Switching Fibre ISP Any Recommendations?

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KitChan

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#240393 5-Sep-2018 22:05

Been with Stuff Fibre since last month, but although I think the upload speed is adequate and the price is fine, I wasn't happy with their billing system and have canceled with them.

The problem being that they make an automatic charge once a month without an invoice or an online banking account I can manually pay into as previous providers I've had for DSL did.

Any reccomendations on a different provider? I've looked up BigPipe because I like their pricing and I hear they're decent, but they have the same billing system, I may try calling tomorrow to ask if they can be flexible.

I'm also interested in a slingshot offer I've found and they bill via invoices. The main drawback being the 12 month contract as I can't currently predict where I'll be in 12 months time. I'm also concerned that because slingshot is more mainstream, I may run into more hiccups.

I need fast and stable international upload speed (Probably use a US server for FTL streaming as that's where most of my viewers would be) and billing via invoice.

I'm on a student budget and not interested in freebies like vodafone tv, spotify etc.

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#2084597 5-Sep-2018 22:16

I just changed Vodafone to 2 degrees.

Make sure, you serve notice on your first ISP, prior to signing up to the new one.

I messed that up (assumed that old account was automatically disconnected as per electricity accounts). Ended up paying twice of this month as Vodafone requires 30 days notice.

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richms

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#2084608 5-Sep-2018 22:25

Scott3:

I just changed Vodafone to 2 degrees.

Make sure, you serve notice on your first ISP, prior to signing up to the new one.

I messed that up (assumed that old account was automatically disconnected as per electricity accounts). Ended up paying twice of this month as Vodafone requires 30 days notice.

Dont do that, as that will stop the other connection from going ahead.

That is the number one cause of people ending up without internet for a period of time when the disconnection has to happen and then the connection to the new provider can happen.

Richard rich.ms

quickymart

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#2084619 5-Sep-2018 22:58

KitChan:

Any reccomendations on a different provider? I've looked up BigPipe because I like their pricing and I hear they're decent, but they have the same billing system, I may try calling tomorrow to ask if they can be flexible.

They only do payment by credit card, no other options.

michaelmurfy

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#2084638 6-Sep-2018 00:14

Voyager or 2degrees.

Also look at the link in my signature for picking an ISP. I honestly think 2degrees in your case may be best, they're rock solid.

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RunningMan

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#2084678 6-Sep-2018 07:44

Scott3:[snip]

Make sure, you serve notice on your first ISP, prior to signing up to the new one.

The caveat that needs to go with this (and the reason why it is not recommended to do it this way) is that there's a pretty good chance you will end up with no connection at all for a period. Maybe up to a month. Particularly with those ISPs that don't have a great reputation for good customer service.

The ISP will often disconnect as soon as they get the notice to disconnect, ignoring the date on it. If there's a landline number tied to the account, you may lose that in the process as well.

KitChan

34 posts

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#2089216 12-Sep-2018 12:22

Switched to 2Degrees and my ping and speeds are incredibly unstable.

Had a consistent 150~151 ping to the speedtest tokyo server on stuff with upload speeds consistently above 11Mbps
Now it's 199~219 ping with upload speeds fluctuating between 8-10Mbps

Getting better ping around 171-185 with los angeles servers, but the upload speed is between 6-10 Mbps, with almost consistently hitting below 10
Unfortunately my memory is a bit fuzzy on what my results on stuff were, but I think I would remember if it was this bad

Also, my League of Legends ping is now 220, pretty sure it never got that high when I was with Slingshot ADSL and on stuff fibre it was somewhere around 183-193

DarkShadow

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#2089222 12-Sep-2018 12:40

Scott3:

Make sure, you serve notice on your first ISP, prior to signing up to the new one.

Don't do that unless you like having no internet.

The correct procedure is as follows: http://pages.bigpipe.co.nz/how-to-switch-isps-without-ruining-everything/

hio77

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#2089247 12-Sep-2018 13:19

KitChan:

Switched to 2Degrees and my ping and speeds are incredibly unstable.

Different providers will have different routes that can affect latency.

In saying that, if there really is that much jitter i'd wonder if something is a little hot. (assuming your plan is all at the correct rates etc)

@nickmack might be able to look at the routes a little more

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NickMack

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#2089269 12-Sep-2018 13:40

hio77:

KitChan:

Switched to 2Degrees and my ping and speeds are incredibly unstable.

Different providers will have different routes that can affect latency.

In saying that, if there really is that much jitter i'd wonder if something is a little hot. (assuming your plan is all at the correct rates etc)

@nickmack might be able to look at the routes a little more

Can you please ping me some trace routes / pinging information privately so we can have a look.

Nick

https://nick.mackechnie.co.nz | NZ ISP latency monitoring - https://smokeping.thenet.gen.nz

Linux

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#2089286 12-Sep-2018 14:03

I would recommend 2degrees fixed broadband and mobile

John

NickMack

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#2089439 12-Sep-2018 17:27

NickMack:

hio77:

KitChan:

Switched to 2Degrees and my ping and speeds are incredibly unstable.

