175GB data this month

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Kyanar

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#1059506 5-Jun-2014 07:10

JWR:
freitasm:
PhantomNVD: global zone (save on VPN/DNS for netflix et al) seems to be the only significant difference unless you want to read up on fineprint of bandwidth management of torrents and such?

as an aside, how come ALL the ISP's support the 'user licence avoidance' of netflix but stomp on torrents??

Create your own topic but a teaser: very different things. One is the illegal distribution of content the users don't own the rights to. The other is just bypassing geoblocks, which is not illegal.

Bittorrent isn't illegal!

The common use of it is illegal. Torrenting World of Warcraft patches and Linux ISOs is not.

xpd

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#1059527 5-Jun-2014 08:22

Never used to stream a thing until I had "unlimited" data with Orcon... probably 50% of our entertainment (TV/movies/music) is streamed now. Over the Xmas break, streaming music was 24/7 ;)

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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sultanoswing

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#1060472 6-Jun-2014 17:21

Snap looks interesting... good user reviews, highly rated by Consumer, small & therefore hopefully responsive. Too bad then that I just spent 8 minutes on hold trying to ask a few questions about signing up. Not a promising start

andrewNZ

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#1060703 7-Jun-2014 07:24

sultanoswing: Snap looks interesting... good user reviews, highly rated by Consumer, small & therefore hopefully responsive. Too bad then that I just spent 8 minutes on hold trying to ask a few questions about signing up. Not a promising start

If you called at a peak time, that's far from unreasonable.

sultanoswing

814 posts

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#1060742 7-Jun-2014 08:59

andrewNZ:
sultanoswing: Snap looks interesting... good user reviews, highly rated by Consumer, small & therefore hopefully responsive. Too bad then that I just spent 8 minutes on hold trying to ask a few questions about signing up. Not a promising start

If you called at a peak time, that's far from unreasonable.

The phrase "get what you pay for" springs to mind... as far as I can remember I've gotten straight through to Xnet's helpdesk without any hold time over the years. Of course in my current calculus, I'm paying quite a bit for that relative to other ISPs. Will try Snap again at non-peak (it was friday 5pm).

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#1060763 7-Jun-2014 10:14

Eight minutes! All the rage.

You obviously never called TelstraClear or Vodafone and had to wait 45 minutes to be told "no, we don't know of any problems in your area".

Eight minutes is nothing in this market, really.

richms

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#1060768 7-Jun-2014 10:47

Tweet them then? I have only ever called to pay them recently since this form is broken on mobile browsers. No excessive delays when doing that.

Richard rich.ms

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

sultanoswing

814 posts

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#1060840 7-Jun-2014 12:52

freitasm: Eight minutes! All the rage.

You obviously never called TelstraClear or Vodafone and had to wait 45 minutes to be told "no, we don't know of any problems in your area".

Eight minutes is nothing in this market, really.

Mauricio, I should be clear, I'm not raging at them (and it may have been longer than 8 minutes - that's just when I had to end the call) - I didn't mean it that strong.

...and yes I well recall a few years back waiting deca-minutes to get other ISPs on the phone. Trouble is I'm picky/fussy about ISPs now having had bad experiences with Telecom (took 5 months to get us a landline in the 1990s because the exhange was full - WTF?), Woosh (jacking the price up after you sign on in the early 2000s), Orcon (excessively traffic shaping my P2P and not being up front about it in the mid 2000s), Slingshot (lousy performance, early-mid 2000s). Don't wanna go with Vodafone either (Sky/Murdoch linkage).

I know that the market & players are quite different from the palaver above, and what originally attracted me to Xnet i.e. no contract and "pay for what you use" were good in the day - but in the increasingly competitive telco market in NZ (relatively!), you snooze, you lose, which is as it should be.

I don't mind paying a bit more for a better service, and the "race to the bottom" problem with market forces is not desirable either, but in Xnet's case at the moment the premium is a bit too steep for my wallet's liking. Oh, and I still haven't heard back from them yet either. Am giving 'em a week.

One additional challenge / inertia to changing ISPs, particularly with VOIP, is that each provider tends to favour it's own hardware e.g. Fritzbox on Snap. Gets a bit annoying where this is to the point of exclusivity, as it limits one's networking flexibility e.g. own router w/webserver & private VPN etc.

eXDee

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#1061281 8-Jun-2014 15:03

Swap to an ISP/hardware neutral VOIP offering then, and roll your own VOIP setup using whatever voice server/ATAs etc that you like. 2Talk and WXC are options for this.

Snap's been good, these days due to them getting more popular you have to wait a bit longer during peak times if you want support, but there is rarely a problem that requires this.

