Internet for 6 person flat.

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Fittings

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#111151 25-Oct-2012 16:55

It's the end of my first year of university and I have found a flat with 5 others. I'm in charge of sorting out the internet, so I was looking for some advice.

We are in Dunedin, pretty close to the university. Each person in the flat is probably going to average about 30GB/month. We have 3 gamers, so making sure the internet isn't going slow is fairly important.

I was considering getting unlimited, but it looks like unlimited plans often get a lot of slow down at peak times.
So, I looked into some plans such as Snap! to get 280GB/month. (It seems to be recommended a lot on these forums). However the plans are 12months and we will only be here for 10 months. This of course seems to be pretty standard with a lot of ISPs.

The house we are getting has access to VDSL. However if I understand correctly it will be necessary to upgrade the wiring in the house? Are the speed improvements significant enough to get it?

Thanks for any help.

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6434 posts

Uber Geek

#706386 25-Oct-2012 17:01

if you will likely be having 3 people gaming simultaneously as wel as other people using theinternet for other stuff then I would strongly reccomend VDSL. (or fibre if you can get it)

the 12 month contract is somewhat of a red herring. If you leave before the 12 months is up you pay a termination fee of $199 typically, but if you sign up to a no-contract plan you generally pay $99 to connect anyway, so the cost is really only an extra $100 (which between 6 of you isn't a huge deal).
these fees might differ for VDSL though.

blair003

557 posts

Ultimate Geek

#706388 25-Oct-2012 17:03

If the house doesn't have a VDSL2 splitter you will need one, so there will be a wiring charge which will give you a dedicated broadband jackpoint into which you plugin the VDSL2 modem. This will probably be $402.50.

Yes the speed improvement is significant enough to get it -- especially if you have gamers and especially given there are 6 of you. Basically with VDSL2 people should be able to use the net and game at the same time (unless someone is downloading lots at once in which case all bets are off).

Also if you are in close enough proximity to the cabinet/exchange and you have paid for the wiring charge you should get onto a DLM1 profile which will give you a good ping. I'm on a DLM-1 profile and play a bit of CS - my in game ping is 5ms to gameplanet nz and 30-40ms to some aussie servers.

Fittings

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#706401 25-Oct-2012 17:15

How would I go about checking the nearest location of cabinet/exchange. I have been looking at http://www.chorus.co.nz/service-availability-tool but I have trouble understanding it as I'm not too knowledgable on this. It seems we are close to a cabinet, as we are in centre of the green VDSL area? (sorry, I don't fully understand it, is there a guide on this anywhere?).

Secondly, how do I get onto a DLM1 profile? Is it a simple process of just asking the ISP or does it have to be set up on our modem?

Thanks for the help!

Zeon

3918 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#706402 25-Oct-2012 17:16

You can install your own splitter and to be honest, you could even rig up your own connection directly from the ETP to where you want the modem to go. VDSL2 is definitely worth it for that many people.

But to be honest, with the Skynet law it may be best if everyone gets their own connection as because you are the account holder will be liable for any copyright infringement they do. Otherwise maybe setup a holding company to register it under?

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chevrolux

4962 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#706411 25-Oct-2012 17:33

Zeon: You can install your own splitter and to be honest, you could even rig up your own connection directly from the ETP to where you want the modem to go. VDSL2 is definitely worth it for that many people.

If the service availability is hard for you to understand than I would advise against trying to do it yourself. VDSL is a great product and will benefit you greatly but you might as well pay the money to Chorus to get the splitter done. Since it is a permanent fixture you could see if your landlord would be keen to pay (or even subsidise) as it is an improvement to the property. Just pitch to him that it will be done once and done right and future tenants will benefit from it.

Getting six separate connections in to a flat might be a good idea on paper but in practice would just end up costing everyone a bunch as you would be up for atleast $100 per connection plus the internal wiring would need re-doing which will be another $150ish (per jackpoint) depending on what needs doing.

RamyElbeltagi

95 posts

Master Geek

#706414 25-Oct-2012 17:36

blair003: If the house doesn't have a VDSL2 splitter you will need one, so there will be a wiring charge which will give you a dedicated broadband jackpoint into which you plugin the VDSL2 modem. This will probably be $402.50.

Try convince your landlord to pay for it :)

Fittings

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#706416 25-Oct-2012 17:39

It's not really worthwhile to split all the connections up. Everything will probably be done from a flat account and everyone I'm flatting with seems reasonable.

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NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#706417 25-Oct-2012 17:40

Zeon: You can install your own splitter and to be honest, you could even rig up your own connection directly from the ETP to where you want the modem to go. VDSL2 is definitely worth it for that many people.

But to be honest, with the Skynet law it may be best if everyone gets their own connection as because you are the account holder will be liable for any copyright infringement they do. Otherwise maybe setup a holding company to register it under?

