Telecom Big Time plan trouble thread

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Telecom Big Time plan trouble thread

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Master Geek
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#324063 28-Apr-2010 10:18

DravidDavid: This is very strange.

It appears that my international cap comes and goes. I can download demos from ausgamers at 990KB/s one minute...If I cancel and start again, I'm back to 75-100KB/s.

Ventrilo actually worked last night aswell. I was amazed.

There was some traffic moved around last night in an attempt to alleviate pressure on latency sensitive apps, good to know that its starting to work

Tarawera Ultra 2015 done, bring on 2016

DravidDavid

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#324067 28-Apr-2010 10:28

doozy:
DravidDavid: This is very strange.

It appears that my international cap comes and goes. I can download demos from ausgamers at 990KB/s one minute...If I cancel and start again, I'm back to 75-100KB/s.

Ventrilo actually worked last night aswell. I was amazed.

There was some traffic moved around last night in an attempt to alleviate pressure on latency sensitive apps, good to know that its starting to work

Fantastic! I knew Doozy would get things rollin'! Both Ventrilo and Teamspeak lost packets and dropped out regularly. So far as I know, Teamspeak did not work especially on Australian servers. But Ventrilo to California worked perfectly fine.

I got about 22% packet loss in Teamspeak, but no voice delay in Ventrilo.

asylum

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#324068 28-Apr-2010 10:34

Doozy I am curious, in your meetings and discussions with legal overlords do you ever discuss the consumer guarantees act?

doozy

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#324071 28-Apr-2010 10:40

asylum: Doozy I am curious, in your meetings and discussions with legal overlords do you ever discuss the consumer guarantees act?

I'm sure they do ... I usually just ask if I can do xyz, they go off, do their thing and come back with an answer, I don't usually ask for a lot of detail on why/why not unless I really disagree which hasn't happened so far

Tarawera Ultra 2015 done, bring on 2016

tdgeek

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#324074 28-Apr-2010 10:42

I feel that this thread is becoming over emotional. There are valid issues to discuss and by and large it is interesting and interractional. There are a number of false asumptions made and I am sure many users view them as factual.

Yes SX makes a profit but you will find that the rate of return is typical. Telecom also makes a huge profit but the rate of return on its also massive assets is typical. Telecom does not own 50% of SX, it is a shareholder, and it gets a dividend. Yes, over the years the costs have dropped for SX, so have they for internet users. Jetstream 400 was $49-95 plus $30 per month for modem rental. Now Explorer 10Gb is $49-95 and you can get a $99 modem for free or a $199 modem for free on a longer contract.

The cost of SX data is emotive and complex. You can do the math and calculate a cost per Gb, but correct me if I am wrong, I dont feel that is the means to calculate costs. Over time, as has been the case, data has dropped, plans have risen, but the amount of Gb is not the issue, its dividing the cost by the number of users, the latter does not rise fast.

Big Time Shaping. I dont belive this plan was created to satisfy torrent users, or those doing 200Gb to 1Tb per month. From memory Go Large was made to satisfy the needs of individuals and families who use more data than the normal plans and who want price certainty and no speed throttle. If shaping was super easy, and did not require meetings to decipher the legal and technical issues, do you not feel that we would have just made it work? Not being that high up the food chain any more, surely the issue is evaluating the real cost to provide and trying to make that viable nzpossum? And you need to factor in that we dont want excess P2P traffic affecting the individuals and families doing what they do in the weekends, mornings after school and evenings? If it was that easy, it would be done on day one, everyone here would be happy, but you need to realise it is not that simple.

And no, we dont have meetings to decide how to lie, we have meetings to resolve the issues at hand, as best we can, as at the end of the day, we want your revenue, and to get your revenue we need to provide the best product and service and support that we can. It would have been far easier not to provide a unique, unlimited plan, as it is clear that it is difficult, and I assume this is why no other ISP offers one. Big Time is the same cost as our 20Gb plan, so to get that to work with no excess charges, no speed throttle, and to have the users satisfied with the expectations of performance is not easy.

But, you can rest assured that Dozzy and his colleagues are doing what they can.

I just hope when the S92a turns to statute, that Telecom is again not targeted as the evil tyrant.

Cheers to all
Tony

Talkiet

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#324079 28-Apr-2010 10:53

tdgeek: [snip]
It would have been far easier not to provide a unique, unlimited plan, as it is clear that it is difficult, and I assume this is why no other ISP offers one. [snip]

Actually Tony, as has been pointed out in this thread, Actrix do offer an unlimited ADSL plan here in NZ. Their current, discounted price as per their website is $496/month :-/

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.

