Crawling back

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Crawling back

trout

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#30964 27-Feb-2009 13:51

Well have had enough of my current ISP that I have been on for 8 years (they used to be amazing) but after seeing their forum in here I was stunned to see the same issues I have been battling with them over the last 9 months. So it was not just me being a unique case as they were saying. So when they lie that is the last straw, seems they have no ethics or integrity since their SOE take over.

I have scanned through the Xtra forums and cant see any real common complaint issues.

Is this an indication that the Telecom/Xtra service has really picked up the pace. Or is someone secretly deleting the bad posts

.

So the question to as many as possible is......Are most of you truly happy with the Xtra network at the moment???? I hope so because I have taken the plunge.

tonyhughes

Hawkes Bay
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#198405 27-Feb-2009 15:44

~~Telecom New Zealand provide me with heavily discounted phone service to delete posts that are negative about Xtra's ISP offerings.~~

^^^^ that is what is commonly known as a JOKE.

Telecom has had its fair share of bashes here over the years, especially around the Go Large ~~fiasco~~ ~~screwup~~ product.

But lately, I have only heard "relatively good" things about their service.

Our office Xtra connection has always been brilliant (I run a head office, plus some satellite sites using DSL VPNs, and OneOffice) [obviously the OneOffice doesnt factor into the DSL].

I was with Xtra at home until I recently decided to not have fixed internet service at home. And the service ranged from "occaisionally poor" to "occaisionally breathtakingly excellent", and most of the time was "acceptable". I think my house telephone wiring account for lots of my variation in service.

Balchy

484 posts

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#198408 27-Feb-2009 15:53

Xtra is actually pretty good I have to admit - I took the plunge about a month ago and am very happy with the speeds - way faster than my old provider by a long "shot"

For billions of years since the outset of time, every single one of your ancestors survived, every single person on your Mum and Dads side, successfully looked after and passed onto you life. What are the chances of that like?

riahon

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#198409 27-Feb-2009 15:56

I have been with Xtra for years. Apart from the rare outage I have never had a problem. I had contemplated moving to a different provider a couple of times but just never got a around to it. I live about 5km from the exchange so I have always received fringe speed usually around 1.5 to 2Mbps. Fortunately I have just been connected to a cabinet a few weeks ago and I now get speeds of around 12Mbps so very happy at the moment.

I have had to call them maybe 6 or so times. Service was always excellent and when my modem failed it was replaced under warranty without any hassle.

Over the years I have seen a pattern of one ISP being flavour of the month attracting a lot of new customers but soon after the service level drops and another ISP becomes flavour of the month.

jmosen

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#198454 27-Feb-2009 22:53

Much as it shocks me to say it, the service I've had since signing back up with Xtra has been absolutely superb. One very happy customer.

Jonathan

Dawg

233 posts

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#198460 27-Feb-2009 23:59

I am a TC customer and I find their product fantastic - We at work operating a almost nationwide wan have moved to tc and it has been fantastic - No issues and hell of a lot cheaper.
Eg 2 mb link to Auck land from chch - To increase with TC cost us an extra $100 amonth compared too the 100% increase telecolm was going to charge.
I have now been in my internet life time a Telecolm/telsta clear/orcon customer.
TC wins on speedOrcon I had no complaints for the 2 years I was with them - Just moved to a TC cable area
Telecom was of the dial up era.
mate at work was a elecolm customer - Switched to slingshot - Perfomance was alot worse than his previous conectin - Got out o fhis contract - Resigned with telecom the gave him a free modem which sat in his cupboard for 4 month until I sent him an ADSL 2 map = Light bulb went off.
He is a very happy Xtra customer.
I never had a problem getting in contact with Xtras help desk - I sometimes solved the probem b4 them - But i always got through - Cant say that about TC or Orcon (only had too ring Orcon twice & once was to sign up)
So depends on locaztion and nescity of user - Lot of happy customers from every ISP - Just depesnd on expectation/budget & needs
Cheers

trout

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#198477 28-Feb-2009 08:54

Thanks for the input folks. With further browsing it looks like the right decision has been made. Was looking at Snap but they did not have the phone package I (well my teens) wanted.

Had to move all coms to telecom as Orcon would not retain just phone services for residential customers. Will see how the broadband goes with xtra. Been a very long time since having internet services with them.

Cheers again

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stevenz

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#198486 28-Feb-2009 09:39

I was with Telecom at my last place, we had a problem with extremely poor speeds, with very little question they sent a guy around who spent half an hour crawling around in the ceiling, found an issue with some questionable wiring which he fixed (gave us the option of fixing it quickly with the loss of 1 wall-jack which we weren't using anyway, or rewiring half the house as it should've been in the first place, we took the former option). Once he sorted that out, everything worked brilliantly, and they never even bothered to charge us for it. To say we were impressed would be an understatement.

To be fair though, we're currently with TCL and other than their local exchange running at about 1/4 speed for a few months and "forgetting" to credit us for the fact, and then putting the price up as soon as they fixed it, they were pretty good when we had issues with the in-house hardware (2 faulty modems in a row, 1 got fried by a remote firmware update, and the other by a suspect switcher in the wallbox). The end-user support is pretty good, management, not so much.

cokemaster

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#198492 28-Feb-2009 10:15

I've got DSL2+ service with Telecom here, using the Business Broadband plans (60gb with $3/gb excess). Very good and consistent service, I never experience the issues that some people post about other ISP's throughput issues.

It doesn't matter what time I use the service either - either its 6pm-9pm weekdays or 1pm Weekends - I get decent speeds.

webhosting

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BazNZ

258 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#198686 2-Mar-2009 06:53

I have just switched from Orcon after 2 years and gone back to Telecom. I'm very happy I did. Orcon has gone down hill big time since Kordia took over ownership last year. They have no bandwidth and just rape their customer's wallets and in return give crap service. Orcon once upon a time were excellent but that is now a distant memory.

Lurch

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#198706 2-Mar-2009 09:47

Telecom have been and will always be a good ISP. We had no issues with either service or the connection itself. Only thing we had a problem with when we were with them was no interleaving off and the cost.

I notice you can get interleaving off on certain plans now but the price of the different packages is still expensive although improved.

ajobbins

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#198711 2-Mar-2009 10:12

Very happy with out Xtra connection at home.

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paradoxsm

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#198731 2-Mar-2009 11:59

Ditto, I'm on Telecom "Xtra" business broadband 60GB nd it's top notch, Have no complaints whatsoever and international speeds are stellar.

Orcon used to be fantastic but has slowed down a bit recently. (in saying that it's on an old grandfathered plan which may contribute)

trout

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#198977 3-Mar-2009 15:21

Once again thanks for all the replies and recommendations they were very much appreciated.

Well provisioning went through today, first impressions were just jaw dropping. Before setting router over to Telecom login I tried a speed test to Los Angeles with Orcon yeap she was choking (or should I say being strangled) at 2.5mb/s (max peak 3261kb/s).
Next log onto Telecom same test, ping way down and a transfer of 6784kb/s, but I like real world testing, tried a http download from Los Angeles 8k average peaking 9.3k, well havent seen those figures for a long time during normal awake hours.

Thanks Orcon for all the lies and deceit over the last 9 months. Lucky you are not sued. (May happen yet)

Oggie

69 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#199599 6-Mar-2009 13:08

Hey .... hang on ....... I'm still with Orcon ......

Whats the problem with them, I'm on an old plan so never got super speeds anyway - 5 gig for $39.95.
Should I be looking at changing back to Telecom?????

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