I thought I would send in a review for a smaller ISP that I have been using for the last 6 months -- MynxNet. Unfortunately, the name isn't great (IMHO), but they are actually owned and run by Vibe Communications, a large NZ wholesale/business provider. My review is based on Chorus Fibre 200/20 in the Wellington/Lower Hutt region.
Customer Service and Support
Adequate. They are a much smaller provider so probably have limited staff. I did call them up to ask a few questions before signing up. However I think email is preferred for all support. I think I have generally had a support reply within 24 hours to my minor issues/inquiries. However, some of the Vibe management are actually members of this forum and I have received stellar service from them via PM.
Pricing
List pricing is on the high side. *However* I signed up with a 15% off coupon code "PROMO15DISC" which is still active. This brings the pricing down to be pretty competitive IMHO. That works out to about:
Unlimited 100/20 incl static IP = $84.15/mo
Unlimited 200/20 incl static IP = $101.15/mo
Unlimited 1000/500 incl static IP = $131.75/mo
Every plan is unlimited, includes static IP, and there are no contracts. So on the whole I think it's pretty competitive.
Network
The Vibe network is great, with a mix of "premium" bandwidth and lots of peering: http://bgp.he.net/AS45177. According to http://bgp.he.net/country/NZ it is the most "connected" network in New Zealand. Internet bandwidth is not a utility like water, there are measurable differences in quality, and of course pricing. Vibe's high network quality results in very good performance across the board. I had some latency results here: https://gist.github.com/unsignedint/6aa9b35d0202509f91b38a7957d6a3e6
With respect to "real world" speeds, my 200/20 connection is easily maxed out with pretty much any local/Australian content. Testing internationally, to the USA, I have downloaded a 1GB test file at 13MB/s average:
$ wget http://103.13.117.1/test1000.zip -O /dev/null
Connecting to 103.13.117.1:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 1073741824 (1.0G) [application/zip]
Saving to: ‘/dev/null’
100%[====================================>] 1,073,741,824 14.5MB/s in 81s
2017-03-20 23:16:14 (12.7 MB/s) - ‘/dev/null’ saved [1073741824/1073741824]
A negative with the network is that they currently only have a single UFB presence in Auckland. If I want to connect to a server in Wellington traffic is routed, WLG -> AKL -> WLG, leading to higher latencies. However, they have told me that they are planning to install a new presence in WLG soon.
A minor note is that I have detected several routes which seem to be "biased" by the large connectedness into weird routes. (For instance, connected to a site in Germany going via Singapore then back to the US, and a site in New York going via London). I would definitely say these are outliers. That said, they are very responsive to correcting these, which is great). I do wonder if its possible to actually test and optimise for this automatically?
IPv6 is also available, but admittedly I have not tested it.
Conclusion
I would highly recommend MynxNet / Vibe Communications for anyone who does not need a lot of support and assistance. If you are technically inclined you will have access to an excellent network, with no contracts, unlimited traffic, and static IPs, for a competitive price (with coupon). Moreover you get a support a small local company
However, I would be hesitant to recommend them if you need hand-holding and assistance configuring your modem, phone line etc. Honestly I'm not sure how well they can cater to those needs.