Looks Like It's Time To Change My ISp :sigh:

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1gkar

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#22381 26-May-2008 17:31

I have been a client of Ihug for over a decade, now. I am still on dial-up & am not interested in broadband until they sort out the speed issues AND get rid of data capping -or at least sort out how data capping is charged (ie. charging for page loading certain data on it). It's all I've ever known & it's fine for my pruposes.

Last night I'd had a gutsful of the low connection speeds. When Ihug started loading their proprietary hardware in the Telecom exchanges I saw speed decreases but it got sorted out relatively quickly. In the last two weeks my connection speeds have varied bewteen 34-44kbs. My normal speed is 50.6kbs & I've lived in the same residence for over 8 years with no alterations to the wiring etc.

I rang Vodafone & informed the help person of the issue & he went & talked to the duty supervising manager. He basically informed me the supervisor had said it's as good as it will get & he had no interest in even looking it. The help person was really good, he said he would take it further & get back to me. Whether that was lip service or not is irrelevant, it's not his job, but if that's the attitude of a senior supervisor, I would definitely recommend staying away from Vodafone.

I said if I didn't notice any improvement of connection speeds in the next month, Id tell them to stick their service & products & take ALL my services elsewhere. I have NO loyalty to Vodafone whatsoever: Ihug was the company to whom I only felt ANY relationship.

With dickheads, at Vodafone, like that supervisor in charge, it's no wonder the Warriors have turned to crap!

To those on dial-up (if indeed there are any left) what is a good, solid ISP with good service, stable connection speeds & good connections per phone line? And don't say Telecom.

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#133340 26-May-2008 17:44

Given that dial-up is provided through telecom lines and exchanges aren't you really dealing with them anyway?

Funny how the whole isp thing works, I have just changed to vodafone and am very happy with the increased line speed, about 6000kbps. But you can always guarentee that for every customer happy with an isp you will find another unhappy. I guess it comes down to what works for you at the end of the day.

The only exception to this is woosh who I don't think anyone is happy with

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#133347 26-May-2008 18:29

1gkar: I have been a client of Ihug for over a decade, now. I am still on dial-up & am not interested in broadband until they sort out the speed issues AND get rid of data capping -or at least sort out how data capping is charged (ie. charging for page loading certain data on it). It's all I've ever known & it's fine for my pruposes.

So how much do you use per day? 20GB (and even 40GB) is plenty of usage and secondly, I don't really get what you're on about them "charging for page loading certain data on it".

I've been getting great speeds since I upgraded to the Ultimate plan.

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#133348 26-May-2008 18:31

I was told by my isp that dial speed was on average 33kbps anyway, or was that what speed caped dialup is.

There seems to be a ton of new BB plans out at the moment, the speed issues have been sorter for the last year,
that is if you compare them to what you call slow, the caped speeds are fast than dialup.

My isp (I thing the all do) burst modes on the speed restricted plans, so the first 1sec of data goes at max speed and then is slowed to plan limits.
This really makes websurfing, even on the slow plans better.

Maybe you don't use the dialup 24/7 - That means a mobile data plan may suit your usage habits better?

tonyhughes

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#133356 26-May-2008 19:08

1gkar: or at least sort out how data capping is charged (ie. charging for page loading certain data on it).

This makes no sense. Data caps usually apply to all data, with some data zero rated in some cases (i.e. your ISP might zero rate VoIP traffic, national traffic, on net traffic or off peak traffic etc.

Last night I'd had a gutsful of the low connection speeds. When Ihug started loading their proprietary hardware in the Telecom exchanges I saw speed decreases but it got sorted out relatively quickly. In the last two weeks my connection speeds have varied bewteen 34-44kbs. My normal speed is 50.6kbs & I've lived in the same residence for over 8 years with no alterations to the wiring etc.

I was not aware that ISPs were putting new dialup gear into exchanges very recently. (Not saying they aren't or couldn't).

Perhaps you have a damaged cable/line/jackpoint? Damage could take many forms including corrosion or physical damage to the cable and/or its insulation at any point between your modem and the exchange.

Perhaps your modem is faulty?

Perhaps your modem cable is faulty?

Perhaps you have a faulty device (phone, fax, Sky, etc) elsewhere on the line causing interference?

I rang Vodafone & informed the help person of the issue & he went & talked to the duty supervising manager. He basically informed me the supervisor had said it's as good as it will get & he had no interest in even looking it. The help person was really good, he said he would take it further & get back to me. Whether that was lip service or not is irrelevant, it's not his job, but if that's the attitude of a senior supervisor, I would definitely recommend staying away from Vodafone.

