[TelstraClear] Looking at going to Cable.

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › [TelstraClear] Looking at going to Cable.

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#258611 26-Sep-2009 19:45

Screeb: I have had both and found speeds have been equal to what they are advertised as. While ADSL has always failed to deliver the speeds I sign up for. Now i know there are multiple causes of reduced DL speeds etc. but I can honestly say the quality of the cable has always been superior to my ADSL use.

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#258612 26-Sep-2009 19:45

Screeb:
To all those other people who say they wouldn't switch from cable to ADSL, care to give a legitimate reason besides upload speed? I don't think you can.

The fact VoIP is absolutely rock solid with no absolutely no jitter or packet lose? The fact speeds are consistant?

Try finding me a ADSL ISP who can guarantee very close to 10Mbps downloads 24/7. With TCL cable I can get that. Try finding me any ADSL provider who can guarantee the same VoIP performance as TCL offer.

There are two advantages ADSL has over cable. One being that there are more flexible plan options if you don't mind traffic shaping or throttling and secondly some people who are using ADSL2+ are getting faster speeds at present but DOSCIS3 will change that.

It's obvious that nothing anybody says is going to convince you otherwise though - a lot of your previous posts here have been knocking TCL..

redjet

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#258616 26-Sep-2009 20:41

Screeb: Your friends with higher latencies presumably don't have interlacing disabled.

Trust me they do - hardcore gamers try everything possible to get those latencies down. TCL cable honestly rocks because like others have mentioned it has consistent speeds and very rarely slows down.

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#258619 26-Sep-2009 20:57

richms:
BlakJak: yeah, the emergency-services be-prepared part of me can't conceive of dropping POTS. But i'm glad to hear TCL Internet isn't all bad. I'll ring em this week.

You dont own a cellphone?

$40ish a month is a lot to pay just to feel a bit more warm and fuzzy about possibly being able to get to a phone to call for help.

There are 6 seperate cellphones in my household (and only 3 owners) - however that's not the point. I have a few key reasons not to drop POTS:

- 10+ years of 'be prepared' training; i'm a communicator and as such I have a fairly good idea of the relative resiliencies of communications options out there - in fact a key part of my training is understanding the options that will be available in the event of a major emergency.

- I'm also a network engineer by trade and have a fair understanding of the negatives that relying on OSI layers >2 can be. Complex systems are much easier to break.

VOIP is great because it works anywhere and provides great value. (I use a private SIP system from time to time for making calls, and I use skype, so it's hardly a foreign concept). I don't yet believe it's in a position to replace POTS. (I am watching developments in that area with interest, however.

At the moment i'm quite happy with an out-of-box POTS option and will pay the extra ~$35/month for the priviledge; it means minimum fuss keeping our fax working, and makes use of my existing equipment without further investment, and means that complete loss of my (mostly older and tightly budgeted) IP equipment doesn't make life harder for the others in my household.

It is very interesting to see the strength of feeling some folks on here have, eh :-)

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Ragnor

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#258649 27-Sep-2009 04:00

On ADSL with interleaving off I get 14ms to NZ Left 4 Dead servers, what is the ping like on cable?

Anyway it's good that you have the option of both imo.

You should probably find out how close you are to a cabinet or exchange as that would have a big effect on whether to go for cable or ADSL imo. If you are super close to a cabinet and exchange and can get a really high sync speed and you're willing to pay slightly more for a A-List ISP... performance will be as good if not better than Cable.

It's a shame you can't get Telstra PDQ (ADSL) because you're in a cable area, after the ISP handover both TelstraClear ADSL and Cable use the same network and routes so it would be an interesting comparison.

If you compare one of the cheap and nasty ISP's offering ADSL to TelstraClear Cable of course Cable will be superior.

BlakJak

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#258657 27-Sep-2009 09:01

is there a list of "A list" vs "Cheap and nasty" adsl providers?

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nakedmolerat

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#258754 27-Sep-2009 19:06

Screeb:
Anyone got any warnings, pointers or things I should be looking for?

Yes: Don't do it. Stick with ADSL. You'd be better off with something like Telecom Adventure (20GB, ADSL2+). It's $20 less and likely faster, and has lower latency. The only reason to ever get cable nowadays is if you NEED 2Mbps upload, which you most likely don't.

you kidding me?

i play online game most of the days. i can host game for friends from singapore, perth, melb, sydney, dunedin and chch (10 of us) at the same time. we need a latency of less than 150ms to play with no issues. you must be misinformed by others or trying to promote telecom???

truth is, the 'only' reason why people choose cable over dsl is because it offers better experience.

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Screeb

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#258758 27-Sep-2009 19:27

itxtme: Screeb: I have had both and found speeds have been equal to what they are advertised as. While ADSL has always failed to deliver the speeds I sign up for. Now i know there are multiple causes of reduced DL speeds etc. but I can honestly say the quality of the cable has always been superior to my ADSL use.

ADSL1 or 2+? And if 2+ is it FS up? Makes a bit of a difference...

Also, as far as advertised speed goes - of course no one is getting the advertised speed of ADSL2+ or 1 - the top speed is very much theoretical, wheras cable is easily able to provide 10Mbps. However, that's irrelevant when ADSL2+ DOES give you greater than 10Mbps - it may not be the advertised 24Mbps, but it's still faster than cable.

sbiddle:
The fact VoIP is absolutely rock solid with no absolutely no jitter or packet lose? The fact speeds are consistant?

Try finding me a ADSL ISP who can guarantee very close to 10Mbps downloads 24/7. With TCL cable I can get that. Try finding me any ADSL provider who can guarantee the same VoIP performance as TCL offer.