No need to scare him. the Skynet law so far has been shown to have absolutely no teeth. Not a single person has actually successfully been fined yet.

Linuxluver

5828 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#706418 25-Oct-2012 17:41

Fittings: It's the end of my first year of university and I have found a flat with 5 others. I'm in charge of sorting out the internet, so I was looking for some advice.

We are in Dunedin, pretty close to the university. Each person in the flat is probably going to average about 30GB/month. We have 3 gamers, so making sure the internet isn't going slow is fairly important.

I was considering getting unlimited, but it looks like unlimited plans often get a lot of slow down at peak times.
So, I looked into some plans such as Snap! to get 280GB/month. (It seems to be recommended a lot on these forums). However the plans are 12months and we will only be here for 10 months. This of course seems to be pretty standard with a lot of ISPs.

The house we are getting has access to VDSL. However if I understand correctly it will be necessary to upgrade the wiring in the house? Are the speed improvements significant enough to get it?

Thanks for any help.

I'd suggest a modem/router that lets you track usage by MAC address - and set quotas, if required. Also ensure that if the MAC address isn't authorised (ie: unknown), it can't connect.

It's easy to set up and saves a lot of argument later when SOMEONE downloaded 200GB of data and won't own up.

_____________________________________________________________________

I've been on Geekzone over 16 years..... Time flies....

Linuxluver

5828 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#706423 25-Oct-2012 17:44

Fittings: It's not really worthwhile to split all the connections up. Everything will probably be done from a flat account and everyone I'm flatting with seems reasonable.

That's the sort of thing you say a year down the road....not at the start.

Chances are, one of them will use far more data than they have money to pay for....and won't admit it.

It's a flat-wrecking hassle that's easily avoided if you get a router that tracks data by MAC address or via static IP. That way, everyone knows the rules...and knows they can't bullfeces their way out of it.

You can proceed bases on good faith if you like. It might even work out, too. But you have no Plan B if it doesn't...and you won't know who did it....and whoever did will be only too happy to point the finger at others....in a very nice, seemingly reasonable way, of course.

_____________________________________________________________________

I've been on Geekzone over 16 years..... Time flies....

Fittings

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

#706427 25-Oct-2012 17:49

Linuxluver:
Fittings: It's not really worthwhile to split all the connections up. Everything will probably be done from a flat account and everyone I'm flatting with seems reasonable.

That's the sort of thing you say a year down the road....not at the start.

Chances are, one of them will use far more data than they have money to pay for....and won't admit it.

It's a flat-wrecking hassle that's easily avoided if you get a router that tracks data by MAC address or via static IP. That way, everyone knows the rules...and knows they can't bullfeces their way out of it.

You can proceed bases on good faith if you like. It might even work out, too. But you have no Plan B if it doesn't...and you won't know who did it....and whoever did will be only too happy to point the finger at others....in a very nice, seemingly reasonable way, of course.

Well I have been looking into getting a router and installing Gargoyle on it. Mainly for QoS filtering but it should cover this issue? I don't really want to get too big into quotas and such.

Batman

Mad Scientist
29771 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#706428 25-Oct-2012 17:52

If cost is a problem telecom 500 gb?

blair003

557 posts

Ultimate Geek

#706433 25-Oct-2012 17:59

Fittings: How would I go about checking the nearest location of cabinet/exchange. I have been looking at http://www.chorus.co.nz/service-availability-tool but I have trouble understanding it as I'm not too knowledgable on this. It seems we are close to a cabinet, as we are in centre of the green VDSL area? (sorry, I don't fully understand it, is there a guide on this anywhere?).

Secondly, how do I get onto a DLM1 profile? Is it a simple process of just asking the ISP or does it have to be set up on our modem?

Thanks for the help!

You have no control over the DLM (dynamic line management) profile.

Basically you simply connect your VDSL2 modem and leave it. When you first connect it, it will start with lots of error correction in case the line quality is bad. Over time (generally the first 10 days) the equipment you connect to will sense the stability and quality of your connection.

If it senses a stable high quality connection, it will renegotiate your connection every couple of days, gradually removing some of the error correction which will in turn reduce your ping.

DLM-1 is the profile that gives you the best ping. The way you get there is just plugging in the VDSL2 modem and making sure that you don't reset it/cycle the power to much during the first couple of weeks.

Ragnor

8223 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#706435 25-Oct-2012 18:03

Fittings:
Well I have been looking into getting a router and installing Gargoyle on it. Mainly for QoS filtering but it should cover this issue? I don't really want to get too big into quotas and such.

Yes in Gargoyle Router you can setup static DHCP via mac address (devices always get the same ip address) so you can track usage.

Predated

177 posts

Master Geek

#706459 25-Oct-2012 18:39

When I was at uni with a situation like that we had 2 internet connections, an unlimited one which was connected to a server which the IT student in our flat managed and we used to queue up downloads of Linux iso's etc, then we had a second connection for general web browsing, game playing etc

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