50.6k is at the fast end of dialup speed. Its close to the theoretical maximum. 33-44kbps is not abnormal.

I said if I didn't notice any improvement of connection speeds in the next month, Id tell them to stick their service & products & take ALL my services elsewhere. I have NO loyalty to Vodafone whatsoever: Ihug was the company to whom I only felt ANY relationship.

I am sure they will miss you.

With dickheads, at Vodafone, like that supervisor in charge,

Insert response here _____________________________________________

it's no wonder the Warriors have turned to crap!

If you think that a CSR Supervisors job performance (or your perception of it) has anything at all to do with the quality of the Warriors ability to play league, then you need to see some sort of person with a doctorate. Not sure which kind sorry.

To those on dial-up (if indeed there are any left) what is a good, solid ISP with good service, stable connection speeds & good connections per phone line? And don't say Telecom.

Before changing ISP, why don't you test the equipment that has been running for 8 years, otherwise you may just end up moving your problems to another ISP.

The personal abuse directed at the Vodafone staff is really not warranted. They appear to have followed normal procedure as far as I can tell.

Spyware

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#133357 26-May-2008 19:08

If you change ISP I doubt it will make any difference as ISPs don't control phone lines or the noise on them, I would try another dial up modem.

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#133361 26-May-2008 19:24

ISP's probably won't invest much time or money in dial up anymore i'd say.

I switched from Vodafone to Telstraclear with ADSL and i noticed peak times are a lot more reliable now, routes are better and there are no international issues at all anymore.

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xpd

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#133434 26-May-2008 22:00

When I worked for IHUG, a 52k connection was the fastest we ever saw, and is apparently the fastest you will ever see on NZ lines using a 56k modem. The only reason we saw the 52, was due to a customer being in a new suburb with nice new lines etc to a fairly new exchange.

44k was considered a good connection on an older exchange/lines, so count yourself lucky really.

Anyway, as others have mentioned, could be something on you line thats failing.... even a bit of water seeping into the line somewhere will cause interference and slow your rate down. Also any heavy machinery/roadworks in the area can cause problems due to vibrations etc.

Another fun thing to watch for with dialup, is if your phone point/modem is near a motor of any sort such as a fridge. We couldnt figure out why one users modem kept cutting out, and found that his system was near a fridge, and whenever the fridge motor cut in, his connection dropped.

For the price you pay for dialup these days, you might as well get broadband - do you go over 1 gb a month on dialup ? If not, then $30 for b/band is great..... remember when dialup was $45+ a month - you were happy to pay that then wernt you ? ;)
Now you get offered faster for less.......

XPD / Gavin

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manhinli

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#133435 26-May-2008 22:04

xpd: When I worked for IHUG, a 52k connection was the fastest we ever saw

Even though a phone line with the spec is capable of 56k, there is a clamped on restriction on power output for dial-up modems to have a real "limited" speed of around 53kbits - which was imposed by the FCC.

So 52k is basically what you could ever get.

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richms

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#133447 26-May-2008 22:40

I had 54667 quite regualy back in the dark days of dialup. 56000 was seldom seen, and I suspect it throtted back soon after connecting anyway. FCC has nothing to do with NZ's phone lines.

Those speeds were when at a house about 300m away from the PCM gear and nothing else on the line - about as good as you're going to ever see.

Richard rich.ms

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#133467 27-May-2008 05:16

Just borrow someone else's dial up username and password from a different ISP to compare speeds.

hellonearthisman

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#133560 27-May-2008 13:39

Here some wikipedia info that might put light on your issue, maybe IHug upgraded to v92 standards note the red;

V.92 is an ITU-T recommendation, titled Enhancements to Recommendation V.90, that establishes a modem standard allowing 48 kbit/s PCM upload, but at the expense of download rates. For example a 48 kbit/s upstream rate would reduce the downstream as low as 40 kbit/s, due to echo on the telephone line. To avoid this problem, V.92 modems offer the option to turn off the digital upstream and instead use a 33.6 kbit/s analog connection, in order to maintain a high digital downstream of 50 kbit/s or higher. (See November and October 2000 update at https://www.modemsite.com/56k/v92s.asp )
V.92 was first presented in August 1999. It was intended to succeed the V.90 standards. Like earlier protocol improvements, V.92 was ineffective unless implemented at both ends of the connection. Unlike those, this enhancement was introduced at a time when, due to the spread of broadband Internet access, dial-up service was declining rather than growing, so Internet service providers were buying few new modems, and uptake was minimal. Some providers such as Netzero offer V.92 lines, but with features like "Modem on Hold" turned off.

