I was reading the latest Telecom Press Release today:

http://www.telecom-media.co.nz/releases_detail.asp?id=3408&page=index

"In October last year, as part of a survey of nearly 450 ten-year-olds,
Telecom found that 57 percent used the Internet as their main source of
homework information, alongside library books at 18 percent,
encyclopaedias at nine percent and text books at four percent."

Is this a scary thought? We all know that the internet is an amazing place but as we all know not everything you read is correct. How accurate is the information that many could be relying on for their homework?

I notice today in the Dom Post that Telecom are increasing their Homeline service in the Wellington & Christchurch Regions from $34.80 to $36.00 per month. If you're elsewhere in NZ where TCL don't have a network this will be increasing from $42.20 to $43.60 per month.

If you are in the Wellington or Christchurch area why not move to TelstraClear? You pay $32.95 per month for the same service, can add cable broadband which is *far* superior to ADSL in every respect and can keep the same telephone number?

What reason is there to stay with Telecom?

From stuff today


"A Hamilton woman who entered a television text competition is fuming that her mobile phone provider refuses to do anything to stop money being taken from her. "

http://stuff.co.nz/3925288a10.html


Hellooooo..Welcome to the real world.

I personally think premium rate SMS competitions should be banned in NZ but the simple fact is they aren't. Why is this woman bleating to the media however that Vodafone are some how to blame? If you want to be unsubscribed from the service pay your $3 to send in a TXT which will stop the service.

For once I want to defend Vodafone. I'll be annoyed if you refund this customer due to her stupidity. Compare it to another real world scenario - should Holden be responsible for your speeding tickets if you get caught speeding in one of their cars?

Well it's now been announced - the Apple iPhone (not be confused with the Linksys iPhone and the minor issue that Linksys own the TM to the word 'iPhone' in many countries!)

Is this going to be the ultimate must have gadget? Looking at the presentation and specs you really have to wonder whether Apple can do anything wrong. IMHO it's the first device that could be considered to be an iPod killer! As we all know however specs and glossy brochures don't cut it in the real world and we'll have to see how this product compares when it's available.


http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=6943

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/the-apple-iphone/

I've just spent the last hour or so playing with some various settings and it's interesting to see the differences between Vodafone APN's. Traffic is even being routed differently depending on the APN which explains the ping times.


The ping times of under 100ms are sensational but aren't constant, I received ping times in the low 100's on average testing the Vodem on several occasions. Traffic using www.vodafone.net.nz however is being routed differently as the tracert results show and the latency suffers big time.

Obviously if you are a Vodafone 3G data customer and lower latency is an issue for you then changing APN's may be a wise move.

Details of Vodafone NZ's APN's are here


Using APN direct.vodafone.net.nz

Tracing route to wlg.italk.co.nz [203.184.16.6]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1   114 ms    99 ms    99 ms  172.27.74.33
  2   106 ms   119 ms    99 ms  172.27.65.1
  3   104 ms    99 ms    99 ms  172.27.65.124
  4    98 ms    99 ms    99 ms  172.27.65.188
  5   107 ms    98 ms    99 ms  172.27.86.33
  6   127 ms    99 ms   109 ms  172.27.86.1
  7    97 ms    99 ms    99 ms  203.167.225.157
  8    97 ms    99 ms    99 ms  g9-927.u12.brh.telstraclear.net [218.101.61.4]
  9   115 ms   109 ms   109 ms  g1-926.u11.pnr.telstraclear.net [218.101.61.33]

 10   106 ms   109 ms   109 ms  ggis-gige-v906.telstraclear.net [203.98.18.67]
 11   107 ms   109 ms   109 ms  g0-1-0-4.akcr8.global-gateway.net.nz [210.55.202
.49]
 12   106 ms   129 ms   109 ms  attica-dom.akcr8.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.1
16.198]
 13   126 ms   109 ms   109 ms  f0-0.5.cpiak1-r1.tranzpeer.net [202.180.64.71]
 14   106 ms    99 ms   119 ms  vip1.italk.co.nz [203.184.16.6]

Trace complete.

Pinging geekzone.co.nz [210.48.73.74] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 210.48.73.74: bytes=32 time=103ms TTL=112
Reply from 210.48.73.74: bytes=32 time=101ms TTL=112
Reply from 210.48.73.74: bytes=32 time=89ms TTL=112
Reply from 210.48.73.74: bytes=32 time=88ms TTL=112

Ping statistics for 210.48.73.74:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 88ms, Maximum = 103ms, Average = 95ms

Using APN www.vodafone.net.nz

Pinging geekzone.co.nz [210.48.73.74] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 210.48.73.74: bytes=32 time=242ms TTL=102
Reply from 210.48.73.74: bytes=32 time=250ms TTL=102
Reply from 210.48.73.74: bytes=32 time=229ms TTL=102
Reply from 210.48.73.74: bytes=32 time=247ms TTL=102

Ping statistics for 210.48.73.74:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 229ms, Maximum = 250ms, Average = 242ms

