Moving back to NZ from Oz and was wanting to know a good ISP

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Moving back to NZ from Oz and was wanting to know a good ISP

pantherz1

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Topic # 33112 30-Apr-2009 00:20

Well after breaking my marriage for 7 years and living in various parts of the Australia I am leaving permanently on Saturday for Auckland/North Auckland. I have no idea what or who a good and reliable ISP would be and was hoping I could be recommended some by ppl on these forums.

What I currently use my connection for in Oz:
VOIP - I make alot of international calls to NZ so now I would be making alot of international calls to Oz.
Torrents - currently on a 55gb a month plan with Internode which is $110 a month at ~6-8mbps consistant so would at least like near these speeds
Video Streaming - watch alot of youtube and various tv sites

All I can remember from when I was in NZ the last time was Xtra and have noticed the ISP landscape has changed dramatically since then. I am planning to either move to Albany/North Shore area (mum) or Kaiwaka (dad) roughly half way between aucks and whangarei. I guessing staying with my mother in Albany would offer more providers?

Will also be considering SKY HD and getting an iPhone but again have no clue who to join with regarding best rates/plans. Any help would be appreciated

hellonearthisman

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Reply # 210746 30-Apr-2009 02:05

Not Slingshot, they shape bulk downloading as it's low priority traffic. They also have issues delivering youtube.

Vodafones Red Network maybe?

6-8mB for torrent traffic. I don't think any ISP has that.

riahon

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Reply # 210749 30-Apr-2009 03:51

If you have a VOIP set up now then I would be investigating your ability to maintain that service so that when you are living in NZ in actual fact your VOIP will calls to oz will be local calls. I have a service here in NZ I use with no monthly fee and 12c per call to any oz landline.

gehenna

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Reply # 210784 30-Apr-2009 08:11

Once upon a time I would have said TelstraClear Cable was the only way to fly, but with ADSL2+ penetration quite good now there's much of a muchness and it really depends on the offerings of the ISP itself in terms of data/shaping/overage etc. In that regard TelstraClear Cable is still pretty good - especially if you get a package (Phone/TV/Cable). Don't think they're in Auckland though I'm afraid so that was a big 'ol waste of a text entry box :)

grant_k

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Reply # 210812 30-Apr-2009 09:52

pantherz1: What I currently use my connection for in Oz:
VOIP - I make alot of international calls to NZ so now I would be making alot of international calls to Oz.

Sbiddle uses Faktortel for this and it seems to provide very good rates. Search for one of his posts and you will see the link in his signature.

pantherz1: Torrents - currently on a 55gb a month plan with Internode which is $110 a month at ~6-8mbps consistant so would at least like near these speeds

We use SNAP because they provide consistently good International speeds. I doubt that you will get 6-8Mbps torrent speed from any ISP in NZ though, because of the high prices charged by SCC for International Bandwidth. However, during a recent 9 Hour/10GB download my son got an average throughput of 2.5Mbps using torrents. That's probably about as good as you can expect on a residential plan.

pantherz1: Video Streaming - watch alot of youtube and various tv sites

No problems there. I regularly watch streaming video as well.

pantherz1: All I can remember from when I was in NZ the last time was Xtra and have noticed the ISP landscape has changed dramatically since then. I am planning to either move to Albany/North Shore area (mum) or Kaiwaka (dad) roughly half way between aucks and whangarei. I guessing staying with my mother in Albany would offer more providers?

In Albany you would be able to connect via ULL providers such as Orcon+ and Vodafone's Red Network. Kaiwaka is pretty rural, so you will be limited to Telecom's network and its resellers, of whom SNAP is one.

pantherz1: Will also be considering SKY HD and getting an iPhone but again have no clue who to join with regarding best rates/plans. Any help would be appreciated

There is only one Pay TV provider in NZ: Sky TV.

After May 13, you will have a choice of network providers for your iPhone: Telecom's new XT network or Vodafone's HSDPA network.

HTH,
Grant.

gehenna

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Reply # 210814 30-Apr-2009 09:56

grant_k: [
There is only one Pay TV provider in NZ: Sky TV.

Incorrect, there is also Saturn but this is only available in Wellington region and Christchurch afaik

grant_k

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Reply # 210818 30-Apr-2009 10:03

gehenna:
grant_k: [
There is only one Pay TV provider in NZ: Sky TV.

Incorrect, there is also Saturn but this is only available in Wellington region and Christchurch afaik

Oops, yeah I overlooked Saturn (TelstraClear) given that the OP wants to live in Albany or Kaiwaka

pantherz1

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Reply # 210860 30-Apr-2009 11:20

Thanks guys appreciate your input.

