How fast is fast + Email nightmares

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DaveDog

336 posts

Ultimate Geek

#103170 31-May-2012 18:54

OK...

What sort of speed should I be getting from my Xtra connection, in town, ADSL2 on their Thompson Router. I see that they make a point of not advertising maximum (or average speeds)...

Now - This is interesting...
My wife's xtra email - using Windows Live Mail - will not download the email. Forever asks for the username and password. If I enter it - it doesn't work. If I go into email settings - it doesn't work. If I delete the email account and set it up from scratch - it'll work, until it stops (maybe tomorrow) and then we start all over again... Anyone else had this?

mattwnz

20155 posts

Uber Geek

#633628 31-May-2012 19:12

DaveDog: OK...

What sort of speed should I be getting from my Xtra connection, in town, ADSL2 on their Thompson Router. I see that they make a point of not advertising maximum (or average speeds)...

Now - This is interesting...
My wife's xtra email - using Windows Live Mail - will not download the email. Forever asks for the username and password. If I enter it - it doesn't work. If I go into email settings - it doesn't work. If I delete the email account and set it up from scratch - it'll work, until it stops (maybe tomorrow) and then we start all over again... Anyone else had this?

Don't use your ISPs email service. Free providers (apart from gmail) can be temperamental. If you want support, you won't be able to get any with free providers. The solution is to buy a domain and get email hosting, or connect it to a gmail account. Although you don't get support from gmail either, it is reliable enough not to need it.

Ragnor

8220 posts

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#633834 1-Jun-2012 03:38

The quality of the phone wiring in your house and the distance the phone line has to travel back to the local exchange or cabinet are the major factors in the maximum download/upload rates you can achieve.

Real world throughput will generally be slightly less than your line rates to domestic destinations and quite a bit less than your line rates internationally.

You can login to the admin website of your modem and find the status page which will probably list the current line rates and stats.

Default settings for the Thomson's are:
Address: http://192.168.1.254/
Login: Administrator
Password: blank ie: empty/nothing

Regarding email here's what I would do:

I wouldn't advise a custom domain name in this case, probably to complex for the regular joe...

1: Create a new Google Gmail account
2: Configure the Gmail mail fetcher to pull her xtra account into her new gmail account.
3: Use gmail's web interface instead of a desktop email client
4: Tell everyone that her new email address is the new gmail address
5: Over time change all newsletter subscriptions, website logins etc to use the new gmail address.
6: Eventually your xtra account won't receive any important email and you can the ditch the account.

Congratulations you are now free from feeling locked into staying with a particular ISP because you don't want to lose your email address.

Note:

If you really want to use a desktop email client, you can enable IMAP support in gmail and then configure your email client to access it via imap which has various advantages over using pop.

Refer to:

Switch to Gmail
https://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en/switch.html

Gmail Mail Fetcher
http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=21288

Enabling IMAP
http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77695

farcus

1554 posts

Uber Geek

#633835 1-Jun-2012 04:17

mattwnz:Free providers (apart from gmail) can be temperamental. If you want support, you won't be able to get any with free providers. The solution is to buy a domain and get email hosting, or connect it to a gmail account. Although you don't get support from gmail either, it is reliable enough not to need it.

that is a rather broad sweeping (and incorrect in my opinion) claim.

I have had a free yahoo account (NZ) for about twelve years now and have only needed to contact support twice in that time. On both occassions I received a response that satisfied my query within 48 hours.
Have had a GMX account for five years and have not at any stage needed to contact support.

If the OP only needs a personal email account then there are a number of free providers (including gmail) that could satisfy his requirements.

MurrayM

2456 posts

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#634001 1-Jun-2012 11:14

I had a free Yahoo account, which included Yahoo Mail, for at least 6 six years (could be more, I can't remember). I didn't use it for important stuff, it was only used for usenet postings and Yahoo Groups.

One day I tried to log in and was told my account had been deactivated because I had broken a rule in their Terms and Conditions. They wouldn't tell me which rule, or how they had determined that I had broken a rule. I suspect someone had complained about something I had posted under my Yahoo email address, but I don't know for sure because Yahoo refused to tell me anything. I could only contact them via email, no phone number that I could ring up to speak to a human. After several emails back and forth, where Yahoo refused to tell me what I had done wrong but insisted that I had done something and that there was no way they were going to reactivate my account, I gave up and went to Gmail.

I now have four Gmail accounts, mostly with my own domain names forwarding into those accounts. Haven't had any problems and I mostly access them via Thunderbird running on my desktop using IMAP, or my Android phone, or just via their web interface.

allan

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#634151 1-Jun-2012 13:53

And likewise I have had a very good experience with Windows Live Hotmail using my own domain, so not fair to bag all free providers except Gmail.

The way I run it is to use the Outlook Connector plug-in which provides a very "Exchange like" experience for email, calendar and contacts, but equally accessible via webmail to via tailored URL - e.g. webmail.mydomaniname.com. Other family use the Windows Live email client and webmail and there are a number of mobile devices (iPhone, Android, Windows Phone) connecting via an activesync connection.

