Is Vodafone giving up on UltraFast HFC /FibreX? (Not offered to new customers)

Forums › Vodafone New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › Is Vodafone giving up on UltraFast HFC /FibreX? (Not offered to new customers)

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#2581931 9-Oct-2020 14:26

cyril7:

Hi, Telstra/Voda in HFC areas also have their own copper overlay for pots with their own exchanges and remote extenders. Just like Chorus's NEAX's the gear is aging and on death row. Hence in both fibre and HFC connections Voda is pushing customers to their VOIP solution via the RGW, which is totally reasonable.

Cyril

Vodafone use the Nortel DMS100 which is supported by Genband after Nortel went belly-up - So at least you can get parts unlike the NEAXs run by Spark/Chrous

cyril7

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#2581936 9-Oct-2020 14:36

quickymart:

Or Telstra Saturn?

I thought the phone equipment was from Clear Communications, that TelstraSaturn aquired with the Clear buy out to create TelstraClear.

Cyril

nztim

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#2581938 9-Oct-2020 14:38

cyril7:

I thought the phone equipment was from Clear Communications, that TelstraSaturn aquired with the Clear by out to create TelstraClear.

Cyril

It was from those days, the switch model they use is a Nortel DMS 100 (used extensively across the USA so still supported)

cyril7

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#2581939 9-Oct-2020 14:39

nztim:

cyril7:

I thought the phone equipment was from Clear Communications, that TelstraSaturn aquired with the Clear by out to create TelstraClear.

Cyril

It was from those days, the switch model they use is a Nortel DMS 100 (used extensively across the USA so still supported)

OK will take your work for it, I was of the understanding that some of that older Nortel stuff was also no longer readily supported.

Cyril

nztim

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#2581942 9-Oct-2020 14:42

cyril7:

OK will take your work for it, I was of the understanding that some of that older Nortel stuff was also no longer readily supported.

Cyril

ok "supported" might be a stretch, but no shortage of spare parts

antoniosk

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#2581955 9-Oct-2020 15:12

cyril7:

quickymart:

Or Telstra Saturn?

I thought the phone equipment was from Clear Communications, that TelstraSaturn aquired with the Clear buy out to create TelstraClear.

Cyril

clear and Saturn were independent companies, that both independently purchased Nortel dms100’s. Saturn covered welly/chch, clear auck/welly/chch. So in practise 5 switch’s with 1000’s of copper lines tied to them, so not trivial to just pull out and consolidate.

saturn overlaid residential areas with a copper phone network to sit alongside the hfc network. Clear put copper in business districts to mop up the commercial market. There was a little overlap but barely anything. In all cases these 90’s technologies may be a little more modern than neax, but tcl stopped buying spare parts a loooong time ago, and in an ipvoice world it would be bonkers for voda to suddenly go out and buy old kit. Far better to convert hfc to support packet tagging and enable VoIP over hfc, which it was always capable of, and is what they’ve done.

where they appear MIA is in communicating to their customer base on what the plan is. Tbox is replaced with their new vodaTV box, which gen 2 seems quite good. POTS is a dead product and is priced for monopoly rent value only. No product development, they still charge for voice features and their landline to anything rates are very quaint relative to mobile, which is all voda has ever really cared about - from their beginning as Bellsouth.

Fibre is more modern and is getting more investment... even Australia may finally be acknowledging FTTH is worthwhile. There are some limits with the chorus deployment method I don’t really like and their premises connection work is a little dictatorial, but it appears it’s only a case of when voda pulls the plug on hfc and creates an opportunity for thousands of customers - paying those wonderful monthly fees - churn.

________

Antoniosk

nztim

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#2581957 9-Oct-2020 15:21

antoniosk:

clear and Saturn were independent companies, that both independently purchased Nortel dms100’s. Saturn covered welly/chch, clear auck/welly/chch. So in practise 5 switch’s with 1000’s of copper lines tied to them, so not trivial to just pull out and consolidate.

saturn overlaid residential areas with a copper phone network to sit alongside the hfc network. Clear put copper in business districts to mop up the commercial market. There was a little overlap but barely anything. In all cases these 90’s technologies may be a little more modern than neax, but tcl stopped buying spare parts a loooong time ago, and in an ipvoice world it would be bonkers for voda to suddenly go out and buy old kit. Far better to convert hfc to support packet tagging and enable VoIP over hfc, which it was always capable of, and is what they’ve done.

where they appear MIA is in communicating to their customer base on what the plan is. Tbox is replaced with their new vodaTV box, which gen 2 seems quite good. POTS is a dead product and is priced for monopoly rent value only. No product development, they still charge for voice features and their landline to anything rates are very quaint relative to mobile, which is all voda has ever really cared about - from their beginning as Bellsouth.

Fibre is more modern and is getting more investment... even Australia may finally be acknowledging FTTH is worthwhile. There are some limits with the chorus deployment method I don’t really like and their premises connection work is a little dictatorial, but it appears it’s only a case of when voda pulls the plug on hfc and creates an opportunity for thousands of customers - paying those wonderful monthly fees - churn.

I knew someone would know excatly

cyril7

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#2581958 9-Oct-2020 15:23

Hi, thanks Antonio, yes someone would have the history to hand :)

Cyril

prevaljo

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#2582032 9-Oct-2020 16:47

So what this means as a long term customer of Voda is that I am merely a monthly $$ payment (paying over the top $$ for the service). They won't tell me what the future holds for my environment because then I might make a change now rather than at some indeterminate point in the future when they make a decision about the legacy network I'm apparently on.

