[WXC/VFX] Xnet down

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#185477 21-Dec-2008 13:56

Talkiet: I can't let this slide...

You have a busy retail shop and you have their connectivity through a budget provider with a recent history of outages?

That's just not responsible I'm afraid... I only use them for home use, and even there I have a backup connection that I can now switch to by doubleclicking on a desktop shortcut.

How is it irresponsible? Your own post acknowledges "recent history". Up until fairly recently they've been very stable and reliable. They obviously have problems now but I'm sure they're working to resolve those, because they will be more than well aware that if they don't they'll shed too many customers and will collapse.

As for not posting in these forums anymore - who can blame them? All they seem get is constant whining and moaning from, I might add, a relatively small group of people. Disgruntled users yes, but going over the same ground with same gripes again and again and again and again and again...if I was an ISP I probably wouldn't bother responding in these forums anymore either.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the point's been well and truly hammered home. On one hand we have limited bandwidth available to ISPs, on the other we have an overabundance of users - it's not rocket science to figure out that something's not going work out. Judging by the frequency of these type of posts you'll more than likely strike the same sort of problems with other ISP's at some stage. They'll get fixed at some stage.

Move on.

Start geeking, stop groaning.

Niel

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#185485 21-Dec-2008 14:22

Amen to Dratsab (even though you call yourself a bastard). And XNet staff are still reading these posts, they just choose to respond only when required and not keep on repeating themselves.

You can never have enough Volvos!

robbypreb

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#185493 21-Dec-2008 15:28

Dratsab:
Talkiet: I can't let this slide...

You have a busy retail shop and you have their connectivity through a budget provider with a recent history of outages?

That's just not responsible I'm afraid... I only use them for home use, and even there I have a backup connection that I can now switch to by doubleclicking on a desktop shortcut.

How is it irresponsible? Your own post acknowledges "recent history". Up until fairly recently they've been very stable and reliable. They obviously have problems now but I'm sure they're working to resolve those, because they will be more than well aware that if they don't they'll shed too many customers and will collapse.

As for not posting in these forums anymore - who can blame them? All they seem get is constant whining and moaning from, I might add, a relatively small group of people. Disgruntled users yes, but going over the same ground with same gripes again and again and again and again and again...if I was an ISP I probably wouldn't bother responding in these forums anymore either.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the point's been well and truly hammered home. On one hand we have limited bandwidth available to ISPs, on the other we have an overabundance of users - it's not rocket science to figure out that something's not going work out. Judging by the frequency of these type of posts you'll more than likely strike the same sort of problems with other ISP's at some stage. They'll get fixed at some stage.

Move on.

Start geeking, stop groaning.

I must pull you up on a few of your statements. I actually sounds like you could be associated with the company, as you are making excuses for their bad service. If they have a larger number of customers than before, then they should be purchasing additional capacity from telecom. If they aren't doing that, where is the additional money that there additional customers pay actually going? Perhaps to line the owners pockets, as I guess they have to make hay while the sun shines?

Vodafone staff (in fact their management) post on these foums, despite them having a lot more 'whining' customers, so Xnets absence from these forums is very poor, and shows that they have lost touch with their customers.

The fact is, if these companies provided a good reliable service that meets cusomter expectations, then they wouldn't have as many people complaining. You will always get a few people who are never happy, but that is just business. However I know there are a lot of people who are not happy with Xnet, due to the problems they have had, and continue to have. If you go to the NZ PC world forums, they are currently running a ISP satisfaction survey, and disguntled Xnet customers outnumber everyone else on it, so it is not just a 'few whining customers'. Essentially they are not getting the service they are paying for.

I have just returned from Japan, and the family I was with pay about $30 per month for unlimited internet, and you can download a 500MB file in just a minute.

Nickh1976

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#185496 21-Dec-2008 15:32

Talkiet: That's just not responsible I'm afraid... I only use them for home use, and even there I have a backup connection that I can now switch to by doubleclicking on a desktop shortcut.

Thankyou for backing me up Dratsab.

