Advice/Opinions from broadband users in Auckland wanted pls

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Pornolio

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#115953 13-Apr-2013 09:16

Heya geekzone forumites... New Aucklander posting for the first time needing some advice + opinions.

I have just moved from South Africa (Cape Town) to Auckland about a month ago, and its time to get my broadband sorted at home. I have been doing my normal homework in terms of reading comments and feedback from various ISP clients. I am looking at getting VDSL at my home premises, and I was going to go with Snap or Maxnet after reading all the positive things clients had to say. However due to poor data cap limits (50gig) + VDSL coverage in my area, I am looking at alternative options.

For my needs I would love the following options from a ISP :

- VDSL support/coverage
- Decent latency for online gaming
- The ability to have interleaving switched on/off should I wish to have it done, I understand not all ISP's offer it here.
- Although I don't consider myself a heavy downloader, with more and more devices requiring internet connectivity for streaming + gaming + patches, I don't think anything under 100 Gigs a month would be sufficient. Xbox360 / PS3 (4 incoming soon) / Steam. Chewing through 50 gigs a month would go pretty quick.
- Good performance for online streaming devices like eg. Roku3 / boxee box devices.
- Decent options in terms of VDSL modems (wireless AC would be great)

Back in South Africa uncapped internet seems to be the norm, so when I arrived here, I was quite surprised to see the limited number of ISP's offering uncapped internet, and even the ones that do offer it, I have been reading very bad feedback on performance due to throttling, rate limiting, QoS implemented on the core routers.

One ISP that has caught my attention is "Full flavour Media" ... I see they offer uncapped/unmetered VDSL at a very reasonable price, so I would love to hear comments from fellow forumites that have used them (or use them currently) on performance / throughput / latency results. Whats the catch ? :-)
It does sound like they cater more for SME's and businesses, so I am not sure if they are targeting residential clients like myself.

Any information / feedback would be greatly appreciated...

cheers !

sidefx

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#798699 13-Apr-2013 09:26

My recommendation would be snap without a doubt. I've been very impressed with them and their prices are pretty good IMO. I'm on 135GB for $100 VDSL (though that is a grandfathered plan with a special promo add on) - but you can chop and change your data allowance with them monthly on the web which is great. If you get one of their data packs it also comes with unlimited usage from 1am-7am which is awesome for steam\game\other large downloads.

On VDSL you can't ask them to turn off interleaving - DLM handles that so you'll end up on the lowest latency profile. For all the info you need on VDSL have a read through @SamF's thread here:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=90&topicid=105744&page_no=1

Snap also have probably the best VDSL modem\router available at the moment - the Fritzbox. I believe you can still buy it from them even if you don't go with them as ISP. Only thing where it's not that great is wireless, but there are plenty of options for that (and I find it ok with a decent wifi adapter in our relatively small house)

Be warned though: Many areas in Auckland seem to be suffering from fairly bad network congestion in the evenings. It seems to be a cross ISP issue, so I think the consensus is that it's a chorus issue. Not much you can do about that unfortunately.

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

plambrechtsen

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#798704 13-Apr-2013 09:38

I would check any of the addresses you are looking to go in the Chorus Maps first:

www.chorus.co.nz/sat

Plus you may be able to get UFB coverage depending on where you are looking to live in Auckland.

Also being an owner vs renter can make a difference depending on if your landlord is ok with you getting either UFB or a Master Filter installed into your house.

In regards to companies, I would normally go through all their sites here on Geekzone, plus check the posts to their pages on Facebook as that gives a general trend as to their customer support.

Pornolio

20 posts

Geek

#798710 13-Apr-2013 09:47

Thank you very much for your comments and feedback Sidefx. Seems like you have a very good deal on your broadband package. The strange thing I have noticed, is that pretty much most ISP's that offer VDSL says my home has VDSL support, but the snap coverage checker says I only have ADSL 2 support. Its a fairly new area, and we are on the border of the albany UFB covered areas.

On the modem side, if its a semi-decent modem/router, it should allow me to switch it to bridged mode to run my wireless from a more higher end wifi device like the new Linksys devices.

Sadly my area is only marked for UFB completion June 2014. So VDSL would be the ideal product for my needs at this point in time.

Thanks very much for all the comments guys, keep them coming in, I am open to any ISP if they can cater for my needs. :-)

@plambrechtsen - I have been speaking to some telecom NZ rep's and I have been told TelecomNZ will be offering VDSL any day now... Some posts seem to indicate that Telecom NZ has the most BW due to the amount of users they have and also the contention ratio is very good on their network. Not sure if its sales talk, but if you have any info regarding this, please let me know.

sidefx

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#798723 13-Apr-2013 10:29

Pornolio: Thank you very much for your comments and feedback Sidefx. Seems like you have a very good deal on your broadband package. The strange thing I have noticed, is that pretty much most ISP's that offer VDSL says my home has VDSL support, but the snap coverage checker says I only have ADSL 2 support. Its a fairly new area, and we are on the border of the albany UFB covered areas.

It does well for us, though when I look at their current plans, looks like you can get 150GB for $110, so not that much more for a bit more data.

Just ring an ISP that does VDSL and get them to do a pre-qual. They'll be able to tell you if you can get it.

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

vexxxboy

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#798753 13-Apr-2013 12:34

dont put anything into the VDSL checker on Snaps website , it also tells me that its unsure and we have had VSDL available for a year so just ring Snap and they will tell you if you can and what spee you should expect

Common sense is not as common as you think.