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asylum

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#324081 28-Apr-2010 10:54

Given that in the terms and conditions it states that p2p and file sharing will be particularly effected by shaping it is entirely reasonable for telecom to do throttle the hell out of them. I have been on big time for around 6 months overall very happy with the plan up until April 15th.

Telecom has not helped itself by the lack of communication. Having you and doozy to chime in has helped somewhat but overall response has been inadequate.

tdgeek

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#324085 28-Apr-2010 11:02

[Actually Tony, as has been pointed out in this thread, Actrix do offer an unlimited ADSL plan here in NZ. Their current, discounted price as per their website is $496/month :-/

Cheers - N :-)

True! I had forgotten. the opportunity cost of no traffic management is clear to see!

Kilack

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#324099 28-Apr-2010 11:23

tdgeek: I feel that this thread is becoming over emotional. There are valid issues to discuss and by and large it is interesting and interractional. There are a number of false asumptions made and I am sure many users view them as factual.

Yes SX makes a profit but you will find that the rate of return is typical. Telecom also makes a huge profit but the rate of return on its also massive assets is typical. Telecom does not own 50% of SX, it is a shareholder, and it gets a dividend. Yes, over the years the costs have dropped for SX, so have they for internet users. Jetstream 400 was $49-95 plus $30 per month for modem rental. Now Explorer 10Gb is $49-95 and you can get a $99 modem for free or a $199 modem for free on a longer contract.

The cost of SX data is emotive and complex. You can do the math and calculate a cost per Gb, but correct me if I am wrong, I dont feel that is the means to calculate costs. Over time, as has been the case, data has dropped, plans have risen, but the amount of Gb is not the issue, its dividing the cost by the number of users, the latter does not rise fast.

Big Time Shaping. I dont belive this plan was created to satisfy torrent users, or those doing 200Gb to 1Tb per month. From memory Go Large was made to satisfy the needs of individuals and families who use more data than the normal plans and who want price certainty and no speed throttle. If shaping was super easy, and did not require meetings to decipher the legal and technical issues, do you not feel that we would have just made it work? Not being that high up the food chain any more, surely the issue is evaluating the real cost to provide and trying to make that viable nzpossum? And you need to factor in that we dont want excess P2P traffic affecting the individuals and families doing what they do in the weekends, mornings after school and evenings? If it was that easy, it would be done on day one, everyone here would be happy, but you need to realise it is not that simple.

And no, we dont have meetings to decide how to lie, we have meetings to resolve the issues at hand, as best we can, as at the end of the day, we want your revenue, and to get your revenue we need to provide the best product and service and support that we can. It would have been far easier not to provide a unique, unlimited plan, as it is clear that it is difficult, and I assume this is why no other ISP offers one. Big Time is the same cost as our 20Gb plan, so to get that to work with no excess charges, no speed throttle, and to have the users satisfied with the expectations of performance is not easy.

But, you can rest assured that Dozzy and his colleagues are doing what they can.

I just hope when the S92a turns to statute, that Telecom is again not targeted as the evil tyrant.

Cheers to all
Tony

Hi Tony,

You are right it does become emotional. Telecom hasn't helped the situation though, how hard would it have been for them to send an email out to the big time customers a couple of weeks ago when they made the sudden changes to say "hey guys, we have to had to make some changes to the shaping because the service was becoming unuseable for some applications.. blah blah" but there was just nothing. I woke up to find my speeds had dropped remarkably, contacting customer service the first reposnse i got was that nothing had changed. Second time was that yes changes had been made. I was told that if i didnt like it i could move to another plan. It becomes emotional when telecom don't even bother to keep users up to date, it becomes emotional when we are told even though the service changed a lot we still have to pay a disconnection fee when it seems telecom are perhaps even breaking their own description of the plan.

I understand that its hard for you guys to get the shaping done right but keeping users informed is just basic customer service 101 and also keeping your cse's up to date with your changes.

Can you see why some of us are a little emotional? I think Telecom should allow those of us that want to leave telecom should be allowed to without a disconnection fee. To me that disconnection fee is now becoming the real issue around this plan. I knew it was there when I joined but had I known that http traffic was going to be outright capped I wouldnt have joined, I am sure others are in my boat, perhaps you can bring that issue up at your meeting also.

rettun

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Wannabe Geek

#324103 28-Apr-2010 11:29

I think it is clear to see that the traffic management/shaping is a new thing to NZ ISP's. You would expect a few up's and downs along the way. I've been on Big-Time since the beginning and I was realistic with what to expect, the only sore point that I have come across is the HTTP download shaping that has recently been very strict (not rapidshare ect).

