Little difference between providers

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#3102821 11-Jul-2023 17:10

I have decided to stick with Orcon. Any cost saving from changing provider is minimal and I just don't see the need to go through any change pain for a few dollars. ONE NZ HFC prices would give a reasonable cost saving but just not worth the pain of QOS. Orcon has been a very stable connection and their customer service is very good.

RunningMan

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#3102827 11-Jul-2023 17:46

huckster:

I know some people sniff at low speed plans but Skinny have one under offer at the moment (until 20th July). By the looks of it 30/10.

That will be fixed wireless, not fibre. If you can get 50/10 fibre for about the same price it would generally provide a better experience. Lower latency and less througput variation with cell tower load changes.

Quic do a $56 50/10 fibre plan though.

alasta

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#3102830 11-Jul-2023 18:08

concordnz: Try having Windows downloading 2gb of updates or O365 updates while you are trying to clear your emails or surf the Net. (or someone else's tablet or phone updating when you are trying to get an email in, you are waiting fotlr.

It's not just a persons Internet or email - it's all the background updates that happen on devices around the house to keep them secure, which chokes a small pipe...

You don't understand the use case for this product.

If grandma lives alone, uses her iPad to email the grandkids, and has no other devices then it's more than adequate.

Talkiet

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#3102837 11-Jul-2023 18:32

concordnz: I actually remember a 300 baud modem.
(and before that a device you put the handset of the phone into which picked up the sounds coming down the actual phone, and wi had a small speaker built in to the other end, to 'transmit' the replying sounds through the microphone part of the handset. (I bet very few people have used one of those....)

Then that was a very very lazy comparison of 50/10 Fibre to being worse than ADSL :-)

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=49&topicid=78340

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Wombat1

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#3102857 11-Jul-2023 20:01

concordnz: 50/10 speed! That's terrible!
Worse than some ADSL.

Don't touch it with a large barge pole!

Most Mbps you will ever get out of any ADSL connection is 24/2.5. And latency is very very bad

If you talking about speed then what you are referring to is really latency. Speed on a 50/10 fibre plan is the same as speed on a fibre 1000/200 plan. In fact its probably better on a 50/20 fiber plan that say a 1000 Mbps cable, starlink or mobile data plan where the latency is not nearly as good as fibre. Speed is not the Mbps.

For gaming as an example, response time on 50/10 fibre connection will be a lot better than that a 1000 Mbps cable plan, or any mobile data plan. Obviously downloading those games may take longer.

As another example, Which is faster at getting 500Mb of data on a CD from Auckland to Sydney? An airbus or an SR71 blackbird? It does not really matter that the Airbus can carry hundreds of thousands of extra mb of data (CD's).

ISP's are to blame for this misconception.

Wombat1

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#3102869 11-Jul-2023 20:21

To add to the above, I was on a 50/20 plan a while back, to be honest none of us in the family had any issues with "speed". The only time I did notice it was not ideal was when I was doing a large backup to the cloud. It took a bit of time. Doing normal stuff was all fine, even working remotely with RDP to desktops in Sydney and Auckland had surprisingly no noticeable lag.

I am now on just a 100/40 plan which is more than adequate. I tried the 1000 Mbps plan for a while but thought it was an overkill with little noticeable difference except the cost. My ISP has a speed boost option where I can get 5 free speed boosts per month. I have only needed to use it twice when uploading some large files overnight. If it was just me by myself I probably would just settle for the cheapest pure fiber plan. IMO all those gigabit plans etc are actually just a waste of money for most users who don't really realize that they would be just as well off on a cheaper fibre plan.

Wheelbarrow01

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#3102940 11-Jul-2023 22:26

concordnz: I actually remember a 300 baud modem.
(and before that a device you put the handset of the phone into which picked up the sounds coming down the actual phone, and wi had a small speaker built in to the other end, to 'transmit' the replying sounds through the microphone part of the handset. (I bet very few people have used one of those....)

LOL I had an Amstrad CPC464 computer. Games were loaded by putting a cassette tape in and hitting play. If you were lucky, you might get to play a rudimentary game after waiting half an hour for the data to be read off the tape. When we upgraded to a CPC6128 in the 90's it was like heaven! I craved the raw power of a Commodore 64 or Atari ST but Santa never obliged.

Right up to the day he died in 2009, my dad was still doing his taxes on that damn CPC6128. That was a nightmare to wash up because by then I had no clue/memory how to use it and the Canterbury Amstrad club was long since defunct.

Samsung

Shop now on Samsung phones, tablets, TVs and more (affiliate link).

Talkiet

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#3102951 12-Jul-2023 00:16

Wombat1:
As another example, Which is faster at getting 500Mb of data on a CD from Auckland to Sydney? An airbus or an SR71 blackbird? It does not really matter that the Airbus can carry hundreds of thousands of extra mb of data (CD's).

ISP's are to blame for this misconception.

But speeds for BB are stated in (units of volume of data) per (time interval). Megabits per second. Mbps.
Although I'm clearly biased here I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the ISPs are correct in describing the headline speeds using these descriptions. Of course, the Comcom agrees with me, as well as (I suspect) every isp world wide.
Latency is of course another metric to evaluate a connection by, but to claim throughput isn't the primary and most useful 'speed' measure is just silly.

N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Bluntj

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#3102971 12-Jul-2023 06:34

MikeB4:

I have decided to stick with Orcon. Any cost saving from changing provider is minimal and I just don't see the need to go through any change pain for a few dollars. ONE NZ HFC prices would give a reasonable cost saving but just not worth the pain of QOS. Orcon has been a very stable connection and their customer service is very good.

