2012 The cost of staying in contact

Our phone and communications expenditure is high.  Can we do anything about it.
We have
Fixed line Phone Typically $100 permonth  currently spending between $65 - $90 on actual phone calls
Internet TPG  ADSL2+ 200GBplan typically using 20GB.  Fixed IP. $50
Megan's mobile $50
Frank's Mobile $50
Marcus's Mobile $50
Chris's Mobile $20 but who knows.
Total spend per month $320 Per month! You have got to be kidding me.

So what are the options.
So dam hard to compare
The telecom providers seem to have come up with pricing plans that make it hard to compare and hard to know about hidden little surprises.  Like "Cap" plans.  where when you hit the cap, you would expect that the service would cut off but no, it goes into over drive as it drains your bank balance.
The next thing is that they charge you X$ and tell you Y$ of "included value".
But of course the call raes are huge like 90c per minute.  So I refer to this "Included Value" and the associated call rates as being in a different currency PFD which stands for Provider Funny Dollars.  Need a symbol instead of a dollar sign, maybe a set of sharks teeth or something.  So now foreample TPG charge $14.99 and provide 550 dollars of "Included value" which I call PFD550 and call rates of 90c a minute.  But if you do the maths then the call rate ends up being about 2c/minute.

But of course you need to know how many minutes you use and because each call has a call connection fee then you need to know how many calls per month you make.  This is hard to find out.  When I look at my current vodafone bill I can't work it out.  Have to look harder.







HOW TO COMPARE
I came up with this format.  I am only considering voice calls and text messages and making a note of the amount if internet data.  I ignore special deals like "calls to the same provider".  Like how do I know what provider you use.  I am also ignoring MMS and video calls.  The whole spread sheet is available here

		Included Value	PFD X Rate	Phone Calls [/min]	Flag Fall	Text Messages	Included Data [MB]	Contract lock in.  Port Number?
Crazy Johns	[PFD]	15	1	0.10	0.10	0.01	500	No
Flatchat Prepaid	[AUD]	$15.00	1	$0.10	$0.10	$0.01		Dont know
Number of calls minutes				300	200	200
		$52.00		30	20	2
TPG	PFD]	550	1	0.90	0.35	0.25	1500	No
Medium	[AUD]	$17.99	0.0327090909	$0.03	$0.01	$0.01		Y
Number of calls minutes				300	200	200
		$12.78		$8.83	$2.29	$1.66

Telstra
Telstra have several bundles mentioning ADSL+ home phones
$139 "Complete Home"  Internet 200GB, Unlimited local, STD, calls to telstra mobiles.
Fixed IP address?
What is the catch? - Calls to other mobiles.
They do not do bundles or groups of phones.

TPG 
TPG have various phone and internet bundles.  For example
"Medium plan" $14.99 when you have TPG broadband.
Offer PFD550 and for AUD14.99 and PFD0.90per minute which equates to 2c/min AUD.  (PFD means Provider funny dollars.  Why they need to confuse us with this included value rubbish)
Home phone (VOIP) + Unimited internet $70 pm.  (c/w Current internet @$50 which equates to line rental of $20)

Vodafone
current usage seems hard to generate
number of calls per month
average length of calls