I do not consider it to be irresponsible, after testing a number of providers this year, to chose to build a relationship with Xnet for our growing business. I have found their customer service, speed of installation, and quality of service to be very good. This is the first week i have experienced outages.

We are growing a fully comprehensive VOIP telephony and broadband network, across 2 estates so far, with more coming online in 2009. We host our own asterisk server, and IMHO WxC/Xnet is the best geared ISP, at a very reasonable rate, to allow us to add trunks, DDIs etc and develop the network (ie; moving to fibre) as our needs fit. I have also been very impressed by their involvement in this forum.

To be honest, a retail store doesn't really need more connectivity than the home, and provided you have the right Eftpos equiptment in place, which we do, we can handle the occasional outage with backup systems that work offline. Although, for obvious reasons, we would prefer 100% uptime.

I have telecom at home. They are overpriced and slow. And they are a wholesale provider. And nobody can rock solid guarantee that they will never have system outages. It's surely the nature of technology.

Just because something isn't expensive, doesn't make it sh*t...

robbypreb

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#185497 21-Dec-2008 15:36

Talkiet: Yes, down again (10:15am Sunday)...

I fully acknowledge I pay peanuts for less than stellar service, but they're not even bringing table stakes recently.

Frustrating that my Go Large connection is more reliable and usually faster than Xnet.

Cheers - N

What do you mean by 'I pay peanuts' . In NZ we pay a lot for our less than ideal internet, and Xnets prices aren't much lower than other providers, and they are more than others. The only reason I signed up to them was that they didn't require a long term contract, and you could pay as you go with bandwidth usage. Most other providers don't have hte same flexibility with their bandwidth. My decision had very little to do with the price, as I could get Telecom ADSL 2+for about the same price.

I have decided that I am going to switch to Telstra Cable internet in the new year, as it is avaliable in my area. I would however pefer to support a NZ owned company, and have the option of being able to change providers.

sbiddle

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#185498 21-Dec-2008 15:42

robbypreb:
You will always get a few people who are never happy, but that is just business. However I know there are a lot of people who are not happy with Xnet, due to the problems they have had, and continue to have. If you go to the NZ PC world forums, they are currently running a ISP satisfaction survey, and disguntled Xnet customers outnumber everyone else on it, so it is not just a 'few whining customers'. Essentially they are not getting the service they are paying for.

There is no disputing WxC do have some issues. They are well aware of these and I know that some of those issues will be resolved, it's just not something that can be done overnight.

As for the number of unhappy customers? There are plenty on here but lets look outside the g33k world - Consumer magazines recent ISP survey had Xnet/WxC in about 4th or 5th place from memory and this was a poll involving (from memory) around 20000 customers in total. What does that really tell you? To be honest I don't know. I do know that we have some people who tend to be very unhappy with Xnet and yet plenty of people in the real world who are more than happy with the service. It's well known Xtra are offering some of the best broadband speeds right now and their plans aren't too bad either and yet they're right down the bottom of the cunsumer poll when it comes to satisfaction with their ISP.

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Dratsab

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#185502 21-Dec-2008 16:01

Lol- it's interesting how whenever someone takes a stance someone else doesn't agree with they become suspected of being "associated" for the target company. I work in a government department in Wellington and have nothing to do with telecommunications, or IT anymore for that matter.

What I'm thrusting at is the futility and dreadfully boring repetitiveness of these threads. Perhaps someone (not me - I'm just not interested) should start a website called groanzone.co.nz or something similar. I absolutely agree that everyone has the right to complain as much as they like, and I'm guilty of a few snipes every now and again, but I don't see that Geekzone is an entirely appropriate forum for this. What's geeky about complaining?

Then again, it could also be argued that I don't have to read these posts, and this too is entirely true. But being at a bit of loose end today, I thought I'd stir the pot a little :-)

I fully agree with you that the prices we pay for what we get are too high, but I'm not going to post endlessly about it here. Like yourself I'm anXnet customer. I have become frustrated at their email problems (hopefully fully fixed now) lately, but I don't do YouTube, I don't Torrent and I don't game. In other words, Xnet is perfectly fine for me.