If you talk to Orcon and say you are considering switching you will get a better deal.

concordnz

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#3102988 12-Jul-2023 08:47

Talkiet:
concordnz: I actually remember a 300 baud modem.
(and before that a device you put the handset of the phone into which picked up the sounds coming down the actual phone, and wi had a small speaker built in to the other end, to 'transmit' the replying sounds through the microphone part of the handset. (I bet very few people have used one of those....)

Then that was a very very lazy comparison of 50/10 Fibre to being worse than ADSL :-)

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=49&topicid=78340

Cheers - N

Yeah it was :)
But I still wouldn't recommend it, except for a little old lady, and not the OP.

Yor thread has the name of the padded device that held the handset, I used before the 300 baud modem.
(acoustic coupler)!
I was wracking my brains all night trying to remember what it was called!

concordnz

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#3102992 12-Jul-2023 09:05

Wheelbarrow01:
concordnz: I actually remember a 300 baud modem.
(and before that a device you put the handset of the phone into which picked up the sounds coming down the actual phone, and wi had a small speaker built in to the other end, to 'transmit' the replying sounds through the microphone part of the handset. (I bet very few people have used one of those....)

LOL I had an Amstrad CPC464 computer. Games were loaded by putting a cassette tape in and hitting play. If you were lucky, you might get to play a rudimentary game after waiting half an hour for the data to be read off the tape. When we upgraded to a CPC6128 in the 90's it was like heaven! I craved the raw power of a Commodore 64 or Atari ST but Santa never obliged.

Right up to the day he died in 2009, my dad was still doing his taxes on that damn CPC6128. That was a nightmare to wash up because by then I had no clue/memory how to use it and the Canterbury Amstrad club was long since defunct.

I wonder if it was running DOS or CP/M? :)

We had a 'luggable' Amstrad PPC 640 - which we had to import from Australia to get.
That was, after we retired the two 'luggable' Kaypro 2x's

Wombat1

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#3102993 12-Jul-2023 09:11

Talkiet:
Wombat1:

As another example, Which is faster at getting 500Mb of data on a CD from Auckland to Sydney? An airbus or an SR71 blackbird? It does not really matter that the Airbus can carry hundreds of thousands of extra mb of data (CD's).

ISP's are to blame for this misconception.

But speeds for BB are stated in (units of volume of data) per (time interval). Megabits per second. Mbps.
Although I'm clearly biased here I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the ISPs are correct in describing the headline speeds using these descriptions. Of course, the Comcom agrees with me, as well as (I suspect) every isp world wide.
Latency is of course another metric to evaluate a connection by, but to claim throughput isn't the primary and most useful 'speed' measure is just silly.

N

Speed: noun

rapidity in moving, going, traveling, proceeding, or performing; swiftness; celerity: the speed of light;the speed of sound.
relative rapidity in moving, going, etc.; rate of motion or progress: full speed ahead.

v = d/t. Lets not over complicate it. Nothing to do with the amount or size of something being moved. Not silly at all. ISP's Comcom, and even you are misinformed if you belive that more mbps will always give you the fastest broadband.

Talkiet

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#3103076 12-Jul-2023 11:05

Wombat1:

[snip]ISP's Comcom, and even you are misinformed if you belive that more mbps will always give you the fastest broadband.

I never said that Moar mbps will always give the fastest BB, and I am reasonably comfortable that I have a positively excellent understanding of what makes a good BB connection.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

nitro

648 posts

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#3103158 12-Jul-2023 13:36

Talkiet:
Wombat1:

As another example, Which is faster at getting 500Mb of data on a CD from Auckland to Sydney? An airbus or an SR71 blackbird? It does not really matter that the Airbus can carry hundreds of thousands of extra mb of data (CD's).

ISP's are to blame for this misconception.

But speeds for BB are stated in (units of volume of data) per (time interval). Megabits per second. Mbps.
Although I'm clearly biased here I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the ISPs are correct in describing the headline speeds using these descriptions. Of course, the Comcom agrees with me, as well as (I suspect) every isp world wide.
Latency is of course another metric to evaluate a connection by, but to claim throughput isn't the primary and most useful 'speed' measure is just silly.

N

@Talkiet, you are correct. i do performance testing on networking gear myself.

as for the plane trip analogy, a better question to ask would be whether an Airbus A380 or an SR71 would be faster at getting 500 guests from Auckland to attend a wedding in Queenstown.

Talkiet

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#3103214 12-Jul-2023 14:04

nitro:

[snip]

as for the plane trip analogy, a better question to ask would be whether an Airbus A380 or an SR71 would be faster at getting 500 guests from Auckland to attend a wedding in Queenstown.

I was going to say "NEITHER would be any good, as the runway surely isn't long enough for them!" But then I though I should check...

Queenstown has an 1891m long main runway, although some places refer to it at 1900m... In any case I thought that wouldnot be long enough for the SR71, but it appears that if you _really_ REALLY wanted too, you could land an SR71 there, and take off again..

The SR71 minimum Take Off Distance - 1649.88 metres, Minimum landing distance, 1100.02 metres.

The A380 however doesn't stand a chance, at 3749m and 2134m for takeoff and landing respectively. (Although numbers change a bit with air pressure and load of course)

Either way, I guess that an A380 to Christchurch and a bunch of coaches to Queenstown would still be faster than dozens of Blackbird jaunts form AKL to ZQN and back... So bandwidth still wins the day, although as shown, it's not always a straightforward question.

Cheers - N :-)

ps. I am sure you could lightfuel the A380 to the point where it COULD land at ZQN, but it would then be stuck there. So the budget for the wedding would have to be pretty generous to use an A380 as a one-way trip and then have it dismantled.

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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