Pornolio

20 posts

Geek

#799065 14-Apr-2013 09:42

Thanks for all the replies and feedback guys. I have given snap a call, and they have mentioned my area should have vdsl coverage. They have sent an enquiry / check through to confirm, and once they get back to me with confirmation I will continue with my application. Looks like $110 per month should give me around 150 gigs of data.

Next up modem/router. Anyone have good recommendation on a decent device that will allow me to throw the device into bridged mode so that I can run my wireless AC + link authentication from say eg. a linksys EA6500 ? If possible the device should be future proof in the sense that once UFB becomes available here, I don't want to purchase another device again.
Some people tend to vouch for the Draytek modems, but I have no personal experience on any of the brands offered locally here. I am more familiar with the Linksys, Netgear, Belkin range of devices.

Snap mentioned their Fritz!box offers all of the above features except the bridge-mode... Think the CSR mentioned their Fritz!box only caters for half bridge mode. Will go do some reading up to see exactly what the limitations are between bridged mode vs half bridge mode.

Cheers. :-)

sidefx

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#799096 14-Apr-2013 11:00

Pornolio:
Snap mentioned their Fritz!box offers all of the above features except the bridge-mode... Think the CSR mentioned their Fritz!box only caters for half bridge mode. Will go do some reading up to see exactly what the limitations are between bridged mode vs half bridge mode.

Unless there's a recent firmware update I'm unaware, of the fritzbox doesn't even do half-bridge. I think it used to but a previous firmware update removed it. and I think even when half-bridge was supposedly supported a few people on here tried it and couldn't get it working, possibly that was why it was removed. It was the one thing I was initially disappointed about on the Fritzbox - I used to love my Gargoyle router... but once I got used to the fritzbox it's an outstanding device in its own right and I've been perfectly happy with it as both moden and router. And I use the VOIP\ATA on the fritzbox so if I went bridge\half bridge I'd need to buy a seperate ATA I think.

I believe you can get 2rd party firmware for the fritzbox (think it's called "freetz") for the fritzbox that will allow it to bridge though. I'm pretty sure at least one person on these forums had it running successfully and I think one of the snap employees on GZ was playing with it too.

Also I know a couple of people just run routers behind the fritzbox, so double NAT, and swear it causes no problems at all - I've always been wary of trying that though.

Many people here swear by the drayteks (and if I'm not mistaken a couple of people from the company that distributes them in NZ also frequent the forums) so I'm sure you can get opinions\assistance if you go that route.

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

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Pornolio

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#799108 14-Apr-2013 11:18

Hmmm good info sidefx... I am a unix systems engineer by profession so I tend to love tinkering under the hood of my modem/router with custom firmware if my device doesn't offer me what I want. My previous modems were all flashed with wrt firmware, so I might even look at the freetz side of things. Although I might need to brush up on my German interpretation skills :-p

Totally agree with you on the double natting, that's just asking for trouble and over complicating the setup :-)

Hopefully some of the draytek reps post some cool info here.

Ragnor

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#801039 17-Apr-2013 14:57

Snap (and most but not all ISP's) are using PPPoE for their VDSL2+ connections so you just need a basic VDSL modem that can bridge PPPoE.

Have a look at the ZyXEL P870H-51A.

pjamieson

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Chorus

#802886 20-Apr-2013 19:24

sidefx: Be warned though: Many areas in Auckland seem to be suffering from fairly bad network congestion in the evenings. It seems to be a cross ISP issue, so I think the consensus is that it's a chorus issue. Not much you can do about that unfortunately.

Please qualify this comment!?

sidefx

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#802910 20-Apr-2013 21:52

pjamieson:
sidefx: Be warned though: Many areas in Auckland seem to be suffering from fairly bad network congestion in the evenings. It seems to be a cross ISP issue, so I think the consensus is that it's a chorus issue. Not much you can do about that unfortunately.

Please qualify this comment!?

It actually looks like it might be getting better. This is my current 1 Month hourly average domestic ping vs 1 Week domestic ping from truenet, and the corresponding drop in download.

Latency:

Download:

And various threads with issues noted:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=90&topicid=114120
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=39&topicid=116122

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=39&topicid=111630

http://www.gpforums.co.nz/showthread.php?s=&threadid=463742&perpage=25&pagenumber=1

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=39&topicid=114201

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=90&topicid=110582

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

sidefx

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#802937 20-Apr-2013 22:55

Apologies though, my choice of words was perhaps off. Instead of "consensus" I probably should have said something along the lines of "speculation" - a number of people are speculating that it is a chorus issue and when I last logged a call with my ISP around this was also told it was a chorus issue (though that time it was sorted - just a pity that it seemed to return to some degree within a couple of months)

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

insane

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#802944 21-Apr-2013 02:23

sidefx: Apologies though, my choice of words was perhaps off. Instead of "consensus" I probably should have said something along the lines of "speculation" - a number of people are speculating that it is a chorus issue and when I last logged a call with my ISP around this was also told it was a chorus issue (though that time it was sorted - just a pity that it seemed to return to some degree within a couple of months)

My graphing of affected connections suggests its a lot better now than before, but I wouldn't go as far as saying its fixed as I still see elevated latency at night on connections in the affected suburbs. Probably not noticeable anymore to end users unless doing throughput testing or playing an FPS

@OP , I too use same modem as Ragnor mentioned, works great in full bridge mode but isn't ADSL2+ backwards compatible.

pjamieson

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Chorus

#803172 21-Apr-2013 17:45

Ah yes, thanks for that, was aware of some of it. Based on those threads though looks like there were a few different issues, which now all seem to be resolved.

Although if they were fixed with additional capacity (eg: the East AKL issue) then it can take several weeks of grooming before things settle right back down, especially if Ragnor's speculation is correct around alot of movement in the Telecom Services.