Ragnor

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Reply # 210940 30-Apr-2009 16:35

50GB on Telecom or Telstra would be expensive, neither does naked adsl so you would have to get a POTS phone like from them. I wouldn't recommend Vodafone, Orcon, Xnet or Slingshot due to those networks being oversold on international bandwidth (imo) and generally having bad reputations for performance and service (once again imo).

I was going to recommend Snap Naked DSL but I just ran the numbers for my own interest and Snap Pro + POTS phone line works out cheaper than Snap Naked DSL B and gives you 10GB more data.

Snap Pro
http://www.snap.net.nz/home/broadband/
$89.95 for 60GB
$43 for a phone line
= $132.95 per month

vs

Snap Naked DSL B
http://www.snap.net.nz/home/naked-dsl/
$89.95 for 20GB
$60 for +30GB ($2 per GB)
= $149.95 per month

Naked DSL more expensive than DSL + a POTS phone line... only in NZ!

Tzleren

30 posts

Geek

Reply # 210957 30-Apr-2009 17:44

Naked DSL more expensive than DSL + a POTS phone line... only in NZ!

Check Maxnet's NAKED DSL plans.

$118.00 - 50GB
$125.00 - 60GB

$5/GB overage, don't expect great CS either.

Ragnor

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Reply # 211112 1-May-2009 02:13

Hmm that's decent Naked DSL pricing. Anyone know what carriers there traffic to the US is routed over, eg: asianetcom, reach global gateway etc?

insane

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Reply # 211174 1-May-2009 11:28

Tzleren: .....don't expect great CS either.

How did you come to that conclusion? 80% of calls are answered within 60 seconds and they were the only ISP helpdesk to feature at the last Tuanz awards, and were in the top three as a finalist.

Ragnor: Hmm that's decent Naked DSL pricing. Anyone know what carriers there traffic to the US is routed over, eg: asianetcom, reach global gateway etc?

To the US it's managed on demand, shared between Asianetcom/Pacnet and Global-gateway.

newbiejam

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Reply # 211200 1-May-2009 13:40

Maxnet is your best bet if you want NakedDSL with a reasonble price.

In terms of international performance. let me draw a simple diagram to show you NZ's ISP situation

ISP international bandwidth

Telecom
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Maxnet
|-------|
Orcon
|----|
Snap
|----|
Slingshot
|-|
Vodafone
|-|
Xnet
?
Telstra
|-----------------?

IMO

Tzleren

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Reply # 211223 1-May-2009 14:42

insane: How did you come to that conclusion? 80% of calls are answered within 60 seconds and they were the only ISP helpdesk to feature at the last Tuanz awards, and were in the top three as a finalist.

Going off topic here, so feel free to delete. Well I came to that conclusion out of my own subjective experience using them as an ISP. I was with them for approximately 6 months, firstly on a POTS line with Telecom and regular ADSL - great, except every time I made a call to them trying to change something with my account I could barely understand what they were saying due to the majority of the CSR's who answered my calls being of Asian descent (i'm not sure if they out source their CS now or what - I doubt it). Ok, I can deal with that.. so I get good internet service but CS is kinda painful.. (I got one european guy once, but my call was short lived.. typical).

Anyway time came where I wanted to disconnect my POTS line and just use their Naked DSL service, and well it was a nightmare to say the least. They screwed up the transfer 3x by entering the wrong ASID, transfered me to a new username which meant I lost e-mail and access to my old account page/info. Called them multiple times, everytime "Yeah, we'll have that fixed asap." Every call I had to ask them to repeat themselves, or had to repeat myself because they couldn't understand what I was asking. Even when I had access to e-mail before the transfer, I made it abundantly clear to them via e-mail that creating a new username could leave me without access to said e-mail account once the switch took place. They replied with the "Yeah, it's all automated - you should'nt have any problems, if you do we'll clear it up manually". Well I did, and everytime they assured me it would be fixed - yet nothing came to fruition.

Well, I don't call that Tuanz award material when it comes to Customer Service - maybe my expectations are just too high though?

Enough of that, I had - I don't pay $100 a month for just access to "internet" I pay for the entire package - email, the ability to monitor my account and "decent" Customer Service when things go wrong...

So I switched to SNAP - 1 call, CSR very competent, lots of technical knowledge (asked him about native IPv6 - thanks Tim), not a single problem.

insane

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Reply # 211447 1-May-2009 22:31

Ahh yes well that does sound like a horror story indeed if that is what happened and therefore I now understand why you said what you said!! I'm guessing that was before Naked DSL was officially advertised right, sort of still in test phase.
Either way so much FAIL there it was actually painful to read... I'll point this to their trainer to use as a 'what not to do' case study.

Good luck with snap, I've heard they have a good support desk.