likely that your home phone services will no longer be provided on Telstra’s network. Instead they will be provided over the NBN.

This means that even if you only want to keep your home phone service, you still need to connect to the NBN.

Read more: Connecting and Using Your NBN Home Phone Service

Once you have chosen an NBN home internet plan, your telco will organise to have your home connected to the NBN.

Getting connected may differ depending on your home and the area you live in.

Read more: Connecting and Troubleshooting Your NBN Home Internet Service

The National Broadband Network (NBN) is Australia’s wholesale internet provider. This means that when you sign up for an NBN plan, you will need to order the service through a telco (e.g. Telstra, Optus, Vodafone etc.).

Read more: Choosing an Internet Plan

Data and internet use

Track your usage

To avoid excess usage charges or running out of data, it’s important to know how much data is included with your phone plan. Once you know your data allowance, you can set a usage limit on your mobile phone. This can be done in your phone’s settings.

Read more: Using Your Mobile Phone

Prepaid or postpaid?

There are a wide range of pre and postpaid plans available on the market. The main benefit of using postpaid is that you can buy a new phone with these plans, while prepaid plans may be better if you want to avoid unexpected extra charges and already have a mobile phone.

Read more: Choosing a Mobile Plan

If you are unhappy with the service you are receiving from your telco, you can make a complaint.

How to make a complaint

Your telco will have information on their website on how to make a complaint. The steps below can help make it easier:

1. Clearly state at the beginning that you are making a complaint and explain what it’s about.
   
   
2. Save any emails and keep details of phone conversations (date, time and person you spoke with). If you use live chat on your telco’s website, make sure you save a copy of the conversation. You can do this by taking a screenshot on your computer, phone, or tablet. You can also take a photo of the conversation, or print it out.

Read more: Making a Complaint

Sometimes people are unable to pay their bills due to illness, unemployment, experiences of domestic or family violence, or other changes in circumstances.

It’s important not to ignore your bill, because there is help available.

Read more: Can’t Afford My Bill

Many companies offer gift cards as a convenient way for customers to purchase apps, books, movies, and video games from app stores. But as convenient as gift cards are for consumers, they are just as attractive to scammers who present them as legitimate payment methods in sophisticated scam scenarios.

Don’t be misled by these scams. Gift cards can only be used at the company they were issued for, not as payments for other goods, services, bills, or fines. If anyone ever asks you to pay them for anything in gift cards, it’s a scam. You should never be asked to share your gift card codes with anyone.

Read more: Protecting Yourself from Gift Card Scams