So I'm being bled, having to suffer awful customer service from the service desk, and when I ask about options from a Voda CSR I get told what, that's capital T told, what I can have rather than having a sensible discussion with a customer service rep about what options I might like.

It's interesting to note that there are now vendors in the same space as Voda that are using an NZ based service desk as a point of difference when advertising Internet/broadband services.

cyril7

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#2582034 9-Oct-2020 16:58

So, by moving to Fibre you will have the option of any ISP in the Land, staying with HFC you are "Trapped" with Voda and their faux fibre, up to you.

Cyril

nztim

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#2582037 9-Oct-2020 17:21

cyril7:

So, by moving to Fibre you will have the option of any ISP in the Land, staying with HFC you are "Trapped" with Voda and their faux fibre, up to you.

Cyril

FTTP is the only way to go if you can get it

prevaljo

85 posts

Master Geek

#2582039 9-Oct-2020 17:30

I can't disagree, except I can't persuade the rest of the household to let go of the past. Voda need to get rid of the India connection it doesn't help.

quickymart

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#2582041 9-Oct-2020 17:35

They won't, it's cheaper doing it that way.

Slixious

24 posts

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#2583321 12-Oct-2020 19:42

So I've just recently talked to the retention team. They seem to be the right people to talk to each and every time my contract period expires.

Their HFC Max doesn't appear to have changed with DOCSIS 3.1. They could increase their download speeds (WAN), but probably won't because no one uses anything more than gigabit networking (LAN) anyway- which with overheads would probably bring it down to ~900 mbps. They could increase the upload speed as it is nearly 100mbps, but could go anywhere near 1000mbps if they wanted to. Even a 500mbps upload connection would be nice. I guess that really depends on the capacity and configuration of their entire network.

For my latest deal I have chosen to go for a 2 year contract because it gives me $30 off a month for that period, while a 1 year contract would have given me $20 off a month. In the past I have chosen the one year contract, but I figure the worst that can happen if I move is that I can get my services moved over or pay the termination charges. As a side note (because I am using a VOIP line as well), they have this time around provided BestMates (up to 5 numbers) for free. Not such a bad deal sweetener to save a few dollars, but I think someone here mentioned that they got it too.

With the recent wireless phone plans now offering unlimited data (capped speeds after enough enough GB's have been used) I have opted to finally get a Pay Monthly plan. I guess I chew up enough mobile data that going from $19 prepaid to $30 (when you include the $10 discount as part of the broadband package) is worth it, and I guess now I can just not be too conscious about what I do on my phone. The Companion Plans aren't too bad either, depending on who you want to include.

As for something to more directly answer the threads discussion, I have also tried to ask a similar question when I was on the phone with them. It wasn't detailed, but it appears they aren't taking on any more customers at this stage. They have let me stay on it (HFC/Cable) - I wasn't forced onto Fibre like someone mentioned on this thread. But I would probably have some difficulty signed up for cable if I left Vodafone. Based on everything I have read on this thread so far I suspect that Vodafone are still thinking about the future of their cable network, and whether it is worth investing in the future upgrade of it. After all, DOCSIS 4.0 came out in 2017, but not many people even use 2.5 gig networking yet. My current cable modem even has two ethernet ports and that would only be useful if I could trunk the connection if it was supported at both ends of modem and (your own) router. Currently I've used both ports to run two networks though, one being for their own router just to keep the VOIP phone going.

Distorter

184 posts

Master Geek

#2583325 12-Oct-2020 20:18

Slixious:
So I've just recently talked to the retention team. They seem to be the right people to talk to each and every time my contract period expires.

Their HFC Max doesn't appear to have changed with DOCSIS 3.1. They could increase their download speeds (WAN), but probably won't because no one uses anything more than gigabit networking (LAN) anyway- which with overheads would probably bring it down to ~900 mbps. They could increase the upload speed as it is nearly 100mbps, but could go anywhere near 1000mbps if they wanted to. Even a 500mbps upload connection would be nice. I guess that really depends on the capacity and configuration of their entire network.

For my latest deal I have chosen to go for a 2 year contract because it gives me $30 off a month for that period, while a 1 year contract would have given me $20 off a month. In the past I have chosen the one year contract, but I figure the worst that can happen if I move is that I can get my services moved over or pay the termination charges. As a side note (because I am using a VOIP line as well), they have this time around provided BestMates (up to 5 numbers) for free. Not such a bad deal sweetener to save a few dollars, but I think someone here mentioned that they got it too.

With the recent wireless phone plans now offering unlimited data (capped speeds after enough enough GB's have been used) I have opted to finally get a Pay Monthly plan. I guess I chew up enough mobile data that going from $19 prepaid to $30 (when you include the $10 discount as part of the broadband package) is worth it, and I guess now I can just not be too conscious about what I do on my phone. The Companion Plans aren't too bad either, depending on who you want to include.

As for something to more directly answer the threads discussion, I have also tried to ask a similar question when I was on the phone with them. It wasn't detailed, but it appears they aren't taking on any more customers at this stage. They have let me stay on it (HFC/Cable) - I wasn't forced onto Fibre like someone mentioned on this thread. But I would probably have some difficulty signed up for cable if I left Vodafone. Based on everything I have read on this thread so far I suspect that Vodafone are still thinking about the future of their cable network, and whether it is worth investing in the future upgrade of it. After all, DOCSIS 4.0 came out in 2017, but not many people even use 2.5 gig networking yet. My current cable modem even has two ethernet ports and that would only be useful if I could trunk the connection if it was supported at both ends of modem and (your own) router. Currently I've used both ports to run two networks though, one being for their own router just to keep the VOIP phone going.

So how much are you paying per month for 1gb hfc?

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