We’d like you to meet BoB™ – the internet and phone in one.

We’ve spent the last few weeks putting the finishing touches on a new and improved billing platform to make BoB™ available to existing Westnet members… so here he is.

BoB™ is the solution for all your phone and broadband needs, delivering great range as a wireless modem and letting you make calls with a standard phone or thanks to our Netphone service.

For just $9.95/month, BoB™ delivers a range of great features designed to make your life that little bit easier.

Here’s just a few:

• Hassle-free setup
  Just plug him in and he automatically configures himself with your Westnet broadband account and settings. All you need to do is plug the power cord into the wall and the phone cable into the wall socket

• Shiny look
  He has a modern design with black premium glass look and feel, no external antennae and is designed to be put on show in your home.

• Cheap call rates with Netphone
  Talk to friends and family with our great Netphone1 call rates, or get all your local and national calls included with Netphone2.

• Excellent wireless range
  Up to twice the wireless range of standard wireless modems – including speeds of up to 300Mbps within a 100m radius of the BoB™ base.

• A convenient recharge station
  Two USB ports to charge your mobile phone, iPod or any other USB-charge device.

Getting your hands on BoB™

If you’re keen to start enjoying all the benefits of BoB™, you’ll need to migrate to our improved billing platform first. Don’t worry – it’s an easy process you can complete from the comfort of your own home.

Here’s how you can get the ball rolling:

1. Log into your MyAccount page
2. Click the ‘Get BoB™ & Netphone’ option in the ‘Account’ tab. This will direct you to a new page confirming your move onto the new billing platform.
3. Simply follow the steps, then log out of MyAccount for 30 minutes while your account is updated.
4. When you return to MyAccount, you’ll have the option of adding BoB™ and Netphone to your existing service.

If you have any problems along the way, feel free to give our Support Team a call on 1300 786 068 for assistance.

Go on – get a bit of BoB™ in your life!

It’s that time of year again – time to stand up on your virtual soapbox and reveal what tech products you love or loathe as part of the 2010 PC Authority Best Tech Awards.

As one of Australia’s most respected technology reviewers, PC Authority knows how to rate products for quality, reliability and performance – but now they want to hear from you.

As an added incentive, PC Authority has put together a great range of prized valued at $13,000 including a brand new netbook, portable hard drives, computer accessories, one year PC Authority subscriptions and plenty more.

Last year Westnet was Highly Commended in the Mobile Broadband category and was named Best Broadband ISP.

Think about some of the tech gadgets you couldn’t have lived without over the last 12 months and cast your votes now.

Survey closes Tuesday 26th October 2010, so hop to it!

Big news everybody! Westnet has unveiled a brand new suite of broadband plans with eye-catching new quotas. The simplified range of broadband plans makes picking the right plan a piece of cake.

Take a look at our updated residential and business plans to see what’s changed. You’ll notice we’ve significantly increased quotas across the board, including our big new one terabyte plan.

How big is a terabyte?

It’s 1000 gigabytes, which for ADSL1 members is split into 500GB during peak time and 500GB off-peak. In tangible terms, it roughly equates to:

• Around 200 DVD-quality movie downloads from iTunes, or;
• 16,000 hours worth of your favourite MP3 songs, or;
• Browsing half a million websites.

Pretty big, isn’t it? For your average broadband user, a terabyte worth of quota each month means you’ll never have to worry about going over your monthly quota limits.

What happens to my existing plan?

You have the choice of sticking with your existing plan or moving across to a new one. If you’re happy with your current plan, there’s no need to do anything. You’ll stay on the same plan, pay the same amount and have the same quota allowance to play with each month.

Like the look of these new plans?

If you’re keen to take advantage of one of our new plans, switching over is easy. You’ll see we’re now counting uploads as part of the new plans, but with so much additional quota it shouldn’t really matter. If you’re moving to one of our new broadband plans of equal or lesser value, we’ll even waive the $29 downgrade fee that usually applies.

Simply login into MyAccount and make the change yourself, call our friendly Accounts team on 1300 855 006 or email account@westnet.com.au to get the ball rolling.

The Westnet web team has been a very busy bunch recently, working hard to develop a new-look website which will be prettier, simpler and easier to navigate for existing members and those new to Westnet.

This month we’re giving newsletter readers a sneak peek at some of the changes in the pipeline. The aim is to make Westnet’s online environment easier to navigate, with more features you can use every day and less of the ones that aren’t currently being used.

Changes will improve the main Westnet website, with an improved format that makes selecting the right product a breeze. We’re also making-over our members-only area – MyWestnet – with a simplified, easy-to-read format delivering better access to news, products and entertainment.

Making MyWestnet your homepage will soon provide:

• Quality news from home and overseas,  including video news articles
• Previews and access to popular Freezone content like sport, TV and Freezone Kids
• Easy to follow links to important Westnet pages like MyEmail, products and important contact information
• Much more!

We’ll be in touch soon with more information on some of the online improvements in the works. It won’t be long until you’re clicking your way through Westnet’s shinier, sleeker and more use-friendly online home.

Watch this space.

AT Westnet, we value what our members have to say. Our Member Satisfaction Survey gives us a good indication of the things we’re doing right as a company, and the things we could be doing even better.

