Has anyone used WIC in Dunedin?

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meesham

919 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

# 177076 21-Jul-2015 09:03

I work from home and currently have an ADSL2 connection, fibre is 3-4 years away so I'm currently looking at other options to improve my connection speed and was wondering if anyone here has used WIC in Dunedin? I can only find details for their residential plan on their website with 5/5 Mbps up/down speeds, I was hoping for something better (and I'm willing to pay for it). I sent them an enquiry and to be honest their response doesn't fill me with confidence.

My original message:

I work from home in [my suburb] as a programmer and was wondering if you offer
any business plans with speeds faster than 5Mb/5Mb. I currently have a
12Mb/1Mb ADSL2 connection and both the up and down stream speeds are
causing me problems when I need to move big files to and from clients'
sites, and UFB's not due to be rolled out here until July 2018 - June 2019.

And their response:

Thank you for your enquiry.
Unfortunately we only would suggest UFB for you and as you already know, the
likely availability date is some time away.
Our best wireless plans are 110mbps but you are already getting better than
that.
Sorry we cannot help you more.

I responded back yesterday morning saying that 110Mb/s is more than 9 times faster than what I'm getting at the moment but haven't heard back, I'm not sure if the "move big files" part scared them off.

The only feedback I've been able to find was on Reddit with some students complaining about being cut off after only 1 copyright infringement warning, I have no plans to be doing any copyright infringement but being cut off on the first strike is also a bit of a concern (especially given the accuracy of some of detection systems).

My other question is how much does the weather affect the quality of the connection with a WISP, would I be better off sticking with my ADSL2 connection?

lxsw20

2288 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

# 1348183 21-Jul-2015 09:14

You could try Unifone (another Dunedin WISP). Guessing you can't get VDSL?

Zeon

3481 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

# 1348201 21-Jul-2015 09:31

Yea seen that name WIC around a bit... seems like an odd response also that may put me off lol.

meesham

919 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

# 1348204 21-Jul-2015 09:40

lxsw20: You could try Unifone (another Dunedin WISP). Guessing you can't get VDSL?

I'm too far from the exchange unfortunately. Thanks for the suggestion, I've had a look at their website and can't see any business plans so I'll contact them to see what they can do (or if they're even interested in providing service).

mercutio

1387 posts

Uber Geek

# 1348233 21-Jul-2015 10:24

meesham: I work from home and currently have an ADSL2 connection, fibre is 3-4 years away so I'm currently looking at other options to improve my connection speed and was wondering if anyone here has used WIC in Dunedin? I can only find details for their residential plan on their website with 5/5 Mbps up/down speeds, I was hoping for something better (and I'm willing to pay for it). I sent them an enquiry and to be honest their response doesn't fill me with confidence.

Thank you for your enquiry.
Unfortunately we only would suggest UFB for you and as you already know, the
likely availability date is some time away.
Our best wireless plans are 110mbps but you are already getting better than
that.
Sorry we cannot help you more.

I responded back yesterday morning saying that 110Mb/s is more than 9 times faster than what I'm getting at the moment but haven't heard back, I'm not sure if the "move big files" part scared them off.

I assume they repeated the 1 accidentally, and that it's 10megabit symmetric. And that whoever responded only looked at the download speed not upload.

10 megabit is a lot faster than typical BUBA speeds or dialup. And is fine for most purposes, but not downloading games (quickly), streaming video etc. If they can only do
10 megabit they're probably being careful not to overload their backhaul. And it maybe that they're trying to get by with not upgrading their backhaul too much while netflix etc
take off.

UFB of course is easier to sell then wireless, as backhaul upgrades aren't needed. And the government isn't subsidising wireless except vodafone's mobile backhaul. And in 3 years time there's going to be UFB in your area, so any relevant backhaul upgrades would have to pay back within a few years rather than being a long term investment. (areas that aren't going to get UFB would have a longer time for return on investment)

It probably depends how much you are going to pay, money talks and all. But if you need the upload speed, maybe 10/10 would still help you.

meesham

919 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

# 1348246 21-Jul-2015 10:33

mercutio:
I assume they repeated the 1 accidentally, and that it's 10megabit symmetric. And that whoever responded only looked at the download speed not upload.

10 megabit is a lot faster than typical BUBA speeds or dialup. And is fine for most purposes, but not downloading games (quickly), streaming video etc. If they can only do
10 megabit they're probably being careful not to overload their backhaul. And it maybe that they're trying to get by with not upgrading their backhaul too much while netflix etc
take off.

UFB of course is easier to sell then wireless, as backhaul upgrades aren't needed. And the government isn't subsidising wireless except vodafone's mobile backhaul. And in 3 years time there's going to be UFB in your area, so any relevant backhaul upgrades would have to pay back within a few years rather than being a long term investment. (areas that aren't going to get UFB would have a longer time for return on investment)

It probably depends how much you are going to pay, money talks and all. But if you need the upload speed, maybe 10/10 would still help you.

That's a good point, 110 could be a typo. They could at least respond to my second message though, I'm seeing big warning signs with them so I'm going to stay away.

The guy at Unifone seems much more on the ball, he emailed me back within 20 minutes.

Business grade plans:

Plan 1 - 5Mbps - $78
Plan 2 - 10Mbps - 128
Plan 3 - 20Mbps - $226

Standard install - $255

Residential grade:

1.5Mbps - $36
3Mbps - $46
5Mbps - $56
15Mbps - $76

with 30Mbps plans becoming available towards the end of the year in some areas. I've responded back asking the differences between residential and business checking if it's just an SLA.

meesham

919 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

# 1348336 21-Jul-2015 12:50

The director of WIC got back to me and gave a good explanation of the situation, basically they can only offer 5/5 in my area and the 110 was a typo.

Two things are putting me off Unifone, first is they do traffic shaping and second is their equipment has to do the NAT, "we require our device to have the public IP etc to maintain isolation."

mercutio

1387 posts

Uber Geek

# 1348338 21-Jul-2015 12:55

meesham: The director of WIC got back to me and gave a good explanation of the situation, basically they can only offer 5/5 in my area and the 110 was a typo.

Two things are putting me off Unifone, first is they do traffic shaping and second is their equipment has to do the NAT, "we require our device to have the public IP etc to maintain isolation."

erk, the second does sound disconcerting. the first isn't necessarily a bad thing.

maybe they can do pppoe relay to you?