[WXC/VFX] The Rise and Fall of Xnet

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jermsie

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#31071 3-Mar-2009 18:15

Most of us have witnessed the epic rise in fame of xnet and their rapid demise.

For discussion: what do you think went so wrong with the ISP that used to be one of the best around?

– J

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#199020 3-Mar-2009 18:59

hmmm.

I think quite a few users have left the ISP, now the PPM speed is acceptable. not sure on the torrent plan.

To me I am sure Xnet hardwares are close to museum piece the frequent outages prove to be the case !

As business is business , all ISP are out ot made money. demise I don't think so. may be is a good thing with a smaller users base .

Dratsab

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#199025 3-Mar-2009 19:27

jermsie: Most of us have witnessed the epic rise in fame of xnet and their rapid demise.

What makes you say they've come to their demise?

grant_k

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#199029 3-Mar-2009 19:43

Those of us who are outside Xnet/WxC can only guess at what went wrong. One of the saddest things about their demise is the way in which all communications via the Geekzone Forums just stopped dead in their tracks.

Again, we can only guess at the reasons why Phil aka Maverick chose to withdraw completely from these forums. No doubt he got sick of all the complaints, but many of them had considerable justification. Those of us who have moved on to other ISPs (in my case SNAP and NetSpeed) know for sure that the grass is definitely greener on the other side of the fence. We weren't just imagining the poor speed on Xnet, it was -- and possibly still is -- a serious problem.

In regard to the almost complete lack of communication from Xnet/WxC over recent months, it is worth contrasting this with the response I have received yesterday from Ralph, the owner of SNAP. I mentioned a small point as my only "peeve" with SNAP.

And then was blown away a few hours later when I received a PM saying he would look at my idea. That is the kind of response we used to get from Xnet, and I have to say that I still really miss it. Please come back Phil, wherever you are...

zocster

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#199032 3-Mar-2009 19:57

I still have a couple of clients on xnet, and as they are so close to the exchange, ... speed is more than acceptable

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CYaBro

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#199046 3-Mar-2009 20:41

I am still with Xnet at home and have been for about 18 months.
Always been happy.

I am also using them at work for adsl & two vfx lines, all good for 6 months so far.

I am in Whangarei if that makes any difference...

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

nate

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#199049 3-Mar-2009 20:41

jermsie: For discussion: what do you think went so wrong with the ISP that used to be one of the best around?

To give you some background, I was an Xnet dealer for a couple years, but have since sold that part of our business.

My opinion is it was a mix of growing pains and an underestimation of the effect of the torrent pricing plan. While it had good intentions (to move the heavier users to the quiter parts of the day to ease up network congestion for everyone else) it backfired. Add to this an increasing customer base and you find an ISP struggling from its own success. Add to this some unfortunate outages, and Xnet have had a rough ride these last 12 months.

They have a good bunch of clever people working for them (many of who are now good mates of mine) so I don't see it this "down-time" lasting for long.

My final thought (regarding their now absence from the site) is it does not make sense to dedicate a good proportion of your support to a small yet demanding and very technical user base (cue Geekzone users). There are plenty of WxC dealers on this site to direct your questions to.

Do I think this is the best way to go? I'm not sure. However, many of the average joe users/mums and dads who use Xnet as an ISP are still with them, so it's certainly working for them.

I'm keen to see what the next 12 months has in store.

Ragnor

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#199090 4-Mar-2009 01:21

I decided to change ISP before they brought in that torrent plan as soon as I heard about it, what I said at the time was sometging like...

1: Running a ISP without traffic management, caching and prioritization/QoS is probably retarded
2: Creating and promoting a heavy downloader plan without any traffic management, caching and prioritization in place is definately retarded.

...

Talking about it now I would guess whoever did their network/infrastructure planning either had no budget to work with or didn't fundamentally understand the effect of p2p and congestion control mechanisms.

The story is tragic because pay per GB with free offpeak is easily the most attractive plan offering in the market (apart from databanking/rollover and free offpeak from slingshot). The unprecendented communication with staff on forums like Geekzone and GamePlanet was refreshing.

A pity the service and reliability fell far far far short of acceptable and they oversold their international capacity to the nth degree.

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Niel

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#199096 4-Mar-2009 06:08

Agree, problems started when excessive torrenting brought browsing to a crawl, attempted to fix with the Torrent plan, that was a disaster, and communications stopped when people pestered them with gripe PMs. For a while you were not able to PM them, then it was turned on again. Now they still read these posts and reply only when they can add to a post rather than whatever they wanted (possibly need permission from a PR officer or management).