Twice a year we look to 10,000 Westnet members for valuable feedback we use to improve the way we operate. Just by participating and voicing their opinion on everything from pricing and products to value and customer service, members go in the draw to win a fantastic prize.

This time around there was a LG 50” Full HD Plasma TV up for grabs, won by Kevin Pattle of Bli Bli, Queensland. Kevin sent us an email recently to thank us for the win:

“Thumbs up to Westnet!

It was a nice surprise to receive an email from the Team at Westnet to inform me that I had won a LG 50″ Full HD Plasma TV, valued at $1599.

And all had to do to win this wonderful prize was fill out a simple online Customer Satisfaction Survey.

Having worked in retail I know how important it can be to get customer feed back, so over the years I have been with Westnet I have always filled out the survey’s when they come along, not with the view of winning something but to help the company

After saying that it was great to win such a prize!

I started out on the internet using the old dial-up…and have changed ISP a few times over the years, but after being with Westnet for the past few years and really enjoying their reliable fast speed broadband and great customer service

Thanks to all the team at Westnet.”

We hope you get many hours of entertainment out of your new television, Kevin, and thanks for participating!

Thanks, too, to thousands of members who also took the time to fill out our Customer Satisfaction Survey. We’re going through your responses now in an effort to make your Westnet experience even better.

You might recall our look at the National Broadband Network (NBN) as part of the March Westnet Newsletter, when we gave you a quick rundown on the Federal Government’s plans to provide all Australians with access to super-fast broadband over the next eight years.

If you’ve seen or heard news of the latest developments in the NBN roll out, you’ll be up to date on the first mainland release sites announced last week. Yes, planning and design for the provision of fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) broadband to the first 3000 homes across mainland Australia has begun.

The selected sites are:

• A section of Brunswick, Melbourne
• Inner Townsville, covering parts of Aitkenvale and Mundingburra
• Coastal communities in Minnamurra and Kiama Downs, south of Wollongong
• An area of west Armidale, NSW (including the University of New England)
• The rural town of Willunga in South Australia

Once NBN Co’s design and testing phases are complete, a number of steps in the construction side of things will need to be completed before Internet Service Providers are engaged to bring the service to broadband users.

It’s important to remember the NBN is still in its very early stages, so there is still a great deal of work to be done before householders can make use of the new broadband technology.

Construction work is scheduled to begin in the latter part of this year, which will involve the supply of fibre-optic cabling and active network equipment to bring the fibre ‘to life’. Only then can the system can be adequately tested by broadband retailers and plans put in place to get the end product to consumers.

This first release is aiming for completion at the start of 2011, but you’ll find more information on all the latest NBN developments – including site maps – at the NBN Co website.

If you’ve recently been in an airport, library, shopping centre or local cafe, chances are you’ve been right in the middle of wireless network, often called a WiFi hotspot, without even knowing.

Hotspots are sites offering internet access over a wireless local area network (WLAN), with radio frequencies sending data between computers and devices without the need for a wired connection.

This means when you’re enjoying a coffee or waiting for a flight in an area with a local wireless network, you’re able to go online remotely to check your emails or make sure your plane’s on time.

It all works through the use of a wireless router – a physically wired modem that detects frequencies from laptops or smart phones, relaying the information down the line and to the internet. Most laptops and smart phones have a built in wireless adapter these days, which can automatically sense when you’re in a wireless network.

While some WiFi hotspots require users pay for the service, many locations offer free WiFi to those in the area. (It’s a good way to provide a ‘little something extra’ and encourage them to return.) In this case, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) charges are usually worn by the organisation providing the wireless service, the ‘host’.

It’s important to also keep in mind that download, speed and time restrictions often apply in WiFi hotspots. There’s also the possibility of dropouts, depending on how many people are using the wireless network at the one time.

Offering free WiFi can also prove a valuable marketing tool. Earlier this year the ANZ bank sponsored free WiFi in a number of cafes throughout Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. It encouraged coffee-lovers to go online for free to check emails, browse the web and (of course) go about their online banking.

With laptops and mobile phones getting smaller, faster and smarter – and technology moving in the same direction – people are looking to get online in more places. The beauty of WiFi hotspots is they provide the convenient service people have been asking for, often for free.

Google…Yahoo!…AdWords….MSN….AltaVista.

When you’re looking to find information on any subject, be it the full list of Olympic host cities or the recipe for the perfect winter’s meal – more often than not you head straight to your favourite search engine. But how do they find exactly what you’re looking for with just a few simple words?

An internet search engine lets you explore the World Wide Web for information relating to keywords you type in. To build up its ‘memory’ a search engine continually browses the web using a program called a web crawler. These information machines methodically sift through the countless websites online and add them to a database.

Key words within these websites, such as page titles, headings and image names are then saved in the search engine database to be retrieved when internet users like you and I conduct future searches. For example, if you’re looking for as much information as possible on Westnet, your search engine trawls through its database for websites relating to or featuring the word Westnet.

The order in which the results appear (a list sometimes running into the millions) is determined by a range of factors like relevance and popularity – even the history of the web page itself.

Each search engine will employ different methods to decide the way your list of search results is returned. In an effort to narrow your search, try searching your key words with or without inverted commas –  see if you can notice a difference!

Tip: Once you’ve found the exact website you’re looking for, add the page to your “Favourites” or bookmark it so you can return to the page later without searching again.