Chorus funded study says copper better than fixed wireless

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Awrrr
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#1736586 14-Mar-2017 22:38

staticnz:

Rikkitic:

Tonight my fixed wireless has been exceptionally poor again. Even cartoons were stuttering and freezing. Download speeds measured out at about 0.5 (!) mbps, later gradually creeping up to a blazing 3 mbps. Inconsistent and unreliable are terms that come to mind.

Have you been in touch with Spark to see if they can improve it?

I'm actually with a small ISP but Vodafone supplies the connection. I think the issues are the same as with Spark. I have been through this in the past with my provider and there seems to be nothing that can be done until VF improves their infrastructure. Fortunately it is not always this bad, usually just when I want to watch something.

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rhy7s

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#1736588 14-Mar-2017 22:42

chevrolux:

Is anyone else having an issue with the 'fixed wireless' term? I don't see the Spark/Vodafone 3G/4G as fixed wireless at all.

Fixed wireless to me is an external antenna/radio mounted and aligned to give the best possible connection and stability, not just chuck a cheap box in the corner next to the telly and hope the lights come on.

The WISP networks out there can out perform a hell of a lot of ADSL connections (and even maybe VDSL these days) and I feel like these operators shouldn't have their product tarnished by being thrown in to the same boat as 3G/4G solutions.

You do realise that 3G/4G doesn't preclude the use of fixed external antenna options as well? So, that category can be divided as well.

chevrolux

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#1736642 15-Mar-2017 07:49

rhy7s:
chevrolux:

Is anyone else having an issue with the 'fixed wireless' term? I don't see the Spark/Vodafone 3G/4G as fixed wireless at all.

Fixed wireless to me is an external antenna/radio mounted and aligned to give the best possible connection and stability, not just chuck a cheap box in the corner next to the telly and hope the lights come on.

The WISP networks out there can out perform a hell of a lot of ADSL connections (and even maybe VDSL these days) and I feel like these operators shouldn't have their product tarnished by being thrown in to the same boat as 3G/4G solutions.

You do realise that 3G/4G doesn't preclude the use of fixed external antenna options as well? So, that category can be divided as well.

No totally get that. But I feel like a properly installed solution, like most of the RBI setups, is going to be much better than just putting a 3g/4g router in your house somewhere and hoping for the best.

Killerkiwi2005

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#1736661 15-Mar-2017 09:28

chevrolux:
rhy7s:

chevrolux:

Is anyone else having an issue with the 'fixed wireless' term? I don't see the Spark/Vodafone 3G/4G as fixed wireless at all.

Fixed wireless to me is an external antenna/radio mounted and aligned to give the best possible connection and stability, not just chuck a cheap box in the corner next to the telly and hope the lights come on.

The WISP networks out there can out perform a hell of a lot of ADSL connections (and even maybe VDSL these days) and I feel like these operators shouldn't have their product tarnished by being thrown in to the same boat as 3G/4G solutions.

You do realise that 3G/4G doesn't preclude the use of fixed external antenna options as well? So, that category can be divided as well.

No totally get that. But I feel like a properly installed solution, like most of the RBI setups, is going to be much better than just putting a 3g/4g router in your house somewhere and hoping for the best.

Signed up with lightwire after I got a $2.5K estimate to connect vdsl that *might* work (this is with existing copperline so no idea what they wanted 2.5k for)

Speed is in the 17/5 range and is very stable

Rikkitic

Awrrr
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#1736678 15-Mar-2017 09:58

chevrolux:

No totally get that. But I feel like a properly installed solution, like most of the RBI setups, is going to be much better than just putting a 3g/4g router in your house somewhere and hoping for the best.

We had 3G RBI 'professionally' installed at considerable expense. Antenna on the roof aimed at mast over the hills about 20 or so km distant. When 4G became available, I did the upgrade myself, using the previous antenna as a guide. Later I became curious about LTE and installed a second antenna to the B315 and did a lot of experimenting. I was able to increase average download speeds from about 25-30 mbps to as much as 50 mbps. But I also learned that, in our case, at least, antenna orientation wasn't critical at all and made very little difference to the signal. I could even get a usable signal with only the internal antenna, though speed was much lower, of course. Anyone could have done this installation, even without a signal strength meter. Unless you are in a poor signal area, you probably can just plonk a router down somewhere in your house and hope for the best. We have had issues with our connection, but they are not at our end.

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Jase2985

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#1738856 15-Mar-2017 14:04

chevrolux:

No totally get that. But I feel like a properly installed solution, like most of the RBI setups, is going to be much better than just putting a 3g/4g router in your house somewhere and hoping for the best.

as with most things these days it comes down to cost, people dont want to pay the extra for the external aerials. just like people dont want to pay for a master filter on their VDSL setups.

at the end of the day you get what you pay for.

tripper1000

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#1739866 15-Mar-2017 14:59

Results are pretty much what I would have expected for wireless internet. A good product for light users, but not suitable for everyone.

The thing to bare in mind going forward is that these recently published results are likely to the best they will ever be. As more people sign up to fixed wireless (which is a finite and shared resource), the speed will only deteriorate further.