And why did torrenting take off so big? Hard drive space suddenly became so cheap, public and pay TV became rubbish (at least FotC is coming back to Prime, advertised here as I type). I'm all for XNet actively persuing illegal downloads, it attempts to reduce torrenting, and there are few instances where a movie download is legal (unfortunately there were a couple of disconnection notices for legal downloads, but many more for illegal downloads).

So the problem started with mass torrenting which resulted in mass complaints via informal PM which resulted in almost total withdrawel from Geekzone participation.

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Niel

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#199327 5-Mar-2009 06:12

This morning at 6:00 I've found my modem crashed again and needed a restart (Dynalink, works very good but need a restart every 2 weeks). Speed seemed fast, so I did a speed test. To CNet I'm getting 8Mbps which is about 1 to 2Mbps higher than usual, and to LA (picked that as it is the most common one people use) I'm getting 5.8Mbps which is also 1 - 2Mbps faster than usual.

Has anyone else noticed, or is it just me? I'm on Fusion in Pakuranga, Auckland. Sync speed is around 10Mbps due to about 3.5km from the exchange, so this is about the best speed I'll get. Did they upgrade or get more bandwidth, or have enough torrenters left? Speed is what is was when I first joined about 2 years ago, so perhaps their name should change to Phoenix (rise from the ashes).

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ajobbins

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#199352 5-Mar-2009 08:47

I changed from Xnet to Xtra a few months ago and do not regret doing so. The speeds I now get on Xtra far exceed what I was able to get on Xnet at any time of the day.

That said however, one of the things I really miss about Xnet is their charging model. In 12 months time if things have improved at Xnet then I would certainly consider a move back.

I think there is also something satisfing about giving my money to someone other than Telecom. I feel like less of a slave to the man. Or something.

While it was really cool having Maverick around on here, I imagine it was a huge drain on his time and resources and was not something he could do forever. There are still a couple of Xnet staff floating around here who do post when necessary - which is probably a more sensible approach.

Ragnor

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#199412 5-Mar-2009 15:04

Yes you would think surely at least 1 ISP in NZ has their game together enough to provide either a) pay per GB OR b) databanking for purchased data blocks... without the service going to complete crap... but sadly not.

nate

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#199532 5-Mar-2009 22:46

Ragnor: Yes you would think surely at least 1 ISP in NZ has their game together enough to provide either a) pay per GB OR b) databanking for purchased data blocks... without the service going to complete crap... but sadly not.

The pay per GB is great for the customer, but I don't think so for the ISP. I'm sure that the ISPs who have set caps make a lot of their profit off the data their customers don't use.

RedJungle

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Red Jungle

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#199578 6-Mar-2009 09:18

Indeed - pay-per-gig is about the only thing keeping me with Xnet at this point (as I could continue to use VFX, etc. from another DSL provider). I use a lot of data each month, and most other ISP's pricing options would seriously ream me on data charges.

Niel

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#199601 6-Mar-2009 13:12

XNet do not advertise their internet services, and they have some kind of arrangement with Telecom for VFX. I would suggest they provide internet access as an add-on to VFX rather than VFX as an add-on to internet. In other words they need their own internet connection to run VFX and so they also let customers make use of it.

The above sounds a bit confusing, I know, it is Friday... But basically I don't think they need to make lots of money out of data usage, because I don't think internet access is their core business. Makes sense, because after all they've run toll services over VoIP long before launching VFX (correct me if I'm wrong) and they make "cold calls" only for tolls services (and now e-mails to customers to upgrade to Fusion, i.e. voice services). So they are probably the only ISP that would do pay-per-Meg and not data blocks.

Just my 2c.

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rhy7s

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Ultimate Geek

#199805 7-Mar-2009 20:33

RedJungle: Indeed pay per gig is about the only thing keeping me with Xnet at this point (as I could continue to use VFX, etc. from another DSL provider). I use a lot of data each month, and most other ISP's pricing options would seriously ream me on data charges.

Niel:... But basically I don't think they need to make lots of money out of data usage...

Just my 2c.

Man, just seeing the 2c per meg overage charges on Xtra's Pro plan, that would add up. Their business broadband seems to be a better deal but the 24 month contract and having to factor in their gateway feels a bit restrictive.

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