Different providers will have different routes that can affect latency.

In saying that, if there really is that much jitter i'd wonder if something is a little hot. (assuming your plan is all at the correct rates etc)

@nickmack might be able to look at the routes a little more

Can you please ping me some trace routes / pinging information privately so we can have a look.

Nick

Hi All,

Just a follow up - We are investigating to see what can we do around routing for this service for @KitChan - A reminder that Speedtest servers/results aren't necessarily a good indication of performace, they are a measure only. We have performed extensive testing Nationally and Internationally recently (https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=85&topicid=239862) as well as deploying Speedtest servers in Sydney and LA. THis provides us with the ability to measure performance nationally and internationally. Speedtest has some odd behavior when latency is introduced, more details in the above link.

Focusing on the issue at hand, we will look at the routes and see if there is any optimization we can do for this specific service.

Nick.

https://nick.mackechnie.co.nz | NZ ISP latency monitoring - https://smokeping.thenet.gen.nz

noroad

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#2089448 12-Sep-2018 18:09

NickMack:

Hi All,

Just a follow up - We are investigating to see what can we do around routing for this service for @KitChan - A reminder that Speedtest servers/results aren't necessarily a good indication of performace, they are a measure only. We have performed extensive testing Nationally and Internationally recently (https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=85&topicid=239862) as well as deploying Speedtest servers in Sydney and LA. THis provides us with the ability to measure performance nationally and internationally. Speedtest has some odd behavior when latency is introduced, more details in the above link.

Focusing on the issue at hand, we will look at the routes and see if there is any optimization we can do for this specific service.

Nick.

As someone who has designed and deployed more service provider networks than I an now remember, I agree wholeheartedly with this comment on the speedtest.net platform.

NickMack

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#2089825 13-Sep-2018 11:03

Update - Hi All,

The traffic, like you have observed goes to our Sydney Megaport peering, from where it is sent to the US via the SoftLayer's backbone network. This is because this is a SoftLayer address and we are receiving the prefixes at all the exchanges and points of presence we share with Softlayer. These are the Equinix and Megaport exchanges in Sydney and the California and LA Wilshire Any2IX exchanges in the US.

As a policy we tend to prefer prefixes received from Sydney peering sessions to avoid sending stuff over the US links (more than happy to if it makes sense and we can), if access is available via Sydney it makes sense to route this way as it's a shorter part of the Southern Cross cable. As a result, the preferred prefixes are learned via the Sydney exchanges. There are a couple of approaches to this from a routing perspective.

1/ We could manipulate our import policies to prefer the particular prefix from the US - this could potentially impact other services.

2/ We could take a more comprehensive approach and engage SoftLayer to find out if they have communities (these are use to tag a collection of prefixes) to aggregate a collection of prefixes by location. We can use this to make routing policy decisions.

We are exploring Option 2 at the moment to see if Softlayer will work us to resolve.

Nick.

https://nick.mackechnie.co.nz | NZ ISP latency monitoring - https://smokeping.thenet.gen.nz

dfnt

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#2089850 13-Sep-2018 11:14

The above makes me glad I'm switching our fibre over to 2degrees.

Now I'm just waiting impatiently for the switch to happen >_<

NickMack

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#2090157 13-Sep-2018 15:37

Hi All,

The highlighted lines are our router and riotgames border router respectively. They peer at Any2IX core site with 2degrees. For North America, we are about right from the traceroute below. There was a jump of about 170ms from NZ to US (which is about right) with the remaining 40ms within Riotgames network.

xxxx@nepv:~$ mtr -r -c 100 104.160.131.3
Start: Thu Sep 13 12:30:36 2018
HOST: nepv                        Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg Best Wrst StDev
1.|-- 10.221.12.252              1.0%   100    2.0   3.6   1.7 67.3   7.4
2.|-- 10.69.0.5                  0.0%   100    1.8   3.2   1.6 28.3   4.0
3.|-- 244.60.69.111.static.snap 0.0%   100    1.2   3.1   1.0 24.3   4.8
4.|-- 64.62.69.111.static.snap. 2.0%   100    1.3   3.7   1.1 45.2   6.8
5.|-- 65.62.69.111.static.snap. 0.0%   100    1.3   2.2   1.3 15.7   2.3
6.|-- 208.55.69.111.static.snap 0.0%   100    3.2   3.4   1.5 27.0   4.2
7.|-- two-degrees-new-zealand.a 0.0%   100 172.6 173.7 172.4 193.5   3.0
8.|-- riotsgamesdirect.as6507.a 0.0%   100 172.7 174.5 172.5 193.6   3.6
9.|-- 104.160.133.35             0.0%   100 172.6 174.7 172.4 205.7   4.9
10.|-- 104.160.159.100            0.0%   100 211.8 198.4 196.1 247.5   5.9
11.|-- 104.160.131.3              0.0%   100 217.9 217.0 215.3 230.4   2.8

We will continue to monitor, however the ~40ms within the Riotgames network is beyond our control.

Nick.

https://nick.mackechnie.co.nz | NZ ISP latency monitoring - https://smokeping.thenet.gen.nz

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