You're suggesting here that no ADSL provider offers a connection that doesn't drop below 10Mbps, even when the user might get up to 22Mbps. I find that hard to believe. If you look here you will see that performance is generally the same regardless of the time of day for most ISPs. Even then, you could go for something like Telecom's business plans, which are still better value in terms of speed and data cap compared to cable, but presumably less prone to speed fluctuations than consumer ADSL.

As far as VoIP is concerned, I've seen many people with perfectly good VoIP performance on ADSL. Care to show how ADSL is somehow inferior in this regard?

There are two advantages ADSL has over cable. One being that there are more flexible plan options if you don't mind traffic shaping or throttling and secondly some people who are using ADSL2+ are getting faster speeds at present but DOSCIS3 will change that.

Not every ADSL plan has traffic shaping or throttling. DOCSIS 3 isn't going to happen any time soon.

It's obvious that nothing anybody says is going to convince you otherwise though - a lot of your previous posts here have been knocking TCL..

No, some nice facts would convince me, but I've yet to see any.

I'm not saying cable is inferior to ADSL in every regard - of course it has its advantages - but IMO the advantages of ADSL far outweigh cable's unless you have unusual requirements and are willing to pay for them (upload speed (and VDSL will trump that) and more consistent performance).

redjet:
Trust me they do - hardcore gamers try everything possible to get those latencies down. TCL cable honestly rocks because like others have mentioned it has consistent speeds and very rarely slows down.

I'll answer this with an answer to Ragnor:

Ragnor:
On ADSL with interleaving off I get 14ms to NZ Left 4 Dead servers, what is the ping like on cable?

I get 30ms to Asylum NZ (insomnia.acsonline.co.nz), and 62ms to LANfest.co.nz L4D (xnet hosted). Even on Clearnet's own game servers, I get 20ms. The minimum I've seen to the first hop outside my router (my TCL gateway) is 11ms, with an average of about 16ms.

Screeb

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#258759 27-Sep-2009 19:30

nakedmolerat:
you kidding me?

i play online game most of the days. i can host game for friends from singapore, perth, melb, sydney, dunedin and chch (10 of us) at the same time. we need a latency of less than 150ms to play with no issues. you must be misinformed by others or trying to promote telecom???

truth is, the 'only' reason why people choose cable over dsl is because it offers better experience.

Like I said - upload speed. Hosting games is mostly about having sufficient upload speed, which cable offers, and ADSL doesn't. However, most people do not host games.

No, I'm not trying to promote Telecom. I have cable myself, and I couldn't care less about Telecom, it's just that they have some of the best plans right now.

freitasm

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#258762 27-Sep-2009 19:39

nakedmolerat:
truth is, the 'only' reason why people choose cable over dsl is because it offers better experience.

Consistently good experience. Fast dowloads, fast uploads. No throttling. No capped speeds when over quota.

sbiddle

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#258765 27-Sep-2009 20:13

Screeb: DOCSIS 3 isn't going to happen any time soon.

You might be surprised.

Buttonmash

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#258767 27-Sep-2009 20:16

The 2Mb upload really makes more difference than you might expect. Video calling (iChat), Xbox live game hosting, photo printing, remote storage (iDisk).

I use all of them, and back in my days of ADSL they were no where near as good.

redjet

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#258775 27-Sep-2009 20:30

Ragnor: On ADSL with interleaving off I get 14ms to NZ Left 4 Dead servers, what is the ping like on cable?

I don't play L4D but here are screenshots of my pings on three non TCL servers. As you can see my pings are usually among the lowest on the servers I play on and average around the 10ms mark:

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/5716/dedust20005u.jpg

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/5384/dedust20010.jpg

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/3647/dedust20000u.jpg

Considering I'm in Wellington and the majority of CSS servers are in Auckland my pings are friggin awesome thanks to TCL cable!

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ZollyMonsta

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#258777 27-Sep-2009 21:07

Download Speed: 10207 kbps (1275.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 3884 kbps (485.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Sunday, 27 September 2009 9:08:38 p.m.

*hugs my TCL Modem*

Screeb

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#258779 27-Sep-2009 21:18

sbiddle:
Screeb: DOCSIS 3 isn't going to happen any time soon.

You might be surprised.

Not once have I been surprised by anything TelstraClear has done. Every single thing they have promised has been delayed from months to years, if not cancelled completely, and more often than not watered down. They aren't even promising DOCSIS 3 until sometime next year, so I would guess 2011 at the earliest. Dr Freeth also said that it would be a premium service with a high price (because according to him there's not enough demand...).

freitasm:
Consistently good experience.

Sure. Go for a business DSL plan and you'll get that too.

Fast dowloads

Or faster on ADSL2+.

fast uploads

Sure. But VDSL will be better.

No throttling.

Just like numerous ADSL plans.

No capped speeds when over quota.

Again, just like numerous ADSL plans. It's also not inherently better than a speed cap. Some people prefer it the other way around.

redjet:
I don't play L4D but here are screenshots of my pings on three non TCL servers. As you can see my pings are usually among the lowest on the servers I play on and average around the 10ms mark:

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/5716/dedust20005u.jpg

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/5384/dedust20010.jpg

http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/3647/dedust20000u.jpg

Considering I'm in Wellington and the majority of CSS servers are in Auckland my pings are friggin awesome thanks to TCL cable!

This is interesting. Here are my pings for those servers:

Recoil: 21ms
GamerHub/ICONZ: 22ms

I'm also in Wellington...

Download Speed: 10207 kbps (1275.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 3884 kbps (485.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Sunday, 27 September 2009 9:08:38 p.m.

*hugs my TCL Modem*

Well lucky you, something's wrong with your connection such that you get > 2Mbps up. FYI that's not normal.

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