First off, I was a big advocate for Telstra Cable for a long time. It cost more, but everything I did on the internet was quicker than any competitors DSL solution (in that price range at least). Eventually it ended up being the same, but over the last year it has started to get worse - I've had patches where my average speeds go up and go back down again.

I laid a complaint a few months ago when my FTP transfers from Europe went down to 20KB/s (earlier in the year 800 then it dropped to 400 and then to 200). I tried 3 different servers in this region in that time period and got similar low speed results. Testing from a Xtra DSL account and it was 300KB/s!

I was told they were aware of a problem and were rolling out fixes but were unable to give an accurate time frame. I put up with it, and eventually my average FTP speed went back to 200 (multiple connections don't help btw). I can tolerate 200KB/s but I wasn't running around recommending TCL.

But over the last week I've become furious. Sure facebook, youtube, etc all run quick, but if I access something less common the speeds have become beyond pathetic. 

Often in the evenings I'll get a break, and transfers go up to 480KB/s - but most of the time I am limited/throttled to 40KB/s. It's a definate on/off scenario - it's either fast or it's extremely poor. I tried on fxNetworks DSL yesterday and got 600KB/s but after 30 seconds it went down to around 400 - which is reasonable.

So why am I suddenly posting at 2.20AM? I'm waiting for an HTTP download - 25KB/s.

I just want to know your opinions. I'm moving house in two weeks, and Orcon offers a cheaper package and I can't do any worse than 40KB/s.

I'm using the provided 15mbit Motorola Surf and have tried multiple routers, currently using a mid-range Netgear. All common services like Steam, YouTube, Facebook etc are working at full speed - just when I tread off the familiar path I get screwed.