I think what they need to do is get rid of some resource hogs - continually increasing (or attempting to within a limited sphere) their bandwidth will not solve a single problem until the hogs go. How to do it legally? - don't know.

Anyhow, as Xnet suits me fine I'll finish off with post in pijin - a language that makes me smile: Mi no wori wori - problem blong ui.

Talkiet

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#185504 21-Dec-2008 16:39

robbypreb:
Talkiet: Yes, down again (10:15am Sunday)...

I fully acknowledge I pay peanuts for less than stellar service, but they're not even bringing table stakes recently.

Frustrating that my Go Large connection is more reliable and usually faster than Xnet.

Cheers - N
What do you mean by 'I pay peanuts' . In NZ we pay a lot for our less than ideal internet, and Xnets prices aren't much lower than other providers, and they are more than others. The only reason I signed up to them was that they didn't require a long term contract, and you could pay as you go with bandwidth usage. Most other providers don't have hte same flexibility with their bandwidth. My decision had very little to do with the price, as I could get Telecom ADSL 2+for about the same price.
I have decided that I am going to switch to Telstra Cable internet in the new year, as it is avaliable in my area. I would however pefer to support a NZ owned company, and have the option of being able to change providers.

By "I pay peanuts" I mean that I understand (and accept) that residential ADSL isn't (and shouldn't) be considered to be a suitable connection for a business of any sort, taking an end to end view, including support, SLAs and actual service.

Xnet's prices are pretty much the lowest if you are a heavy user - but it appears as if users are being asked to pay the price in reliability, support and lack of scaling in return for very very cheap data.

This all said, we pay both Xnet and Telecom for some connectivity at home - I have yet to be hit by an outage that has taken both out at the same time, and over the last 2 years, the Telecom link has been by far the more reliable - but we have paid Xnet more (and downloaded more through them).

As far as paying a lot in NZ generally... That's the price we all pay to live in a remote traffic sink with a generally sparse population. Deal wtih it. If you want Internet as cheap as Korea and Japan, then move there - you can't have the same economies of scale here I'm afraid. That's just reality. It's not popular reality sure, but it's the truth.

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.

freitasm

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#185508 21-Dec-2008 17:26

robbypreb: I (sic) actually sounds like you could be associated with the company, as you are making excuses for their bad service.

I repeat - and repeat: just because someone disagrees with someone else's view, it doesn't mean that person is in a company's books. Dratsab is not associated with WorldxChange - far from it actually.

So please do not use these kind of insinuations.

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Niel

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#185512 21-Dec-2008 18:06

Consumer magazines recent ISP survey had Xnet/WxC in about 4th or 5th place from memory and this was a poll involving (from memory) around 20000 customers in total.

That is 0.5% of the population, far below what is required for any statistical analysis. Yet, they do not advertise anywhere other than their web site and a small sign in PB Technologies etc. Even being mentioned is great.

Our internet cost is not excessive. There might be countries where it is cheaper and faster, but those countries have interest rates of 0.5% ets. so can not be directly compared. South Africa, even when it was cut off from the rest of the world under apartheid, was always ahead with technology and boasts with world leading engineering. Yet their internet data cost is 10x that of NZ, fast plans are 1Mbps, and since end 2007 you can now get a full 4Mbps if you are in the right area and willing to pay for it.

So XNet might be down in more than one way, but in my books (and many other's) we are happy with the service.

You can never have enough Volvos!

robbypreb

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#185517 21-Dec-2008 18:19

Niel:
Consumer magazines recent ISP survey had Xnet/WxC in about 4th or 5th place from memory and this was a poll involving (from memory) around 20000 customers in total.

That is 0.5% of the population, far below what is required for any statistical analysis. Yet, they do not advertise anywhere other than their web site and a small sign in PB Technologies etc. Even being mentioned is great.

