http://www.unmetered.co.nz/ or http://www.snap.net.nz/home/naked/step3

Ok this just has to be a no brainer to me...

While I'm typing you this post, I'm listening to a selection of three different radio stations from Media Works... I've got all three streaming at the same time and just flip between them when one starts to pay ads or a song I'm not liking.

So my 'unmetered' Telstra has some cool factor... but hell guys, I could do this with a give away radio that came with a free beach towel, glasses and jandles the last time I bought a camera from Noel Leaming!

TV3 on demand would also be cool... but it really is a bit to little to late there.... I now have my computer set up to series record almost all the TV 3 stuff you can imagine using the tuner card that came with my PC when I upgraded it last year... and as we just did the wifes computer at the same time with exactly the same model, I do TV3 and she does TV2.

Now ClearNet video did look cool too... so last week I checked that out... bugger, putting aside the crap value of the content from my point of view, the interface just didn't work.  It got busy and told me I needed to update flash... ok... strange, but ok... so off I go, to the linked web site to find I already have the latest version on my machine.  Ok, change browsers... ok, fixed the flash issue, but then find I'm still presented with the spinning thingo...  next!

Now if you want to have a bit of a chat about time wasters, let's chat about my video editing efforts...  record 3 minutes of Mr 4 blowing out the candles for Nana and I've got 250 mb to throw at YouTube (yes I'd put it on ClearNet but that gives me a whole bunch of really obvious problems)... so off to YouTube we go.

Now with the $2 Snap plug in, I guess I really wouldn't worry about throwing a gig of video at it, for YouTubes servers to do the 'compress thing' with, but on my 'unmetered' metered YouTube connection, I get out Microsoft Movie Maker (and that's where the time wasting just gets into over drive).

Now a couple of months back we got a new Sony CX50-32 TV (google it if you're on Snap), it's got a cool YouTube client in it.  I did try it out... until it pinged my usage 8 gigs in 2 hours as Mr 4 (3 at the time) chewed though a good Disney session of Mikey Mouse Club House.

Now I do have to confess, the WTV files that WMC makes don't play on the Sony and it's a real dog to convert them, it just doesn't pan out well...  so being able to bring up a TV3 client on my Sony would be kinda cool...  but does my Sony have such a thing OOTB?!  No idea, haven't seen a little TV3 logo on there so far....  so the 10m HDMI cable that runs from my computer to the Sony, coupled with the 10m USB extension cable for the remote is sorting that problem for now.

But where's Phil?  He's on YouTube, that's where Phil is, along with a stack of the music artists I like.  iTunes... cool... but really, that's for the teenagers music.  Mine's all there on YouTube now and it's legit.

Why not move?

Well that really is getting to be a very hard question to answer.  I keep hopping like mad that the premium supplier I was with will lift the game, and the excited post on FaceBook on Friday did have my heart racing for some more value... but clearly it didn't hit my router (though I will confess listening to Kiss on The Breeze, while watching the router traffic meter tick by at 180kbits/s is kinda geek value rather than just using the radio built into my 2Degress mobile).

What did impress me is that we could still hold a number of VoIP calls at the same time on the HFC without missing a beat (something I'd love to know if Snap customers can do and if Telstra DSL customers can do).

But I also have to look at just how much we use Google to do research every day...  How much time and petrol we waste getting Mickey from the local library on those quaint DVD things and how much I love Phil.