Most suitable broadband service

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Hitariyo

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#11119 4-Jan-2007 10:27

I'm in search of the best broadband company. The price is best kept at a minimum, but can be a bit expensive.
The broadband service I'm currently using is satisfactory, but I have a few qualms with it; thus this topic.

Any help will be appreciated.

freitasm

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#56833 4-Jan-2007 10:29

Welcome to Geekzone... Are you in Wellington, Chrischurch? You can get TelstraClear cable modem in some regions...

sbiddle

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#56835 4-Jan-2007 10:56

Hitariyo: I'm in search of the best broadband company. The price is best kept at a minimum

If you want decent broadband the two are mutually exclusive.

grant_k

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#56854 4-Jan-2007 13:39

Hitariyo: I'm in search of the best broadband company. The price is best kept at a minimum

Here are some alternatives which have a high percentage of satisfied users:

ORBIT Flat Rate (from Woosh WIRED not wireless) $49.95 per month

http://www.woosh.com/ContentClient/DSL/DSLPricing.aspx

XNET River $44.17 per month for 10GB, $49.27 per month for 15GB or $53.86 per month for 20GB

http://www.xnet.co.nz/internet/broadband.shtml

The Orbit Flat Rate plan has Traffic Management, but by all accounts it is much less draconian than Telecom's Go Large setup.

XNET River offers Full-speed download (as fast as your line will allow) and is typically more than sufficient for home users. You have the flexibility of choosing "Managed Data Usage" where they will throttle your speed down after you exceed your chosen quota, or "Unlimited Data Usage" where you pay extra once your chosen quota is exceeded.

Unless you are into Bit Torrents, I would recommend XNET as providing the best deal for home users. Their help desk is one of the best in the business, and most users have reported good experiences with XNET. They are owned by WorldxChange, who have been an alternate toll provider for about 10 years.

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#56868 4-Jan-2007 15:01

Hello,
Welcome to geekzone.... there are quite a few options out there.

If you are a very light user and don't like to be tied down to a landline... then I'd recommend either Telecom or Vodafone as they offer 1GB for $49.95 (24 month contract) and also have a $10 for another GB of data. As long as you are within a HSPDA/3G or EVDO area, you should generally experience good connection speeds. Excess traffic after that is a bit high so any 'big' downloads... there are other solutions.

As previously posted, Telstraclear operate a cable network in the Wellington and Christchurch area. Quite good service based upon user posting however they also have their shockers too. (currently an ongoing battle in IRC/Forums for one customer).

In terms of ADSL... there is Woosh and World exchange as well as a few other providers.
On ADSL, based upon previous experience I'd opt for either Orcon or Xtra.

Orcon offer some decent plans too with the option of mixing and matching line speeds + interleaving.
Xtra have been quite reliable for me and reasonable fast too, however there has been a lot of negative (mostly justified) discussion about the newer Go Large plans and its performance... if you are into heavy downloading I'd suggest avoiding those Go Large type plans all together.

Some other providers - Ihug, Slingshot, Inspire net (reasonable local Palmerston North based ISP, was connected on their fiber network for 1 year with no landline required

)

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#58845 25-Jan-2007 18:01

I would suggest looking at a broadband comparison website. www.netchoice.co.nz is a good one that keeps itself updated.
You may wish to look at alternative connection methods such as Telstra's cable network in wellington and christchurch if you are in such an area, or look at some sort of wireless provider.

Most DSL plans are limited by Telecom and your neighbours and it generally doesnt matter what ISP you are with to have unsatisfactory results.

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jesseycy

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#58876 26-Jan-2007 06:35

I asked this before, but still didn't really get answer, so I'll ask here again and hope someone replies me? Thanks!

Question #1: Anyway, there are lots of "Go Large" plans out there, right? These are all in reality the "Cabriolet plan" as onsold by other ISPs, and are under the category of "Regulated UBS plans"? Right?

Question #2: This means they are all "traffic managed by Telecom"? (rUBS)

Question #3: If that's the case, plans like Woosh Wired's Orbit Flatrate, isn't this the "cabriolet plan"? How is it possible that they can set their own trafiic management policies then?

Thanks for any information/advice!

grant_k

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#58907 26-Jan-2007 12:43

Juha would be the best person to answer your question Jessey. He knows all the intricacies of how the wholesaling CUBS/RUBS works.

From my own experience, friends that I recommended to use Woosh Orbit Flatrate have been happy with it.

It is not always the case with other Flatrate offerings out there...

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jesseycy

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#58987 27-Jan-2007 06:04

Juha??? Just a few quick answers will be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

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#58990 27-Jan-2007 07:28

jesseycy: I asked this before, but still didn't really get answer, so I'll ask here again and hope someone replies me? Thanks!

Question #1: Anyway, there are lots of "Go Large" plans out there, right? These are all in reality the "Cabriolet plan" as onsold by other ISPs, and are under the category of "Regulated UBS plans"? Right?

Question #2: This means they are all "traffic managed by Telecom"? (rUBS)

Question #3: If that's the case, plans like Woosh Wired's Orbit Flatrate, isn't this the "cabriolet plan"? How is it possible that they can set their own trafiic management policies then?

Thanks for any information/advice!

1. Cabriolet is the base plan - speed profile and settings. Go Large is the Telecom marketing plan that uses Cabriolet settings. Don't stress on RUBS/CUBS - it's too confusing

2. No, each ISP can don it's own thing. Telecom have installed a very expensive packet sniffer to stop extensive downloading on Go Large, because if they didn't their variable costs would go through the roof. Those ISP's who don't offer a similar Go Large unmetered don't have this box, meaning they don't want to take this risk

3. See 2

To confuse matters, some ISP's are still use Wholesale Broadband from Telecom, whose parameters ARE controlled, while others are using UBS and they have more control (UBS). For an ISP to go from WBS to UBS is a big project, requires links into Telecom etc, and is quite expensive.

________

Antoniosk

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#59007 27-Jan-2007 11:31

Thanks for an interesting post Antonios, you have shed a bit more light on a few things there.

So then, as Jessey originally asked:

"...plans like Woosh Wired's Orbit Flatrate, isn't this the "cabriolet plan"? How is it possible that they can set their own trafiic management policies then?"

What sort of Traffic Management System do you think Woosh are using for their "Orbit Flatrate" plan then:

1) Something similar to Telecom?

2) Or something with a more relaxed set of rules?

On a related note, it's interesting that Telecom are spending so much money at present advertising their GO LARGE plan as being suitable for businesses.

To my mind, it's the sort of plan you DON'T want to be on in a business situation. Full-Speed Down/Up is the only way to go so far as I'm concerned. Then again, I do have pretty responsible staff who don't get too carried away downloading stuff. If they do, then the excess usage comes out of their pockets as has happened once or twice in the past.

Hitariyo

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#59017 27-Jan-2007 12:50

Thank you all for your suggestions. The information has been helpful; and thus I am now satisfied with the service Xtra is giving me at the moment.

jesseycy

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#59049 28-Jan-2007 07:16

Thanks antoniosk, thanks for the info!

I'm just curious and want to know more, cause there's alot of references by people to unlimited internet plans to be called the "Go Large Plan" (even when it's not by xtra)...

Also, as a user, I would want to be able to diffrentiate which ISPs are using UBS and not just reselling Telecom's Plans (like Xtra's GoLarge), cause I would be then know which ISPs traffic management are controlled by Telecom then.....

Thanks.