Mybe you need to tweak your modem (mmm AT commands) to get the best speeds from it with IHugs new hardware.

I wonder if IHug will add the dialip features of modem on hold, for when you wanted to make a phone call, would put a kick in the pants for telecom coms add of always waiting to use the phone to make a call.

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1gkar

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#133572 27-May-2008 14:32

Okay, looks like I stirred a bit of a nest judging by some of the replies, which was not my intent.

Lets see if I can clarify &/or explain to some of the responses, which, by the way, I thank you all for.

So how much do you use per day? 20GB (and even 40GB) is plenty of usage and secondly, I don't really get what you're on about them "charging for page loading certain data on it".

I've been getting great speeds since I upgraded to the Ultimate plan.

I don't use my PC during the day I'm at work & don't download P2P media files, either. So who uses 20-40GB per day? That's one heck of a lot of data. I assume you meant per month. As for the second part, I wasn't very clear & may be speaking from ignorance: it may be best to have those who have responded with more knowledge on how the data is charged out answer what I think happens based off articles I read some while back.

On broadband, the data, as measured by (g)bytes for the purposes of capping, is the amount passed to a client's IP address when a website page is loaded. So even though you aren't actually downloading or saving the data whilst browsing, you are being charged for it.

If this is way off base (as stated I read this in an article quite some time ago (though can't remember where, now) could someone please direct me to a page (NZ site) that accurately describes how data is measured for capping purposes. Thanks.

If the plan you're referring is Vodafone's ultimate plan: not everyone has the discretionary income to fork out $90 per month for a 20GB plan just to browse or even update a home PC, even though 45% that amount is for a landline. If you're using it for business purposes, that's completely different should be stipulated, as it would be apparent I'm a dedicated home user.

next,

I was told by my isp that dial speed was on average 33kbps anyway, or was that what speed caped dialup is.

Who's you're ISP, and how long ago was that? Not a company I would look at for dialup. As stated, I was getting 50.6kbs for over 7 years after I upgraded to a 56k modem.

Tony,

Very good response.

This makes no sense. Data caps usually apply to all data, with some data zero rated in some cases (i.e. your ISP might zero rate VoIP traffic, national traffic, on net traffic or off peak traffic etc.

What exactly is the data that is zero-rated? Is there a site that describes it, prerably non-tech-speak.

I was not aware that ISPs were putting new dialup gear into exchanges very recently. (Not saying they aren't or couldn't).

Perhaps you have a damaged cable/line/jackpoint? Damage could take many forms including corrosion or physical damage to the cable and/or its insulation at any point between your modem and the exchange.

Perhaps your modem is faulty?

Perhaps your modem cable is faulty?

Perhaps you have a faulty device (phone, fax, Sky, etc) elsewhere on the line causing interference?

You are probably right regarding you're first part, although it seems very coincidental. Most likely, Vodafone are increasing their dialup connections per phone line. Could that cause a lower dialup connect spees. I know that have most likely been going on for some time as I now have to suffer mutliple connect attempts. That started around 14 months ago.

50.6k is at the fast end of dialup speed. Its close to the theoretical maximum. 33-44kbps is not abnormal.

Until recently it has been for me.

I am sure they will miss you.

I'm not arrogant enough to believe otherwise. Although, it can happen: ask Tower insurance. I'd had a gutsful of their continued premiums' hikes, so told them where to get off. Less than a year later, they were posting out "we want you back" packs with attempted bribes in an attempt to resecure my loyalty. I don't work that way & am still with my present company.

If you think that a CSR Supervisors job performance (or your perception of it) has anything at all to do with the quality of the Warriors ability to play league, then you need to see some sort of person with a doctorate. Not sure which kind sorry.

Just goes to show the written word can be more dangerous than the spoken one. Because a reader can't see inflections like the ear can hear them, it's very easy to take a sentence out of context. If there were emoticons available, I would have used them to show my intended facetiousness. I thought about using ;-) but it did not convey MY intended context. Maybe they could be added like other forums in the left column?

exdee,

ISP's probably won't invest much time or money in dial up anymore i'd say.

I switched from Vodafone to Telstraclear with ADSL and i noticed peak times are a lot more reliable now, routes are better and there are no international issues at all anymore.