NonprayingMantis

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#1061291 8-Jun-2014 15:41

sultanoswing:
freitasm: Eight minutes! All the rage.

You obviously never called TelstraClear or Vodafone and had to wait 45 minutes to be told "no, we don't know of any problems in your area".

Eight minutes is nothing in this market, really.

Mauricio, I should be clear, I'm not raging at them (and it may have been longer than 8 minutes - that's just when I had to end the call) - I didn't mean it that strong.

...and yes I well recall a few years back waiting deca-minutes to get other ISPs on the phone. Trouble is I'm picky/fussy about ISPs now having had bad experiences with Telecom (took 5 months to get us a landline in the 1990s because the exhange was full - WTF?), Woosh (jacking the price up after you sign on in the early 2000s), Orcon (excessively traffic shaping my P2P and not being up front about it in the mid 2000s), Slingshot (lousy performance, early-mid 2000s). Don't wanna go with Vodafone either (Sky/Murdoch linkage).

I know that the market & players are quite different from the palaver above, and what originally attracted me to Xnet i.e. no contract and "pay for what you use" were good in the day - but in the increasingly competitive telco market in NZ (relatively!), you snooze, you lose, which is as it should be.

I don't mind paying a bit more for a better service, and the "race to the bottom" problem with market forces is not desirable either, but in Xnet's case at the moment the premium is a bit too steep for my wallet's liking. Oh, and I still haven't heard back from them yet either. Am giving 'em a week.

One additional challenge / inertia to changing ISPs, particularly with VOIP, is that each provider tends to favour it's own hardware e.g. Fritzbox on Snap. Gets a bit annoying where this is to the point of exclusivity, as it limits one's networking flexibility e.g. own router w/webserver & private VPN etc.

you might want to consider Bigpipe

1) no call centre, so you never wait on hold - ever. Email/Twitter/Facebook response is very fast IMO
2) they are BYO hardware - so you can use whatever setup you want
3) likewise they don't care what VOIP you use either.
4) unlimited adsl for $79, unlimited VDSL for $99. No shaping.
5) you might win a PS4! :P

sultanoswing

814 posts

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#1061357 8-Jun-2014 17:37

you might want to consider Bigpipe

1) no call centre, so you never wait on hold - ever. Email/Twitter/Facebook response is very fast IMO
2) they are BYO hardware - so you can use whatever setup you want
3) likewise they don't care what VOIP you use either.
4) unlimited adsl for $79, unlimited VDSL for $99. No shaping.
5) you might win a PS4! :P

Actually, this is looking quite compelling. I may, after 20 years of resistance, possibly have to give Telecom/Bigpipe another look. Being able to keep VFx would make life quite a bit simpler (same phone number, no new equipment). Hmmmmm. Plans coming together....

BigPipeNZ

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BigPipe

#1061366 8-Jun-2014 17:42

sultanoswing:

you might want to consider Bigpipe

1) no call centre, so you never wait on hold - ever. Email/Twitter/Facebook response is very fast IMO
2) they are BYO hardware - so you can use whatever setup you want
3) likewise they don't care what VOIP you use either.
4) unlimited adsl for $79, unlimited VDSL for $99. No shaping.
5) you might win a PS4! :P

Actually, this is looking quite compelling. I may, after 20 years of resistance, possibly have to give Telecom/Bigpipe another look. Being able to keep VFx would make life quite a bit simpler (same phone number, no new equipment). Hmmmmm. Plans coming together....

cheers. :D

We're funded by Telecom (well, Telecom Digital Ventures to be specific) but other than giving us money (which is very nice!) we are totally separate to Telecom. Different people, systems, core network etc.
no contract or connection fee, so if we suck you can easily go somewhere else.

More details here: www.bigpipe.co.nz

bigpipe.co.nz
https://www.facebook.com/BigPipeNZ
https://twitter.com/BigPipeNZ

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#1061388 8-Jun-2014 18:09

sultanoswing:

you might want to consider Bigpipe

1) no call centre, so you never wait on hold - ever. Email/Twitter/Facebook response is very fast IMO
2) they are BYO hardware - so you can use whatever setup you want
3) likewise they don't care what VOIP you use either.
4) unlimited adsl for $79, unlimited VDSL for $99. No shaping.
5) you might win a PS4! :P

Actually, this is looking quite compelling. I may, after 20 years of resistance, possibly have to give Telecom/Bigpipe another look. Being able to keep VFx would make life quite a bit simpler (same phone number, no new equipment). Hmmmmm. Plans coming together....

ild recommend iver hopping over to bigpipe, or going naked with snap if you want to keep you VFx.

both of them to my experience, have a VERY strong network, that you will be plenty happy with.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

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