Having tried to gather an understanding of the big impacting issues across a few forums in the last week or so there have been a lot less people complaining. While yes there are some still complaining they're very reluctant to provide specific detail which would assist the many Telecom employees that we all know frequent this forum.

The plan clearly states that it is not for gaming or downloading but there is proof in this very thread that Telecom has made improvements to both of these from customer feedback. The traffic shaping was always going to be constantly updated/changed/modified as users habits changed and workarounds become more public. You would be naive to believe the service would 100% satisfy and perform in all the right places all of the time.

What?s two weeks really, is there a better service available to you at the same price point? I could understand the outrage if you were paying $496 per month for the service.

josephhinvest

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#324109 28-Apr-2010 11:38

First post to this thread.
I'm having ongoing issues with BigTime broadband.
I've purchased a new modem, and had that replaced (perhaps unnecessarily) but issues are on going.
The issue seems to be DNS related.
The modem (Belkin) will connect to ADSL, and connect to "internet" i.e. sign in to telecom.
However, no "internets" is then forthcoming. I get "attempting to resolve" errors, and other unusual behavior.

This morning I've changed the routers DNS to use OpenDNS, and so far it seems to be working, other than having to reload a page once or twice to get it to load.

Is anyone else having issues that seem DNS related? What can I try next?

Cheers,
Joseph

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crazed

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#324121 28-Apr-2010 12:02

DravidDavid:
doozy:
DravidDavid: This is very strange.

It appears that my international cap comes and goes. I can download demos from ausgamers at 990KB/s one minute...If I cancel and start again, I'm back to 75-100KB/s.

Ventrilo actually worked last night aswell. I was amazed.

There was some traffic moved around last night in an attempt to alleviate pressure on latency sensitive apps, good to know that its starting to work

Fantastic! I knew Doozy would get things rollin'! Both Ventrilo and Teamspeak lost packets and dropped out regularly. So far as I know, Teamspeak did not work especially on Australian servers. But Ventrilo to California worked perfectly fine.

I got about 22% packet loss in Teamspeak, but no voice delay in Ventrilo.

we have several Bigtime users who use our Teamspeak server regularly and they have never had an issue with teamspeak and our server was US based. we have just finished moving it to aussie this morning.

CraZeD,
Your friendly Southern Geeky Fellow :P

doozy

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#324128 28-Apr-2010 12:10

jofizz: First post to this thread.
I'm having ongoing issues with BigTime broadband.
I've purchased a new modem, and had that replaced (perhaps unnecessarily) but issues are on going.
The issue seems to be DNS related.
The modem (Belkin) will connect to ADSL, and connect to "internet" i.e. sign in to telecom.
However, no "internets" is then forthcoming. I get "attempting to resolve" errors, and other unusual behavior.

This morning I've changed the routers DNS to use OpenDNS, and so far it seems to be working, other than having to reload a page once or twice to get it to load.

Is anyone else having issues that seem DNS related? What can I try next?

Cheers,
Joseph

That's an odd issue to have ... were you using TC DNS when having the issue (if so do you know what addresses)? I would say the issue with using OpenDNS is that the traffic goes out of the country then back in to do simple DNS transactions which would add latency to the request ...

Tarawera Ultra 2015 done, bring on 2016

k1wi

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#324135 28-Apr-2010 12:23

When I click "check connectivity" on my Thompson TG585v7 I two big fat red X's as follows:

Disabled/Not OKConnectivity to DNS Server 1 (202.27.158.40)
Disabled/Not OKConnectivity to DNS Server 2 (202.27.156.72)

That said, whenever I've checked that it's been the case and I'm able to browse the internet fine...

[Add] BTW connectivity to Gateway (210.55.69.216) is fine [/Add]

tdgeek

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#324141 28-Apr-2010 12:41

Hi Kilack

Tks for your detailed response.

Yes, your points do carry weight, I can see that the communication or lack thereof has been a clear issue amongst many on here. Those of us at Telecom on here can only pass on what we know, it's not intentional.

I was more referring to the false assumptions that do happen, and that get taken as fact, leading to some harsh comments, I dont feel that helps us a lot, nor does it help forum readers who are seeking real information, that can get lost in the mix of commentary. As you can see from Doozy's recent posts, things are being looked at and acted upon, but it may be unrealistic to expect everybody to have everything the way they want it. Some do have rather high expectations of a $60 plan of this nature, but things are gettig there

Cheers

Tony

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