[TelstraClear] Rural service levels & frustration with TCL

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#679388 30-Aug-2012 17:59

bakewells5856: wish i could spit that far :P

Better start training now for when it becomes an olympic event...

colinuu

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#679443 30-Aug-2012 20:09

grudge:

This is because the CIR for BUBA is 45kbps as someone mentioned previously, basically the service they are providing is within the agreed SLA's.

The ISP won't be able to give you a discount, because, again, the service is within the specifications agreed.

So, if my ISP has a SLA with Chorus which involves the 45kbps CIR, then why am I charged the same as my mate in town who gets adsl2 and all the performance he could want? My power company doesn't say "you're too far out of town, we'll reduce your voltage to 110V most of the time, but watch out it could hit 230 occasionally. We know you will be happy with lights that glow a dull red...." TCL market the internet to me just the same as to my mate, even handing out 40GB data packs (what sort of a sick joke is that?) yet clearly they are selling a different product.

Living rurally, one becomes accustomed to paying more than townies for many things, but generally we receive an appropriate and acceptable service. Telephone costs more, because almost all calls are toll calls, but availability is fine and the quality is good. Electricity costs more because the line co charges the retailer more, but the network is well maintained. We pay for items in our local body rates which are unavailable to us or which we are unable to benefit from, but it's part of the deal. The list goes on and on...

What rankles is the appalling way that Chorus treats us when it comes to internet service. I for one would be happy to pay extra up front for equipment that would secure us a good and reliable connection, but I would expect to pay the same for the data as anyone else. But under the prevailing arrangement, I don't even get that choice.

Thanks for listening...

Colin

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#679454 30-Aug-2012 20:30

As harsh as it is my view (and clearly you're probably not going to like it) is that people in rural areas should pay more if they want better services. Urban users have already subsidised rural telecommunications users in NZ for the past 20 years enabling you to pay the same for phone services as somebody in a big city.

plambrechtsen

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#679498 30-Aug-2012 22:19

You may also be getting a cabinet upgrade under RBI if you're lucky. Chorus are replacing a lot of the Conklin's with EUBA cabinets under their RBI program of work.

If you e-mail me your phone number & address to pl at telecom dot co dot nz I can lookup your address and tell if you're on a Conklin (which from the sounds of it you are).

Then you can either look in the Chorus SAT, or this Telco2 site to see when / if you are getting a cabinet upgrade.

grant_k

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#679506 30-Aug-2012 22:42

bakewells5856: it just seems like if you and some other person went to mcdonalds and you both ordered a cheeseburger, and you both pay for it and they're happy enough to take your money, but then they come back and say "oh sorry we only have the one cheeseburger so your both going to have to share. don't worry I already cut it in half for you"

This is gold!

Unfortunately, it's all too true in cases like this. Milk the consumer for all he/she is worth. 45kbps CIR in 2012 ... I mean really! What's that any good for?

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#679515 30-Aug-2012 23:39

sbiddle: As harsh as it is my view (and clearly you're probably not going to like it) is that people in rural areas should pay more if they want better services. Urban users have already subsidised rural telecommunications users in NZ for the past 20 years enabling you to pay the same for phone services as somebody in a big city.

as another rural user, ild happily pay a bit more for a "rural connection".. data costs ild expect to be the same in that case, but a "premium" for the longer distance.

in saying that, if you were to need to pay extra for the connection, ild expect that atlest a reasonable attempt to give you the speeds you should have to be made, i have personally had chorus techs in to look at our line to be told "your a rural customer, your current stats are the best we can do" now when they are being requested to look at it because a clear issue with the line reducing syncs, increased noise etc and your given that "your a rural customer" line it urks you incredibly..

i could list many situations were being a "rural customer" has meant that you just dont get your issue sorted or the fix for the solution is delayed.

the ironic thing about being a rural customer, is the more residential customers near the exchange get first priority, for example, when the exchange was upgraded for adsl2, that bought different line cards (i assume) which dont seem to handle the distance aswell, thus the residential customers get their boost in speed etc, while you, the rural customers "best effort" is reduced. personally, i used to be on a coklin, enjoyed the fact that i could get a solid 3.5mbit connection, that was soon transferred due to a line issue (seems a tech switched our pairs with someone and we ended up with their dsl line for a few days) to the exchange, thus a much longer loop to sync against and a loss of speed, and reliability (to a point) with no way to move back since its "full now".

now, im sure as more people have got dsl that poor little coklin will be congested now, so i wouldnt be soo keen to be on it.

all in all, its just pretty ridiculous as to how far behind the start of RBI is as compared to UFB etc..
given it wasnt all things considered at the time however..

as a rural customer however, you look at it where UFB is being installed, before you even get off a coklin and onto a "real cabinet" is kinda a kick in a pants..

i must add however, there is due to be a RBI cabinet installed in 2 years about 200M from my driveway (up the road) so i am waiting out that, however i will personally be moved out by then, and onto a connection that doesnt feel like your trying to squeeze data through a straw.

