So, I finally got fibre this year. After some positive feedback from here on Geekzone and a good offer of $10 off per month from the Full Flavour Geekzone rep last year, I chose Full Flavour as my new ISP. I was very interested in the included Roku Streaming Stick and seamless behind the scenes handling of DNS tweaks to access US services like Netflix US and Hulu.

 

 

 

Well, the Roku and US streaming service access in general worked great - better than I expected, with no need for manual fiddling with settings as one would with VPN. I subscribed to US Netflix (as well as using a bunch of other ad-supported or free US only streaming services), and figured I was set. No more need for local TV access, and most of my TV and movies could now be sourced 100% legit :-)

 

 

 

Until today when with NZ Netflix released, Full Flavour inexplicably (to my way of thinking) dropped US Netflix support. I discovered this when I logged to Netflix tonight and suddenly my watchlist and choices have shrunk to next to nothing! :-( Ok, I enquire via twitter and FF confirm US Netflix support is gone!

 

 

 

I'm now trialing unotelly's DNS service to get US Netflix access back, but that really stinks (not unotelly, but the repercussions of FF's actions). A) I'll now have to pay a third party a monthly fee of around 4 - 5 USD for what I was getting included with my FF fibre plan yesterday. B) I cannot get the unotelly DNS servers to work on the Full Flavour supplied Huawei HG253s V2 router, despite having been granted admin access by a FF support rep (I needed to set some custom WiFi networking stuff when I got it).

 

 

 

Thus most of the NZD $10 I though I was saving as part of the deal offered to me here, will now go on a third party unblocking DNS service, and unless I can figure out why this router isn't passing on manual DNS to other devices (they still see the previous FF ones), I'll not be able to watch US Netflix on my Roku or other devices lacking their own DNS settings.

 

 

 

I realise this isn't the end of the world, but I'm pretty unhappy part of what sold me on FF's service is now messed up. Hell, FF, you knew your customers like me were using US Netflix - you promoted access on your site and gave customers like me free Roku Sticks for a year (regardless of what happens, I'm sold on the Roku and will be getting my own US import if FF doesn't sell me one after the year). I think it's really rather poor that you'd suddenly pull the rug out from under our feet. NZ Netflix is a joke - you had to have known it was no reasonable substitute!

 

 

 

Frankly unless I'm misunderstanding the situation and you can selectively turn US Netflix access back on as I believe other ISPs like Orcon can, I feel I'll be exploring every possible option to escape my contract with FF ASAP. If I'm stuck with them for 12 months (is that right? Cause I got the fibre install for free), and nothing changes, it's a safe bet I'll be jumping ship first thing in early 2016.

 

 

 

Every big to medium sized ISP I've been with in the past has always notified me about important changes via email, and certainly never sold me on a deal and services that they then yanked away a couple months later. I know FF is smaller and this is my first time with a little local ISP since Palmerston North's Inspire.net.nz back in '99 (before they went national and were bought by a bigger ISP), but I still expected to be treated better.

 

 

 

If anyone has any help with setting up unotelly DNS on the HG253s V2 router, please let me know! It is completely ignoring my manual DNS input. Yes - I saved, I rebooted the router, too.