Xtra broadband per GB Cost (or alt subject

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Xtra broadband per GB Cost (or alt subject - Xtra Price gorging)

exportgoldman

1200 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#10360 17-Nov-2006 17:55

Sigh.

Xtra drive me nuts.

I have a client which streams live video (nothing interesting, mostly colour security/management monitoring of site in Mangere to around 7KM up the road to their head office.

They use about 75GB a month or more, and they pay at both ends to send & recieve the data.

Xtra's biggest plan is $150/50GB (or $3/GB INCLUDING the physical line, 24x7 helpdesk, email, billing costs etc)

They then pay $20/GB in overuse fees, with no option to pre buy GB. The Xtra guy could not explain why their plans were like this. (Don't worry, I told him why :-)

So, in effect my client is paying $40/GB to move data 7KM up the road. or $700/Month in overuse fees

Every other provider seems to offer extra GB at around $2/GB

So - why are Xtra price gorging so much?

And, does anyone know of any wireless or other broadband networks out that way which we could use? It's a long shot.

Otherwise, I'm going to have to move them to another ISP, which is just a PITA during their peak season (can't make changes during peak)

This is just getting old. I'm tired, grumpy and sick of hearing excuses from Telecom for their price gorging, because it's usually me which has to work ways around it. Not productive.

Tyler - Parnell Geek - iPhone 3G - Lenovo X301 - Kaseya - Great Western Steak House, these are some of my favourite things.

grant_k

3539 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#52843 17-Nov-2006 18:09

And, does anyone know of any wireless or other broadband networks out that way which we could use? It's a long shot.

Why don't you set up your own WiFi link and not pay anybody anything ever again (after the initial installation cost)?

Check out this web site:

http://www.gowifi.co.nz/

I think you'll find everything you need. Hopefully your client has a roughly Line-of-Sight path from one site to the other, but even if there are a few obstructions, it may well be OK. If there's a huge mountain in the way e.g. Mangere Mountain, then it probably won't work unless you can put up a reflector on a tall nearby building which can see both sites.

Certainly it's worth a shot to avoid that sort of a rip-off.

tallPete

99 posts

Master Geek

#52864 17-Nov-2006 19:54

Perhaps it might be worth investigating the video that is sent..

Perhaps the video unit can be set to record only half the amount of frames (capture every second frame) or capture at a lower resolution - capturing at half the resolution would reduce the data sent by 3/4.

Perhaps the data can be compressed before sending.

I know this doesn't really resolve your issue, and it might be impossible to do - I suspect these systems are very proprietary - but it might resolve the issue from your customers point of view if it can be done.

Downunder

87 posts

Master Geek

#52868 17-Nov-2006 20:07

7k you need to go ? I would get your self down to www.edencomputer.co.nz i recon they could set you up with the kit to make your own WIFI Network to do that job

i think they have aerals that have a range of 10k+ and i recon it would cost less then $ 1500

No isp to worry about

http://www.edencomputer.co.nz/c.aspx?r=39038.8351100694&c=Networking&s=Wireless+Lan

(Moderator edit (BG) - Added hyperlinks to URLs in post)

Fraktul

836 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#53057 20-Nov-2006 18:17

Of course 2.4 and 5.8 ism bands are just dandy to use round Auckland, no interference with non-carrier grade kit whatsoever

Might be a bit of an expensive punt.

raytaylor

3461 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#53333 23-Nov-2006 00:33

I am pretty sure that Telecom offer remote office network connections that may be cheaper. They are generally based on bandwidth usage but I think they would be cheaper because you are only communicating with one other location.

I used to do this by renting a copper pair that runs from office 1, to the exchange and then off to office 2. You could wire it up to a pabx and run a 56k modem over it - when that was fast. ~$180 per month for all I could transfer and it would mean that I didnt incur a 4c per min business line charge.
Now of course that is too slow but its the same concept but using a different network technology.

The other way would be to see if any ISP's like slingshot are still offering the older 512k upload dsl plans.
Currently with slingshot you can go for the max/max and 3gb for $50 per month + (50gb+20gb=$65) = $115 + line rental so that would be about $150 if your line rental is $35 (I cant remember what it is) which is a bit of a saving of $30 per end, per month. Slingshot or especially Orcon would probably be able to negotiate some sort of deal for you since you are a very huge user and I doubt would use much international bandwidth at all because its only going up the road.

The 3rd option is Wifi but that can get pretty crowded if your in Auckland.
Also the other option would be woosh - they should have a business department where they do direct WAN connections. I know airnet in hawkes bay (www.airnet.co.nz) do this where they connect your sites up to their access points wirelessly and you can connect etc. They even offer a remote backup service over their basically glorified wifi network. Unfortunatly they are not in auckland but someone up there must be able to help.

Other option is to pay me for the gas and I will see if I can come up and have a look and go with you to the sites and we could work out how to put up a wifi link. ;-) or you could talk to noodles on http://www.nzwireless.org/ he is based in auckland but i dont know if he charges for his call out services - he is very very good at what he does from what I see on the nzwireless forums. He has members with a wireless wan network covering half of auckland so if you are able to latch into that, you would have people readily able to provide relay points for you if you dont have line of sight at a very small cost.

Hope this helps,

Ray Taylor

Ray Taylor
Taylor Broadband (rural hawkes bay)
www.ruralkiwi.com

There is no place like localhost
For my general guide to extending your wireless network Click Here