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grant_k

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#679524 31-Aug-2012 00:08

hio77: as another rural user, ild happily pay a bit more for a "rural connection".. data costs ild expect to be the same in that case, but a "premium" for the longer distance.

in saying that, if you were to need to pay extra for the connection, ild expect that atlest a reasonable attempt to give you the speeds you should have to be made, i have personally had chorus techs in to look at our line to be told "your a rural customer, your current stats are the best we can do" now when they are being requested to look at it because a clear issue with the line reducing syncs, increased noise etc and your given that "your a rural customer" line it urks you incredibly..

i could list many situations were being a "rural customer" has meant that you just dont get your issue sorted or the fix for the solution is delayed.

Our local Chorus tech. (who is a good bloke) assured me that we probably get at least 1Mbps through our 7km phone line to the broadband-equipped roadside cabinet that we are connected to. He seriously suggested that we should ditch our 5Mbps Vodafone RBI wireless connection in order to save money. Thinking back several years to when we used to have a landline, I remember electric fence clicks, mains hum and all sorts of other crap on the line, so I am pretty dubious about his 1Mbps guesstimate. We used to get 31kbps dialup speed on a good day. When the ground is wet (as it as at the moment), the speed would probably drop further, and reliability would be very doubtful indeed.

I regularly hear complaints from a community of rural users trying to eke out a decent connection speed over copper, and my feeling is that it is a lost cause, unless you are very lucky, and happen to be fairly close (say 3km or less) to the cabinet. Even being close to the cabinet, as in the OP's case, doesn't guarantee a decent throughput if the backhaul is congested, as it seems to be in his case.

My vote goes to wireless, which I have been using in various forms since 2004. Yes, it is a bit more expensive, but Vodafone have backup power supplies at their cellsites (as we do in our shed), so our internet connection can be maintained during a power cut. The endurance of the local roadside cabinets in our area is very limited according to neighbours that are connected to it. Power outages are a regular occurrence around here BTW, so it is another factor to consider.

colinuu: We are in a bit of a radio black hole, so no wireless option. 3G using Telecom would work, but data is very expensive. Satellite would work, again data is expensive and high latency..

Any other ideas would be highly appreciated.

Cheers,
Colin

The signal-pulling power of an outdoor Yagi antenna (as used for the Vodafone RBI kit) is quite astounding, with even a 1-bar signal being transformed into a good solid 3 bars by the extra gain of the antenna. Have you walked around your property with a Vodafone handset to see if there are any places where 1 bar of signal can be obtained? The data prices for the RBI plans are a lot more reasonable than Telecom or Vodafone's standard mobile broadband plans.

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#679525 31-Aug-2012 00:20

grant_k:
hio77: as another rural user, ild happily pay a bit more for a "rural connection".. data costs ild expect to be the same in that case, but a "premium" for the longer distance.

in saying that, if you were to need to pay extra for the connection, ild expect that atlest a reasonable attempt to give you the speeds you should have to be made, i have personally had chorus techs in to look at our line to be told "your a rural customer, your current stats are the best we can do" now when they are being requested to look at it because a clear issue with the line reducing syncs, increased noise etc and your given that "your a rural customer" line it urks you incredibly..

i could list many situations were being a "rural customer" has meant that you just dont get your issue sorted or the fix for the solution is delayed.

Our local Chorus tech. (who is a good bloke) assured me that we probably get at least 1Mbps through our 7km phone line to the broadband-equipped roadside cabinet that we are connected to. He seriously suggested that we should ditch our 5Mbps Vodafone wireless connection in order to save money. Thinking back several years to when we used to have a landline, I remember electric fence clicks, mains hum and all sorts of other crap on the line, so I am pretty dubious about his 1Mbps guesstimate. We used to get 31kbps dialup speed on a good day. When the ground is wet (as it as at the moment), the speed would probably drop further, and reliability would be very doubtful indeed.

I regularly hear complaints from a community of rural users trying to eke out a decent connection speed over copper, and my feeling is that it is a lost cause, unless you are very lucky, and happen to be fairly close (say 3km or less) to the cabinet. Even being close to the cabinet, as in the OP's case, doesn't guarantee a decent throughput if the backhaul is congested, as it seems to be in his case.

