Best and worst ISP in New Zealand

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freitasm

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#16961 5-Nov-2007 20:51

Consumer has released the results of a survey ranking New Zealand ISP (subscription required). This is the rank:

Inspire
Actrix
Maxnet
Infogen
Orcon
ICONZ
Xnet
Farmside
Paradise
Clear
Slingshot
Kiwi Online
ihug
Woosh
Vodafone
Xtra

Notice how Vodafone ranks low, only ahead of Xtra. But make sure you read my blog post...

Madmax77

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#93848 5-Nov-2007 21:09

I fear to mention that you mean,

"Notice how Vodafone ranks low, only [just] in front of Xtra"

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freitasm

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#93850 5-Nov-2007 21:16

Yes that is correct - thanks!

chakkaradeep

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#93853 5-Nov-2007 21:27

Is this survey relates to Wired Broadband or Wireless Broadband or Overall ?

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freitasm

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#93855 5-Nov-2007 21:30

Overall I'd say since it includes Vodafone.

chakkaradeep

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#93857 5-Nov-2007 21:41

freitasm:
Overall I'd say since it includes Vodafone.

Well, if its overall then each one should be considered with the Services they offer and then regarding the survey. Becoz, if you come over to Dunedin or down south, which ISPs are active ? Very few ! And still, there are many factors. Thats the reason I dont get the full intent of this Survey as it has been told Survey ranking of ISPs in New Zealand. Though I am new to New Zealand and got down at Dunedin first, I have never heard of many ISPs down here at Dunedin as I might have heard of others like Vodafone, Telecom, Xtra, Woosh (Even Woosh doesnt have wireless down here!)

P.S
===
I couldnt read the cosumer.org.nz article as I dont have subscription

cokemaster

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#93861 5-Nov-2007 21:55

The problem with regional surveys is that there is additional complexity involved, you've got to get sample from each region etc. And really at the end of the day, the results are probably going to end up the same except for some minor changes (ie. in Wellington, Christchruch where there is cable).

The results don't surprise me much given the players (both size + nature) in the lower half of the rankings. Additional information on how they collected the results, groups sampled, questions etc would provide more insight into how the rankings were determined - though I don't think we'll see this information, as it will most likely be subscriber only.

I'm a little surprised that they include Ihug in these results as Vodafone and Ihug state on their websites: Ihug is pretty much one of the "great" pieces of Vodafone. Or for that matter - where is TelstraClear, don't they own Paradise AND Clear? And if Vodafone is on that list - Why isn't Telecom mobile?

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chakkaradeep

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#93862 5-Nov-2007 21:58

Ihug is pretty much one of the "great" pieces of Vodafone.

Yes, me too thought the same thing ! If I go to Vodafone outlet here and ask for wired broadband, they are probably going to sign me up in iHug !

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euanandrews

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#93865 5-Nov-2007 22:10

The theme of the survey results:

Bigger company = Poorer service, poorer, quality product
Smaller company = Better service, better quality product

Is you want a quality product and good service, go with one of the little guys.

cokemaster

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#93867 5-Nov-2007 22:14

You mean like Woosh or Slingshot, or to a lesser degree Orcon and WorldExchange?

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#93872 5-Nov-2007 22:28

Small players:
Inspire
Actrix
Maxnet
Infogen

Big Players:
ihug
Woosh
Vodafone
Xtra

Ok, so not an exact science, Telstraclear is a big player, Ihug is Vodafone, blah blah but you get my point.

paradoxsm

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#93877 5-Nov-2007 23:24

Though Orcon is a "large player" too.... I find it provides reasoably good internet.

Very interesting though, I remember when Xtra was known as expensive but of top quality reliable service.
Some of those "bad" companies are actually improving or at least making the effort though (if they wish to be around in 2 years time)

KiwiOverseas66

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#93881 6-Nov-2007 00:26

Not surprised by the results re Xtra - the go large and bubble disasters were chaotic and will be long remembered. Read the consumer institute release and don't quite get the numbers. 42% rated xtra good or very good. 25% rated xtra poor or very poor. So what did the other 33% think - or are they still mourning the rugby world cup?

