Current Specials

We believe that the pricing for our products and services are the best available from any competing provider in Australia. The customer benefits together with the high levels of service reliability make a compelling case for any customer to select Exetel as its service provider. Should you still be considering another service provider, perhaps you might like to consider that as well as saving yourself money by choosing Exetel you will also help save Australia's most endangered flora and fauna, make a contribution to green house gas reduction and provide more opportunities for people in the third world. If you have time, click on the icons below to see how you can also help make the world a better place while saving yourself some of your hard to come by dollars.


Exetel HSPA Broadband Services (05/05/09)

What is HSPA?

HSPA or High-Speed Packet Access is the technical term for “mobile broadband”. It means you don’t need a physical line to connect to the internet or email as it connects over the airwaves. You will still need a connection medium and you can do this via:

A USB stick which connects to your laptop or PC
The Exetel HSPA service requires the use of an Optus supplied 'sim' plus a USB device to connect the 'sim' to the Optus/Exetel network. Exetel provides both the 'sim' and the necessary USB device for a once only charge of $145.00. If you already have a suitable ‘modem’ then you can buy the sim only for a once only charge of $25.00 including delivery.
A 3G mobile handset
If you have a mobile telephone handset (such as an Apple iPhone or one of the many other 3G mobile handsets) you wish to connect to the Exetel/Optus HSPA service, and are confident in your technical abilities to ensure this works, there is no need to use a USB device and the only once only charge is $25.00 for the supply of the required 'sim'.
A list of compatible mobile handsets can be found by clicking the side bar link 'Compatibility List' that can be found on the left hand side of this page.
HSPA Network
Exetel provides HSPA services using the Optus mobile network. The current maps of all parts of Australia can be found by clicking on the 'Coverage Maps' (sidebar link on the left hand side of this page)
HSPA Service Speeds
While the theoretical speed possible is 7.2 mbps down, speeds are dependent on many factors but it is likely that most users will get practical download speeds of 2 mbps - 2.5 mbps in a location with 'perfect' conditions. Many Exetel/Optus HSPA users are experiencing speeds greater than these, 4.5 mbps in North Sydney for instance. These speeds will become more common and more widespread as Optus progressively upgrades the network to 7.2 mbps down and over 1 mbps up across Australia.

Advantages of HSPA

As a mobile data service
You can travel anywhere within coverage and have constant access to the internet and email. Exetel's HSPA via Optus service is an ideal mobile data service that combines Optus' wide geographic coverage with Exetel's industry leading very low pay for what you use data rates. With no contract and no 'included usage' plans a person who needs access to the internet via their laptop in different geographic locations at the lowest possible cost will find it difficult to beat an Optus/Exetel HSPA service.
As a dial up internet replacement Service
Exetel's HSPA via Optus service is an ideal replacement for a dial up internet service offering much higher speeds (subject to location) and, for people who download less than 1 gigabyte a month (practically all dial up users) Exetel’s HSPA service is almost certainly going to be lower cost than a current dial up service with the additional advantage of no dial up telephone call costs and, if required, no telephone line rental charge.
As an ADSL replacement/substitute service
The major advantage of HSPA is that it requires no telephone line rental and a customer is charged, in Exetel's case, only for the actual data transmitted plus a small monthly service fee.
However, the downloads are expensive compared to Exetel's, and other ISPs ADSL plans at levels above 1 gigabyte a month of usage and therefore HSPA, at least at this time in its development is not suitable for people who want large downloads (it definitely is NOT suitable for people who use P2P) or who want to play low latency sensitive games.
For a customer who wants a broadband internet service for browsing, email and limited file downloading with total monthly downloads and uploads of less than 1,000 megabytes (approximately 50% of all users of Exetel's ADSL broadband services) then it is a very low cost service (less than $20.00 a month) that has the ability to further lower a households communication costs via VoIP (which requires no telephone line and which provides Australia wide wire line calls at 10 cents per call).
Further…

For first hand views of speeds and how VoIP and various games perform and to ask specific questions you might like to join the discussions here:

http://forum.exetel.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=308&t=28354