My vote goes to wireless, which I have been using in various forms since 2004. Yes, it is a bit more expensive, but Vodafone have backup power supplies at their cellsites (as we do in our shed), so our internet connection can be maintained during a power cut. The endurance of the local roadside cabinets in our area is very limited according to neighbours that are connected to it. Power outages are a regular occurrence around here BTW, so it is another factor to consider.

power outages used to be regular here, now we see them maybe once or twice a year, generally involving a tree and a powerpole..

i am about 3-4KM from the exchange, currently sitting on 2.2mbit.. so i really cant complain too much (although the lack of our old sync is annoying to say the least..)

on the point of wireless, that is in the area here by a small local company called Geolink, our house was "too hard" to supply a connection to, although the guy was purely interested in the fact that we overlook the whole valley and could service everyone there rather :S

have a family friend who was able to get one on their connections, far too unreliable, in the end, they have opted to go satellite.

personally, im a heavy user thus opting for a wireless link is out of the question, try pushing upwards of 100GB on it and your paying a load... also being a gamer, the latency on wireless, and jitter would be horrible...

wouldnt count Waitakere as rural as some others posting here however.. none the less, its "rural" :L

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colinuu

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#679539 31-Aug-2012 06:23

Thanks for all the responses guys. Yes, we get a small vodafone signal, but I haven't heard of RBI happening in this area. I'll check into it.

sbiddle: As harsh as it is my view (and clearly you're probably not going to like it) is that people in rural areas should pay more if they want better services. Urban users have already subsidised rural telecommunications users in NZ for the past 20 years enabling you to pay the same for phone services as somebody in a big city.

Please re-read my last post. You will see we are not poles apart. I would charge a differential for the line rental, then I would charge everyone the same per minute for all phone calls - local calls included. You probably wouldn't like that... Anyway, what we have got is government mandated, and not likely to change any time soon.

I think the help desk staff need a rocket up their bums. They should have been able to tell me 5 months ago what I have learnt in one day by visiting this site!! Don't they know that they have customers connected on ancient equipment with 4Mb backhauls? Instead they string me along with vague promises about upgrades and other improvements which in the end were completely irrelevant.

Colin

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#679543 31-Aug-2012 06:35

Maybe it's time to change the playing field here, tell TCL that seen they have activily sort to reduce your speed you feel that due to this reduced preformance you will be making a proportional reduction in the amount you pay. If they restore the speed to the same as it was when you first signed up then the amount you pay will be restored.

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#679557 31-Aug-2012 07:44

grant_k:
bakewells5856: it just seems like if you and some other person went to mcdonalds and you both ordered a cheeseburger, and you both pay for it and they're happy enough to take your money, but then they come back and say "oh sorry we only have the one cheeseburger so your both going to have to share. don't worry I already cut it in half for you"

This is gold!

Unfortunately, it's all too true in cases like this. Milk the consumer for all he/she is worth. 45kbps CIR in 2012 ... I mean really! What's that any good for?

45kbps is a regulated rate set by the Commerce Commission, they are the only people who can answer this!

Since EUBA is now the primary connection method for most ISP's in areas with ISAM's it does become a bit of a moot point as their is no artificial dimensioning on EUBA, despite many plans to introduce it to comply with the Commerce Commission regulated offering.

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#679559 31-Aug-2012 07:48

sbiddle:
grant_k: Unfortunately, it's all too true in cases like this. Milk the consumer for all he/she is worth. 45kbps CIR in 2012 ... I mean really! What's that any good for?

45kbps is a regulated rate set by the Commerce Commission, they are the only people who can answer this!

Since EUBA is now the primary connection method for most ISP's in areas with ISAM's it does become a bit of a moot point as their is no artificial dimensioning on EUBA, despite many plans to introduce it to comply with the Commerce Commission regulated offering.

Worth quoting. It's the regulation body who decided the level playing field folks.

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#679565 31-Aug-2012 08:23

I'm just speculating but Chorus appear to have been trenching fibre from Wanganui back down SH3 and last time I came through a couple of weeks ago they weren't far from Turakina. So a possible glimmer of hope on the horizon.

sbiddle

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#679568 31-Aug-2012 08:27

Kraven: I'm just speculating but Chorus appear to have been trenching fibre from Wanganui back down SH3 and last time I came through a couple of weeks ago they weren't far from Turakina. So a possible glimmer of hope on the horizon.

Has anybody looked on the RBI rollout to see what's happening? If the town has a school then it'll either be part of the fibre or wireless RBI rollout.

grudge

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#679587 31-Aug-2012 09:33

sbiddle:
Kraven: I'm just speculating but Chorus appear to have been trenching fibre from Wanganui back down SH3 and last time I came through a couple of weeks ago they weren't far from Turakina. So a possible glimmer of hope on the horizon.

Has anybody looked on the RBI rollout to see what's happening? If the town has a school then it'll either be part of the fibre or wireless RBI rollout.

According to this http://www.telco2.co.nz/rbicabinets.html :

The Fordell, or Bulls RBI cabinets are the closest to his area, Bulls YR4, Fordell YR5. Don't think either of them can service him.

And no upgrades planned according to the Chorus Service Availability tool.

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