And you can’t just block them, as they usually come from a private number or from randomly generated numbers, so the number is different each time.

Well, if you’re based in Australia, you can do something about it. Communications regulatory body ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) has established a process for reporting such incidents.

Just forward the offending message to 0429 999 888 to have it added to the ACMA  database for investigation by the authority.

To read more about SMS spam, click here.

(Thanks to Lifehacker Australia.)

So, are you satisfied with your ISP? Well, here are the satisfaction ratings by customers surveyed for the latest Roy Morgan Research Survey on Internet satisfaction (July-December, 2009):

Internode — 90.3%
iiNet — 86.8%
AAPT — 82.5%
Westnet — 81.9%
TPG — 81.7%
OPTUSNet — 78.7%
3 Mobile — 73.7%
dodo — 66.9%
Telstra BigPond — 66.1%
iPrimus — 65.1%

The industry average rating for satisfaction was 73.3%.

Turns out I’m on a winner. Did your ISP make the top 10?

• At the end of December 2009, there were 9.1 million active internet subscribers in Australia.
• The phasing out of dial-up internet connections continued with nearly 90% of internet connections now being non dial-up. Australians also continued to access higher download speeds, with 62% of access connections having a download speed of 1.5Mbps or greater.
• Digital subscriber line (DSL) continued to be the major technology for connections, accounting for 51% of non dial-up connections. However, this percentage share has decreased since June 2009 when DSL represented 57% of non dial-up connections.
• Mobile wireless via a datacard, dongle or USB modem was the fastest growing technology in internet connections, increasing to 2.8 million in December 2009. This represents a 40% increase from June 2009.

The following graph from the report shows the shift in balance of how Australians choose to connect to the Internet.

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics Internet Activity, Australia, Dec 2009

However, these low-spend customers still often end up paying more than the advertised call rate by default, because the recharge vouchers usually have a fairly short use-by date — sometimes as little as 30 days — and run out before they can use all their credit.

A new mobile service launched in Australia at the end of March this year will be good news to low-volume these prepaid mobile users, as each recharge is valid for 12 months. However, while Lebara Mobile is a new service to Australia, it is a very big concern in the European mobile telecommunications market (over 3 million users).

Using the Vodaphone network in Australia, the service has no contracts, no monthly fees and all calls are charged by the minute. You can port your current mobile phone number and use your current handset if it’s not currently locked to another provider. You can buy a Lebara SIM card for $5.49 or get one free with a $10 or $30 starter pack.

Call rates

National calls to landlines and other mobiles are charged at 20 cents a minute (with a flagfall of 15 cents), National SMSes are 15 cents per message, and you can call other Lebara Mobile customers ‘free’ for the first 10 minutes (you’ll be charged a 15 cent flagfall and after the 10 minutes, call rates revert to the standard 20 cents a minute).

International rates are from 5 cents a minute —check here for rates to individual countries. International text messages are 15 cents each.

Where to buy

You can find the closest store to you selling Lebara SIM cards by going to the Store Finder and entering your postcode. But don’t worry if there isn’t one nearby as you can purchase one online. You can buy recharge vouchers online or at over 3,800 retail outlets in denominations of $10, $20, $30, $40, $50, $70 and $100.