I wonder what impact this has on Sparks mobile customers - do they share the same spectrum or is traffic some how prioritise differently between mobile and fixed users? I assume that they don't want to exacerbate congested cell sites and this is one of the reasons why fixed wireless isn't available everywhere.

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sbiddle

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#1739874 15-Mar-2017 15:18

tripper1000:

Results are pretty much what I would have expected for wireless internet. A good product for light users, but not suitable for everyone.

The thing to bare in mind going forward is that these recently published results are likely to the best they will ever be. As more people sign up to fixed wireless (which is a finite and shared resource), the speed will only deteriorate further.

I wonder what impact this has on Sparks mobile customers - do they share the same spectrum or is traffic some how prioritise differently between mobile and fixed users? I assume that they don't want to exacerbate congested cell sites and this is one of the reasons why fixed wireless isn't available everywhere.

Spark's plan was to use 2300MHz exclusively for FWA offerings and that this would not be used for mobile - this is why they purchased the 70MHz of Woosh spectrum.

I'm unsure what the current setup is other than 2300MHz has been deployed by them.

KiwiSurfer

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#1739949 15-Mar-2017 16:55

My mother's Spark wireless connection is to a cell site which is 1800MHz only for the time being, so definitely looks like spectrum is shared with all users whether they are using the "fixed" wireless or mobile product.

DjShadow

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#1739962 15-Mar-2017 17:23

Have to say, I'm using my parent's Spark wireless connection at the moment and it seems more snappy than our 200 megabit Cable connection back home

MadEngineer

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#1739983 15-Mar-2017 19:29

This report needed to specify what wireless technology they were testing.

3g/4g has nothing on a connection provided by the real "wireless" providers - latency in the low single digits (1-2ms return) is normal, even between two customers

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

tdgeek

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#1740004 15-Mar-2017 20:18

Rikkitic:

staticnz:

Rikkitic:

Tonight my fixed wireless has been exceptionally poor again. Even cartoons were stuttering and freezing. Download speeds measured out at about 0.5 (!) mbps, later gradually creeping up to a blazing 3 mbps. Inconsistent and unreliable are terms that come to mind.

Have you been in touch with Spark to see if they can improve it?

I'm actually with a small ISP but Vodafone supplies the connection. I think the issues are the same as with Spark. I have been through this in the past with my provider and there seems to be nothing that can be done until VF improves their infrastructure. Fortunately it is not always this bad, usually just when I want to watch something.

What issues are those? The theme is that fixed wireless can be as good or better then ADSL, and if you cannot get VDSL or fibre its ideal. In your case, and from memory your last comments about RBI, your possibly on a marginal connection, being rural.

For someone urban, with no VDSL or fibre, a good 4G connection, it makes sense. If you want to stream 600GB, then it wont work. The idea is not to overload the tower, so some people might see they get 5 bars on their mobile, but its not available.

So, we could have

1. ADSL, VDSL, FIbre

Or we could have

2. ADSL, VDSL, FIbre, 4G

Which is best? 2. of course. More options.

tdgeek

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#1740006 15-Mar-2017 20:22

Jase2985:

chevrolux:

No totally get that. But I feel like a properly installed solution, like most of the RBI setups, is going to be much better than just putting a 3g/4g router in your house somewhere and hoping for the best.

as with most things these days it comes down to cost, people dont want to pay the extra for the external aerials. just like people dont want to pay for a master filter on their VDSL setups.

at the end of the day you get what you pay for.

And a one off cost for an ethernet run is marginal compared to a wifi extender!!

Seems silly too me that we all pay per month for interwebs, but some wont pay a relatively small one off cost to make every month much better (performance and value)

tdgeek

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#1740008 15-Mar-2017 20:24

tripper1000:

Results are pretty much what I would have expected for wireless internet. A good product for light users, but not suitable for everyone.

The thing to bare in mind going forward is that these recently published results are likely to the best they will ever be. As more people sign up to fixed wireless (which is a finite and shared resource), the speed will only deteriorate further.

I wonder what impact this has on Sparks mobile customers - do they share the same spectrum or is traffic some how prioritise differently between mobile and fixed users? I assume that they don't want to exacerbate congested cell sites and this is one of the reasons why fixed wireless isn't available everywhere.

I think you will find that while you may get 5 bars its not available everywhere there is 4G. Maybe next week it will be as some users drop off. It is finite, so the amount of users accepted is also finite.

Rikkitic

Awrrr
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#1740039 15-Mar-2017 20:58

tdgeek:

What issues are those? The theme is that fixed wireless can be as good or better then ADSL, and if you cannot get VDSL or fibre its ideal. In your case, and from memory your last comments about RBI, your possibly on a marginal connection, being rural.

The discussion extended into RBI in general and 3g/4g quality and I felt I had something to add. However I have since discovered that the problem I was experiencing in this case had to do with the Huawei. I didn't notice that it had fallen back to 3g for some reason. When I had the same problem this morning, I took a closer look and saw that. Rebooting the router fixed it, at least for now.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

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