Can't get Fibre, VDSL or Wireless - what are my options?

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Carkus

25 posts

Geek

#261711 11-Dec-2019 13:52

So, yeah as per the title.

I live on a lifestyle block property in Paremoremo which is about 5-10 minutes drive out of Albany in Auckland. We're currently on Spark ADSL getting an unreliable 10Mb Down/1mb Up connection that's had a few faults in the last few years.

UFB did not come up our street, and the closest it went was down the main road which which is about 700-800m away. Spark's address checker says we can get VDSL, but I know that we are too far from the cabinet to enjoy any VDSL speeds. The tech who tried to install it years back failed to stand up the service and recommended we down-grade to ADSL for a more reliable connection.

After some recent faults with our DSL dropping, I've become more tired of our poor internet performance which is not great if my partner and I both want to use internet at the same time. My son will be old enough in a couple of years to want to stream things himself so it's going to get worse if we're all trying to use the internet at the same time.

Spark mobile coverage is terrible at our location, and doesn't appear to support Wireless there. My mobile is through Vodafone, and on their site it looks like they support 3G Mobile or possibly 4G with an aerial but I have no idea how reliable or fast that would be for our internet use. $165 for 200GB also seems a bit over priced if the connection is poor.

Can anyone make any recommendations for a better service, other than moving house?

Cheers

toejam316

963 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#2372462 11-Dec-2019 13:57

Stratanet might be a goer - not the cheapest, but better than a kick up the pants.

Otherwise there might be other WISPs operating in the area, or if you can get clean line of site you can talk to someone about setting up a point to point link between their place and yours to get Fibre on the go.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

engedib

213 posts

Master Geek

#2372463 11-Dec-2019 13:59

Knock on a couple of doors down the road where they can get UFB.

Offer to half their broadband costs, upgrade the plan to 200Mbit+ and install a P2P wireless link to your place. Might need a bit of planning / cabling, but using a pair of Ubiquiti PowerBeams it's an easy solution :)

OldGeek

483 posts

Ultimate Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2372487 11-Dec-2019 14:53

Try using broadband.nz . I found the best way to use an address-finder to get a picture of what is available at a specific address. Looking in your general area, this shows wireless availability from Vodafone and Connecta.

Hope this helps.

--

OldGeek.

Lias

4130 posts

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#2372685 11-Dec-2019 19:22

There's always the option of asking Chorus to install fiber at your cost but you will cry.

Information wants to be free. The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

xpd

Budget Gamer
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#2372687 11-Dec-2019 19:31

Lias:

There's always the option of asking Chorus to install fiber at your cost but you will cry.

Cheaper to move.

XPD^ / DemiseNZ

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quickymart

5277 posts

Uber Geek

#2372710 11-Dec-2019 20:39

Just remember your location to a major city/suburb/landmark means very little as to what you can get, but you should be able to get Wireless RBI there, surely?

coffeebaron

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#2372724 11-Dec-2019 20:50

Quite possible I can install an RBI 4G option. I've done a few in that area. Yes there are data caps, but that's just the nature of wireless. Another option, do you have line of site to the Waitakere's?
Anything feel free to flick me a message and we can get in touch.

Chorus has spent $1.4 billion on making their xDSL broadband network faster and even more now as they are upgrading their rural Conklins. If your still stuck on ADSL or VDSL, why not spend $195 on a master filter install to make sure you are getting the most out of your connection?
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gz343

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2372866 12-Dec-2019 06:30

I was in the Vodafone store yesterday and they offer 240gb for $73 on their 'Home Wireless Broadband' plan.

You had to buy their $200 modem, though they did say I could use my own if I had one.

If you get decent Vodafone signal right now, it could be an option until you get a better solution.

Carkus

25 posts

Geek

#2372917 12-Dec-2019 08:26

gz343:

I was in the Vodafone store yesterday and they offer 240gb for $73 on their 'Home Wireless Broadband' plan.

You had to buy their $200 modem, though they did say I could use my own if I had one.

If you get decent Vodafone signal right now, it could be an option until you get a better solution.

Sweet, that's not too bad. I get about 3 bars of VF signal, just don't know how fast it will be on Wireless. I like to do gaming so have my reservations over how that would work.

Carkus

25 posts

Geek

#2372919 12-Dec-2019 08:29

coffeebaron: Quite possible I can install an RBI 4G option. I've done a few in that area. Yes there are data caps, but that's just the nature of wireless. Another option, do you have line of site to the Waitakere's?
Anything feel free to flick me a message and we can get in touch.

Hey, thanks for the reply. Yes we do have line of sight to the Waitakere's. I'd have to run some maybe 30m of ethernet cabling to top of our section, but that could be an option. What kind of speeds and costs are we looking at here? I'll PM you.

Carkus

25 posts

Geek

#2372933 12-Dec-2019 08:39

engedib:

Knock on a couple of doors down the road where they can get UFB.

Offer to half their broadband costs, upgrade the plan to 200Mbit+ and install a P2P wireless link to your place. Might need a bit of planning / cabling, but using a pair of Ubiquiti PowerBeams it's an easy solution :)

Yeah I'd considered that. With Wireless P2P, I'd prefer to have my own connection rather than leach and share someone else's. Was thinking I could use a secondary port on the Fibre ONT and install my own router to that, and then have a ubiquti nanostation send it over to our section to a receiver. We use some Ubiquiti NanoStations now as our Internet goes to the main house on the section where our router is located, and then we use a couple of those nanostations to send it about 50-70m to our dwelling. Great products.

I would be able to get LOS to a neighbour with fibre, but a lot of suitable houses in range are pretty flash and I don't know how keen they'd be for running cabling, drilling holes and mounting the ubiquiti gear outside. It takes a bit to set up as well to align and piss around with config so I doubt I i'll find someone keen to work with me.

I think a Wireless ISP would be a better solution if the performance is good.