Our internet cost is not excessive. There might be countries where it is cheaper and faster, but those countries have interest rates of 0.5% ets. so can not be directly compared. South Africa, even when it was cut off from the rest of the world under apartheid, was always ahead with technology and boasts with world leading engineering. Yet their internet data cost is 10x that of NZ, fast plans are 1Mbps, and since end 2007 you can now get a full 4Mbps if you are in the right area and willing to pay for it.

So XNet might be down in more than one way, but in my books (and many other's) we are happy with the service.

I don't put too much faith in the Consumer magazines articles, as you have to have significant resources to do a really good statistical analysis like that. The consumer article was done quite a few months agp, before these outages started becoming an issue. I believe the international bandwidth problem has been going on for a long time, but as I don't use torrants, and only watch the occasional youtune video, so I haven't noticed it too much. Perhaps they should do a proper broadband assessment on the next NZ census, as it would be more relevent than many questions they ask.

PC worlds survey can be found at http://www.fairfaxbm.tx.co.nz/surveys/isp_pcw_2008.html

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Ragnor

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#185634 22-Dec-2008 10:24

sbiddle:
There is no disputing WxC do have some issues. They are well aware of these and I know that some of those issues will be resolved, it's just not something that can be done overnight.

Xnet's reoccuring performance issues haven't been resolved in ~12 months.

People were posting about xnet problems in January 2008 people are still posting about xnet problems now, I left for a reliable provider in May.

I would like to see them sort out their issues and succeed, pay per mb and their original no disconnection fee were leaps forward in the market compared to other ISP's.

However given the time that has passed I have little confidence in the major issues being resolved without a mindset change on traffic management from the top of the company down.

sampler

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#185640 22-Dec-2008 10:32

Hey Neil,

That is 0.5% of the population, far below what is required for any statistical analysis.

While I agree about the sample group, the "population" percent might be a lot higher than you think. Remember its not based on the population of NZ, I would assume its a targeted group of people who already have the Internet ie 20000 real internet users. Also as robbypreb stated age of any publication denotes its relevance.

Xnet have "suffered" from word of mouth marketing. Geekzone is a good example of such perception altering entities. A public forum such as this will always attract the sharp tip of the positive and negative posts as the members of a forum are usually willing to express their opinion on a given topical and relevant subject.

If a poll was conducted in these forums It could be best described as a “mood” indicator. Due to human nature (or maybe Internet user nature?), I would be stunned if any ISP would be rated in a positive light.

I am still an Xnet customer, have been through "all these bad times". In the last few weeks I can now see an improvement in the Internet connectivity service as a whole.

</random musing off>

Cheers

Sampler

marmel

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#185671 22-Dec-2008 12:34

It's easy to say people should stop whining about xnet's performance but if your'e sitting at home struggling to get any kind of decent performance from your connection you can understand the frustration of some.

This is the bottom line - when xnet resolve this problem which has been going on for many for a very long time you can guarantee people will stop moaning.

I don't agree with the comment above about not beng able to fix the problem overnight. As has been ponted out this has been an issue for months and months, if a company cannot fix a problem in that time frame something is seriously wrong.

The response of xnet has been appalling as well and a big part of the problem. A little bit of regular communication goes a long way. When was the last time xnet acknowledged there was a problem at all other than a guarded sentence on their website about the torrent service not being suitable for people who use the net after midnight.

No doubt they are still reading these forums but when they were the bees knees a year or so ago they were happy to lap up the praise and posted constantly replying to "xnet is great because of....." threads. Now things aren't so great doesn't give them an excuse to stop being involved in my opinion, they need to take the good with the bad.

Someone needs to pull their head out of the sand, communicate with their customers and get this thing sorted. I mean seriously, how long can it take?

My advice is to leave if you are not happy. Sure it has been stated that things are going to be resolved but when and how? Xnet haven't stated they are going to fix anything as far as I am aware.

I left 6 mnths ago with mixed feelings as I thought they would sought the problems out a month or two after I left. Now I know I made the right decision and am enjoying having a decent connection with constantly good int speeds.

cws82us

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#185674 22-Dec-2008 13:08

I am changing to Orcon stuff all this down time

join Quic and get free sign up when you click my link https://account.quic.nz/refer/250676

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