So all in all, works well without any dependancy on ISP email, nor any use of POP3 or SMTP protocols.

mattwnz

20155 posts

Uber Geek

#634158 1-Jun-2012 14:17

allan: And likewise I have had a very good experience with Windows Live Hotmail using my own domain, so not fair to bag all free providers except Gmail.

The way I run it is to use the Outlook Connector plug-in which provides a very "Exchange like" experience for email, calendar and contacts, but equally accessible via webmail to via tailored URL - e.g. webmail.mydomaniname.com. Other family use the Windows Live email client and webmail and there are a number of mobile devices (iPhone, Android, Windows Phone) connecting via an activesync connection.

So all in all, works well without any dependancy on ISP email, nor any use of POP3 or SMTP protocols.

I have contacted both hotmail and yahoo in the past about email problems, and never got any reply, so I am basing on my own experiences. I have never tried contact gmail, but then again it has been so relaible, that I have never needed to. In a way I think it is fair enough too, as you shouldn't really expect support for something that is free, as who is paying for that staff to answer your email. My opinion on free providers is that don't want you to contact them, as it isn't easy to find their contact details. It isn't as though they have a big button at the top of the screen saying, contact us for personal support, like you would get with a paid provider. Instead contact details/an email form to fill in, is usually hidden behind multiple levels in knowledge base articles.

mattwnz

20155 posts

Uber Geek

#634159 1-Jun-2012 14:18

MurrayM: I had a free Yahoo account, which included Yahoo Mail, for at least 6 six years (could be more, I can't remember). I didn't use it for important stuff, it was only used for usenet postings and Yahoo Groups.

One day I tried to log in and was told my account had been deactivated because I had broken a rule in their Terms and Conditions. They wouldn't tell me which rule, or how they had determined that I had broken a rule. I suspect someone had complained about something I had posted under my Yahoo email address, but I don't know for sure because Yahoo refused to tell me anything. I could only contact them via email, no phone number that I could ring up to speak to a human. After several emails back and forth, where Yahoo refused to tell me what I had done wrong but insisted that I had done something and that there was no way they were going to reactivate my account, I gave up and went to Gmail.

I now have four Gmail accounts, mostly with my own domain names forwarding into those accounts. Haven't had any problems and I mostly access them via Thunderbird running on my desktop using IMAP, or my Android phone, or just via their web interface.

Yes that is a problem. Possibily your account got hacked, and was used for spamming?

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MurrayM

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#634260 1-Jun-2012 16:08

mattwnz: Yes that is a problem. Possibily your account got hacked, and was used for spamming?

Yes that's possible, but no way of knowing since Yahoo simply refused to tell me why my account had been closed and wouldn't even consider the idea of reactivating it. Luckily I didn't have any valuable emails stored there.

DaveDog

336 posts

Ultimate Geek

#639887 12-Jun-2012 20:13

Ragnor: The quality of the phone wiring in your house and the distance the phone line has to travel back to the local exchange or cabinet are the major factors in the maximum download/upload rates you can achieve.

Real world throughput will generally be slightly less than your line rates to domestic destinations and quite a bit less than your line rates internationally.

You can login to the admin website of your modem and find the status page which will probably list the current line rates and stats.

Default settings for the Thomson's are:
Address: http://192.168.1.254/
Login: Administrator
Password: blank ie: empty/nothing

OK - As far as speed goes... The Thomson reports Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:945 / 9.428
Everyone seems to be using Speedtest - so that tells me download 8.11mbps and upload .77mbps

As far as the email goes - argh... The wife likes her Xtra address... so what do you do right?

Regs

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Snowflake

#639912 12-Jun-2012 21:07

My wife's xtra email - using Windows Live Mail - will not download the email. Forever asks for the username and password. If I enter it - it doesn't work. If I go into email settings - it doesn't work. If I delete the email account and set it up from scratch - it'll work, until it stops (maybe tomorrow) and then we start all over again... Anyone else had this?

try removing any anti-malware or antivirus software and see if that makes a difference. maybe something is interfering with the mail send/receive process.

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coffeebaron

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#639919 12-Jun-2012 21:21

DaveDog:
OK - As far as speed goes... The Thomson reports Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:945 / 9.428
Everyone seems to be using Speedtest - so that tells me download 8.11mbps and upload .77mbps

As far as the email goes - argh... The wife likes her Xtra address... so what do you do right?

Check out this topic if you haven't already:
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=49&topicid=96226
Email / PM you exact home address if you like and I'll see if your speed is on par with what I'd expect. After doing many master splitter installs these past few months, the majority have definitely been worthwhile.

As for the email issues - I'm certainly not a fan of Windows Live mail, but when people by computers and don't get Microsoft Outlook, that's probably the next simplest thing. Check that it is not dropping the Internet connection randomly - whether DSL drop out or Wi-Fi dropout, or some program interfering. Often the start of these issues can be when there is a dropout and the password box comes up, then the wrong password gets in there and it's problems from there.

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