Not a bet I would take.
Ah, so it's not just on dialup. {dang: no emoticons, again}

xpd,

When I worked for IHUG, a 52k connection was the fastest we ever saw, and is apparently the fastest you will ever see on NZ lines using a 56k modem. The only reason we saw the 52, was due to a customer being in a new suburb with nice new lines etc to a fairly new exchange.

44k was considered a good connection on an older exchange/lines, so count yourself lucky really.

Anyway, as others have mentioned, could be something on you line thats failing.... even a bit of water seeping into the line somewhere will cause interference and slow your rate down. Also any heavy machinery/roadworks in the area can cause problems due to vibrations etc.

Another fun thing to watch for with dialup, is if your phone point/modem is near a motor of any sort such as a fridge. We couldnt figure out why one users modem kept cutting out, and found that his system was near a fridge, and whenever the fridge motor cut in, his connection dropped.

For the price you pay for dialup these days, you might as well get broadband - do you go over 1 gb a month on dialup ? If not, then $30 for b/band is great..... remember when dialup was $45+ a month - you were happy to pay that then wernt you ? ;)
Now you get offered faster for less.......

No, no motors anywhere near my PC. I guess I was lucky: now I'm not :-(
Depends on how the cap is measured but I'd bet I do as I download software to try out. I remember when I was with Telecom...let's not go there, it's depressing remembering how much I spent on ISP way back when.

Hope I've been a bit clearer & wait on the data measuring as it appears it might be something I have to reinvestigate, but I'm not interested in spending more than $30 per month for internet. In the meantime I will use look at the intenet plan comparisons. Thanks for the link in you're sig, manhinli.

PS. just to qualify one of my earlier statements, I'm at home sick so that's why I was able to respond at this time.

PPS. @ hellonearthismann, that's the best reply. Thanks. I'll look into it.

hellonearthisman

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#133576 27-May-2008 15:01

The ISP has changed it policy and it was only a forum post, so I think it holds only a small value, capped speeds are at 64kbps which they say is like dialup.

Sad to hear you are getting a slow down though.

Dialup is still important, and my isp offers free dialup for when the BB connection is down.

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#133586 27-May-2008 15:42

Unless you have shifted to a Vodafone voice line from an unbundled exchange, their installation of new equipment is completely unrelated. The

The most likely cause of the problem is either a modem that is faulty (and after 8 years, I wouldn't be terribly surprised) or a local loop problem - a Telecom line test may offer some insight. That said, anything beyond 14.4k is not guaranteed by Telecom so you may be out of luck trying to get them to resolve anything.

Given that 64K equates to 20GB of throughput per month (unidirectional, since dialup can only do that), if used 100% of the time. I'd suggest moving into the broadband world with a 10GB data cap would be the best approach for your usage and problem. Dialup is legacy, and incredibly hard to get problems resolved as a lot of the expertise for it has been lost over the last 4-5 years.

robbypreb

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#133694 27-May-2008 22:46

1gkar: I have been a client of Ihug for over a decade, now. I am still on dial-up & am not interested in broadband until they sort out the speed issues AND get rid of data capping -or at least sort out how data capping is charged (ie. charging for page loading certain data on it). It's all I've ever known & it's fine for my pruposes.

Last night I'd had a gutsful of the low connection speeds. When Ihug started loading their proprietary hardware in the Telecom exchanges I saw speed decreases but it got sorted out relatively quickly. In the last two weeks my connection speeds have varied bewteen 34-44kbs. My normal speed is 50.6kbs & I've lived in the same residence for over 8 years with no alterations to the wiring etc.

I rang Vodafone & informed the help person of the issue & he went & talked to the duty supervising manager. He basically informed me the supervisor had said it's as good as it will get & he had no interest in even looking it. The help person was really good, he said he would take it further & get back to me. Whether that was lip service or not is irrelevant, it's not his job, but if that's the attitude of a senior supervisor, I would definitely recommend staying away from Vodafone.

I said if I didn't notice any improvement of connection speeds in the next month, Id tell them to stick their service & products & take ALL my services elsewhere. I have NO loyalty to Vodafone whatsoever: Ihug was the company to whom I only felt ANY relationship.

With dickheads, at Vodafone, like that supervisor in charge, it's no wonder the Warriors have turned to crap!

To those on dial-up (if indeed there are any left) what is a good, solid ISP with good service, stable connection speeds & good connections per phone line? And don't say Telecom.

I have heard a couple of similar stories from previous ihug customers, who have been with them since the 90's and are fed with the new owners. At least you have got pleanty of choice.

There is nothing wrong with telecoms dial up, at least they provide real 24x7 phone support

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