Tracing route to wlg.italk.co.nz [203.184.16.6]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1   124 ms   169 ms   139 ms  172.26.74.33
  2   128 ms   149 ms   139 ms  172.26.65.1
  3   147 ms   149 ms   119 ms  172.26.65.124
  4   157 ms   149 ms   159 ms  172.26.65.188
  5   148 ms   139 ms   158 ms  172.26.86.33
  6   146 ms   149 ms   149 ms  172.26.86.1
  7   147 ms   148 ms   150 ms  vodafone-customer.gw2.akl1.alter.net [203.110.9.
21]
  8   137 ms   139 ms   119 ms  so-3-0-0.XR2.AKL1.ALTER.NET [210.80.38.149]
  9   136 ms   159 ms   159 ms  so-3-0-0.BR1.AKL1.ALTER.NET [210.80.38.138]
 10   317 ms   298 ms   299 ms  atm3-1-0-2.sn1.optus.net.au [202.139.18.17]
 11   317 ms   310 ms   289 ms  AsiaNetcom.sn1.optus.net.au [202.139.18.2]
 12   316 ms   310 ms   308 ms  so-2-0-3-0.gw4.akl1.asianetcom.net [202.147.55.1
45]
 13   326 ms   288 ms   329 ms  ip-202-147-46-234.asianetcom.net [202.147.46.234
]
 14   296 ms   310 ms   309 ms  vip1.italk.co.nz [203.184.16.6]

Trace complete.

If you're an iTunes user you'll realise one of the biggest gripes is that if you add music to your music folder manually (ie copy the file) rather than downloading the software from ITMS you have no way of easily forcing iTunes to rescan the folder and add files to the music catalogue. Since I don't use iTunes it's never really worried me but I was trying to fix iTunes for my girlfriend last night and came across this brilliant app which will rescan your music folder and add the songs to the iTunes database.

   http://itlu.ownz.ch/

Very cool indeed..I just can't understand why Apple don't add this feature to the software!

Well it's happened yet again, Vodafone's UMTS network has crapped itself and appears to have taken the core IP network with it meaning that no 3G user in NZ has been able to send SMS's on one of the busiest nights of the year and data and MMS services have been unavailable for all customer since late last night.

Since you seem to be such a media savvy person and we know that so many Vodafone staff read Geekzone (so you're sure to get this message) maybe you'd like to add your comments to this post and give us your thoughts on how you will improve Vodafone NZ since it's the start of a new year. Since the buck stops at the top of any organisation are you up to it or are you scared to face those who openly criticise you?

So far in the past 2 weeks your UMTS network has suffered 3 major outages. Your customer service sucks. Your loyalty to long term customers is non existant. You are getting your arse whipped by Telecom because you simply can't bring products to the market that users want. You don't give a crap about on account customers who deliver the bulk of your ARPU and you're failing to actually get new customers. Vodafone used to be a brand that brought innovation to the NZ mobile market and was a company and brand that I truely believed in and would have been proud to work for. Now the brand represents nothing but a failure in the NZ mobile market. If it wasn't for the fact your network is such a cash cow you would have been gone long ago and replaced by somebody who knew how to run a business.

I've just got home after celebrating New Years and had a mate so annoyed by the response he got from customer service he's told them where to stick his $400 a month contract and is going out to sign up with Telecom tomorrow. The least you can do after these ongoing network failures is to compensate your customers but I'll put money on the fact you won't because you honestly don't care.

Bring back Graham Maher. At least he knew how to run a network. Even Larry did better job running an underfunded and under resourced BellSouth.


Happy new year.

vodafone 3g users are currently unable to send sms messages. switching your phone to gsm mode will allow you to send messages. sort your crap network out vodafone!

Watching it on CNN now

There have been quite a few people comment over the past few weeks that petrol pricing in NZ has become inflated as a result of the supermarket vouchers that are now common place and that it the companies can afford to offer discount vouchers then petrol should just be cheaper fullstop.

The Foodstuffs & Progressive vouchers are a split cost between the retailer and the fuel company with both paying a % of the total amount so it kind of proves the above point wrong - a 10c discount at the pump isn't sustainable because the fuel company isn't funding the whole 10c discount.

Because Caltex and Mobil have both lost out to BP & Shell who are participating in the fuel voucher scheme they have both introduced their own marketing campaigns to stop the churn of customers. Mobil have come up with the most braindead idea of all time - spend $4 in your shop and we'll give you 4c per litre off. Hello?? Is anybody home? Why would I want to spend $4 in your shop just to save $3 on petrol? Caltex on the other hand have offered to accept any supermarket fuel vouchers and offer up to a maximum of 4c per litre off fuel.

It did make me wonder today however driving past the Caltex Fuelstop on Hutt Rd in Wellington. This is a self service card only stop and normally has their petrol priced around 1-2c cheaper than other Caltex stations. Their currently price for 91 Unleaded is 137.5 and 142.5 for Premium. This represents a 5.4c discount over the 142.9 price for 91 at other stations.

To me this seems a fairly obvious case that we are paying maybe 4c per litre too much for fuel at the pump. For those of you in Wellington I suggest topping up at Caltex Hutt Rd if you don't have a discount voucher to use elsewhere!