If these 33% rate xtra as average or ok (between good and poor) - then are the consumers institute saying that xtra is the worst because 58% of customers (33% average plus 25% bad) didn't give them a good or very good rating? Is this a case of how your read the stats and which way you choose to interpret the middle ground (the missing 33%)? A quarter of your customers saying that you are poor is still a shocker - but if the above is true then the stats don't paint a picture of the majority of xtra customers being dissatisfied - as the news headlines would have us believe?

Very surprised to see Ihug so low in the list. Doesn't everyone love vodafone, ihug, etc. And as CokeMaster said - how come they get onto the list twice! In that case Telstra should be on the list three times (clear, paradise, Telstra). Nice to see Actrix still hanging in there.

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#93882 6-Nov-2007 00:46

Well to add my 2c, I was with xtra for many years and had extaordinary service (pun intended) from them. A year ago I switched to Orcon (for reasons unrelated to xtra) and I had in general excellent service but over the last few months it has degraded to the point where my internet is for the most part unusable.

I have rung Orcon many times, spent more than an hour on hold most of those times. They just do not care, the blame my modem (I have tried three), I have new lines but nothing helps. All they can say is there is no problem and all looks fine, if you can call continuous dropouts fine then the iPhone is a revolutionary device and not at all lacking in features standard to almost every other real phone.

In all my years with xtra I found their helpdesk and service in general to be excellent, I still deal with them on behalf of our bigger clients. I would actually put them at the top of the list, Bubble and Go Large not withstanding. At least the can admit they were wrong and did what they could to set it right.

Shame on Orcon, Slingshot, Xnet, Ihug and Woosh. All there providers have some serious issues but they barely acknowledge them and are denied by all the various fanboys and zealots. Also it helps when the media conveniently overlooks these focus on Telecom/xtra's problems.

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#93910 6-Nov-2007 11:00

bradstewart:
In all my years with xtra I found their helpdesk and service in general to be excellent, I still deal with them on behalf of our bigger clients. I would actually put them at the top of the list, Bubble and Go Large not withstanding. At least the can admit they were wrong and did what they could to set it right.

As a general rule of thumb, I find the Xtra helpdesk to be very helpful, (and barring huge network outages) always easy to get hold of, but not of high technical ability, which is fine because 95% of the things we ring up for can be done via the scripts they follow, but if a problem is outside of these things it becomes a lot harder for the helpdesk to understand the problem, or get it fixed.

I'm actually amazed by the good service the Manilla (?) helpdesk gives, they ran through their script, noticed a problem, promised to call back in half a hour - DID call back in half a hour and FIXED the problem. Much better than the Kiwi helpdesk, which was a huge suprise to me and put my ideas about outsourced helpdesks in a different view.

bradstewart:
Shame on Orcon, Slingshot, Xnet, Ihug and Woosh. All there providers have some serious issues but they barely acknowledge them and are denied by all the various fanboys and zealots. Also it helps when the media conveniently overlooks these focus on Telecom/xtra's problems.

I guess this is the nature of the beast, the largest ISP's get the most newspaper inches written about them, because they are of interest to the largest amount of people, so sell more papers than a article written about a ISP which 5% of the readership uses.

When we used Xtra, our speeds were OK, and we never had problems per se, but the $20/GB overuse charges drove us away (we used 7GB out of 15GB every month @ $70/Month for a year, then went over by 7GB one month and it cost us $210 for that month) as we had a picture website some leacher had linked to for traffic. We always had 7Gb unused every month, but didn't get a credit for that, but got stung by one months overuse by the same amount.

Xtra always talk about broadband pricing coming down, but I remember when Jetstream first came out (I was on the trial) and it was about 400KB in speed, and $20/GB. That was what, like 7 years ago?

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#94148 7-Nov-2007 20:18

I was with xtra since the day they started and still am in a smaller capcity. It was coincidental that the night I moved from them to a new ISp the result came out from the survey. I didnt realise until I had my connection back up over the change over. I would hav eto agree with Brad tha the custoemr service from xtra is usually pretty good though i do have problems understanding some of the helpdesk staff from the remote call centres. I sued to be part of Telstraclear but went back to Telecom based on their customer service and their willingness to put things right. The reason I moved was a combination of factors recently particularily around Bubble. the other reason was around flexibility of my data caps which they were not. I still have my email with them as I have had the same address since they started and more than likely will put my ADSL back to them when they sort out their issues. as it is the power of the consumer the brings about change