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When cable came to urban areas of Australia in the 1990s, a brave new world of watching a heck of a lot of TV began to develop in many households. After the turn of the century, however, those cable lines running up and down the street became mighty handy for another purpose: broadband internet. Read on for a description of what bundling is, and what bundling means for cable users.
What is cable bundling? Internet, television and phone packages
Many ISPs offer what they call bundling. Basically, they can provide you with a certain Internet speed and take care of your phone line rental costs for a set price. Often, this covers things such as local calls made as well. However, if you live in an area that has had cable Internet installed, you could be in for the next bundle option; cable TV. Most 'urban' areas in Australia have had cable installed at some point. First up, you'll need to read Broadband Buddy's article about the pros and cons. If it suits you (and there's no major reason it shouldn't), you could be in for some cut-price TV, with phone and mobile costs thrown in. But is it really worth the money?
Which Internet service providers offer cable bundling?
The only two ISPs in Australia who offer cable bundling packages are Big Pond and Telstra. If you were hoping on going with one of the smaller players, you're out of luck.
Cable Internet bundling - is it worth it? Internet speed, download limits and associated costs
When the cable is initially connected to your house, you need to pay for this work; so if it's already done, that's one thing out of the way.
Let's have a look at a couple of the deals regarding bundling. Optus's "Power" plan, a hefty set up with speeds of 9,900/256 kilobits per second (kbit/s) and a 40 GB download limit, will cost $69.95* a month with no connection fees (as long as you take a 24 moth contract, not a 12 month contract). If you go with the TV bundle, however, you're looking at $101.90* per month. You could go much lower than this, with their "Sprint" package, with speeds of 9,900/128 kbit/s and a 4 GB download limit, costing just $71.90* per month with bundled cable TV. Telstra have similar deals, but these are just tasters. Check out the Telstra and Big Pond websites for differing deals, as a range of speeds and download limits are available.
Now, with Foxtel PAY TV, the cheapest ongoing packages start at $36.95* a month, and continue upwards depending on the amount of channels you want to watch. This doesn't include the installation costs either. So, if you were to take the cheapest Foxtel package on its own, and then figure in installation costs, the only way you could also get internet for a similar price would be if you were to get a slow, bottom of the range deal, with a tiny download limit.
Combining Internet, TV and telephone: is it for you?
In short, bundling your cable internet and TV does often work out a little cheaper, but not a great deal cheaper: it depends on the speed of internet you require as well as the amount of TV channels you want/will actually watch. If you already have cable TV and want to use it for broadband Internet as well, it's a great idea. If you have ADSL or wireless, well, you could argue there's far more content on the web than on cable TV these days anyway. However, if you NEED cable TV as much as you NEED access to broadband, then bundling it all together will save you some dollars.
* Prices subject to change. Check with the provider.
