Skinny Home Wireless Broadband doomed?

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PhilZealand

13 posts

Geek

#207263 16-Dec-2016 11:12

I have had Skinny Wireless for 6 months now in North Shore. The data rate used to be good, now whenever I do a download, the speed starts at ~60Mbits/sec and drops down to around 6Mbits/sec after a couple of second. This has been a reliable observation for the past 2 weeks (monitored by watching the Ethernet graph in Win10 task manager). I have tried updating Photoshop in morning,afternoon, and at 4AM this morning with the same result. Other downloads and even watching online streaming I notice the same down to the extent that the online video (Youtube) pauses often.

I also have my ADSL line for backup, and now after 2 days of trying to update Adobe Photoshop, I have changed back to the ADSL modem and get a rock steady 11Mbits/sec (~my usual ADSL limit) so it doesn't seem to be Adobe end holding things up.

Could it be that Spark (owners of the network) are now rate-limiting because they have been offering wireless to everyone and dont have the capacity to deliver?

- Phil.

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#1690987 16-Dec-2016 11:47

Yeah, I found this when I tried to put our church on it (suburban Whanganui). Speeds OK (~15Mbps), but only in short bursts. The cynic in me wonders if the burst window is just long enough to make speedtest.net results look good.

Then jitter and ping time went from acceptable to "makes VoIP unusuable" within a few weeks, by which time we were out of the reception guarantee period. Switched them to Annex M ADSL2 with Flip which was almost as cheap, had a working landline, and better sustained performance. Although probably a lower profit margin for the telco.

Edit: and this was in June/July this year, so not a "new" thing. Maybe load in your area has crept up, and that's when the burstiness kicks in?

kornflake

409 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1691292 16-Dec-2016 22:21

Was skinny bband the test bed for sparks new initiative, now that they have proved they can deliver it skinny is been restricted.

amiga500

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#1704955 17-Jan-2017 23:18

I'm still pleased with Skinny wireless broadband. However if I do the Speedofme test at a busy time of day I get about 3.5 Mbps, then go straight to Speedtest.net I get about 33 Mbps. I have always got a a very different result from these two speed test sites though. I have had Skinny now for about 10 months.

If I am using Youtube and the 'Download as mp4' addon on Firefox and it's a busy time of day such as 10 pm to 11 pm, school holidays etc, the download will start fast at 3-4 MBps, then slowly decay to around 200 KBps. Then if I pause and restart the download it will go back up to 3-4 MBps. or at least 2 MBps. To me it seems that the software Skinny uses is differentiating between user attended downloads and non user attended downloads. So, I can live with that.

I notice almost exactly the same with 'Downthemall' addon when using Firefox.

At other times of the day such as very late at night or early to mid morning I am not seeing any slow downs. Overall Skinny broadband has proved a darn sight faster than ADSL over bad copper wiring, & it would be complicated for me to get fiber. And when comparing the Skinny and Spark offerings Skinny is still a better deal for me.

I had to edit the post as I had got confused with Mbps which is what Speedtest and Speedofme uses, and MBps which I see when using Download as mp4 and Downthemall.

amiga500

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#1704960 17-Jan-2017 23:34

I think I need to go to bed! I had been running both speedtests with the adblocker enabled which Speedofme said could give skewed results so about 11.25 pm, I ran both tests again and got:

Speedtest.net 28.90 Mbps Down; 13.34 Up.

SpeedOf.Me 36.93 Mbps Down; 4.56 Mbps Up

In the past years I had used Slingshot, Xtra, Snap, Inspire, and had never got a speed over 7 Mbps with any of those ISPs and the crappy copper wiring.

dickytim

2514 posts

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#1704982 18-Jan-2017 06:13

Interesting, I'll try tonight.

I was getting 30-40mb/s download and around 10 upload, if it has slowed then that will seal my discussion to switch to Skinny VDSL Unlimited.

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#1705403 18-Jan-2017 18:53

amiga500:

I'm still pleased with Skinny wireless broadband. However if I do the Speedofme test at a busy time of day I get about 3.5 Mbps, then go straight to Speedtest.net I get about 33 Mbps. I have always got a a very different result from these two speed test sites though. I have had Skinny now for about 10 months.

speedofme's closest test server is sydney, speedtest has many regional servers in NZ.

speedofme's test is single threaded, speedtest will use up to 8 at the same time.

Both these will factor into your speedtest results heavily, especially when the network is loaded.

#include <std_disclaimer>

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

D.W

725 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1705411 18-Jan-2017 19:13

I've been using Skinny wireless for a couple of days now, speeds are great (30-40Mb+) but 100GB really doesn't cut it, and the excess data charges are excessive ($20 for 10GB). I'd be better off getting a second account/modem for an extra $52 instead.

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staticnz

151 posts

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#1705416 18-Jan-2017 19:22

or you could just repurchase the 100GB pack when you run out

dickytim

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#1705417 18-Jan-2017 19:23

My speeds are 20/20 at the moment.

You can renew any time for the full month.

dickytim

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#1705419 18-Jan-2017 19:24

Snap!

D.W

725 posts

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#1705420 18-Jan-2017 19:28

Oh great that isn't so bad, thanks.

bonkiebonks

389 posts

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#1705437 18-Jan-2017 20:04

The lack of a reply from Skinny pretty much says everything about the fate of it.

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#1711035 28-Jan-2017 13:58

I think a lack of reply says nothing of this sort.

I have a Skinny modem and made good use of it while my main router was replaced with a test model that took me a few days to configure. I plugged the Skinny modem to my network and had all my devices connected in no time. Speeds around 40 Mbps here in Johnsonville.

The modem is back in the box, now that I managed to get my main router configured and working.

I think Skinny (and Spark or Vodafone offerings) are great options for emergencies or for consumers with no option beyond DSL.

Hammerer

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#1711039 28-Jan-2017 14:15

PhilZealand:

Skinny Home Wireless Broadband doomed?

A hypothesis based on a sample size of one!!

When I saw the sensational headline, I did wonder if you were quoting an article from Stuff or a tabloid.

tangerz

625 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1711198 28-Jan-2017 22:37

freitasm:

I think Skinny (and Spark or Vodafone offerings) are great options for emergencies or for consumers with no option beyond DSL.

Although I suspect these consumers are not exactly their target market I would hazard a guess that they make up a significant number of their subscribers.

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