Maxnet unlimited plan

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Maxnet unlimited plan - user review

w2krules

428 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

Topic # 99831 28-Mar-2012 08:04

Last night we started using the Maxnet unlimited plan. I thought that it might be useful to other Geekzoners to hear of our experiences with this. During the day, the Internet is mainly used for my home business with my wife and "adult" children using it in the evenings.

Our previous account was the 60 GB Telecom business plan, but we have been exceeding the cap regularly this year. The performance has been great, although lately streaming video has not worked so well in the evenings.

I've run a few speedtests to servers in NZ and LA and the performance is pretty similar to Telecom. But Speedtest seems to think that we're in the middle of Cook Strait!

I was a geek before the word was invented!

1 | 2

1200 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3

Trusted

Reply # 601074 28-Mar-2012 08:23

Maxnet have been around for a very long time, we also moved a school over to Maxnet unlimited ADSL, using a load balancer we setup 4 ADSL lines and are using it for around 300 machines.

Maxnet works like a champ, great speeds and service, and for $7 extra a line you can have customisable web filtering.

I like how they publish their network data. Very open company.

Tyler - Parnell Geek - iPhone 3G - Lenovo X301 - Kaseya - Great Western Steak House, these are some of my favourite things.

w2krules

428 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

Reply # 601100 28-Mar-2012 09:30

Well, the time is now 9:20, which is about peak time for business traffic. Just ran Speedtest again while having a coffee - NZ performance is the same, but the LA download speed has dropped by about 33%.

The Internet doesn't feel quite as responsive, probably because the ping to Auckland servers is now 40 ms whereas it was 20 ms with Telecom. Not sure why this is but I will ask Maxnet. Otherwise all good so far.

I was a geek before the word was invented!

jake18

51 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 601311 28-Mar-2012 14:28

switched over a week ago and been very pleased with the maxnet unlimited plan

streaming netflix/hulu with no issues at all
downloading/gaming has been fine - noticed during the day downloads/torrents may be slower - during nights its fine - can max out my line
only issues i found was vent was lagging some nights - provided some feedback and issue has been sorted
support was great at maxnet - no more long waits on the line, and they actually had a clue

nakedmolerat

4487 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 855

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

Reply # 601558 28-Mar-2012 20:52

anyone of you use vpn? I wonder if maxnet will slow it down

jake18

51 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 601563 28-Mar-2012 21:12

i use vpn for work to customers sites - no issues found
use the unblock-us.com service for the american content streaming

w2krules

428 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

Reply # 601595 28-Mar-2012 22:04

Torrents are slower but I'm not going to complain about 300 kBps during the day. Browsing is definitely a little slower than Telecom on my office PC, but the difference is not really noticeable on an iPad 2.

I was a geek before the word was invented!

insane

2295 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 376

Trusted

Subscriber

Reply # 601631 28-Mar-2012 23:05

w2krules: Torrents are slower but I'm not going to complain about 300 kBps during the day. Browsing is definitely a little slower than Telecom on my office PC, but the difference is not really noticeable on an iPad 2.

Good to hear it's working as was intended, was a a little nervous when the initial discussions of launching an unlimited plans were had, but after I put my own connection into the same bandwidth pool and tested I didn't see much difference at all.

Given your latency has jumped 20ms it sounds like you may have had interleaving turned off on telecom but on with Maxnet. Just log a support call and someone can flick it back and your latency should drop back and therefore web pages should feel a little bit more snappy.

Also have to remember you're comparing an unlimited plan vs a capped plan, Maxnet do offer capped plans too which are given higher priority and would therefore be even quicker ;)

Will be interesting to see how much per month people actually use, even when I try I struggle to do > 100GB per month.

exportgoldman

1200 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 3

Trusted

Reply # 601661 29-Mar-2012 06:05

insane:
Will be interesting to see how much per month people actually use, even when I try I struggle to do > 100GB per month.

I suspect once you look past the early flat rate adopters, most people won't do much on the unlimited plans, we have it at home as our flat has 5 people but only do around 100GB, the school I mentioned above has 4 lines and they (I suspect) will settle down to around 80GB per line but have a fixed budget so it's easier for them. And I suspect good for Maxnet as school time == peek time.

Sometimes I'd love to have read access into a ISP's billing systems to see stuff like this

Tyler - Parnell Geek - iPhone 3G - Lenovo X301 - Kaseya - Great Western Steak House, these are some of my favourite things.

w2krules

428 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

Reply # 601680 29-Mar-2012 08:10

The Internet doesn't feel quite as responsive, probably because the ping to Auckland servers is now 40 ms whereas it was 20 ms with Telecom. Not sure why this is but I will ask Maxnet. Otherwise all good so far.

Ping times vary with time of day. They were down to 26ms late last night but are back to 35ms this morning. So I doubt that this is an interleaving issue, more likely to do with something happening at Maxnet.

I enjoyed the luxury of watching Horizon in HD on iPlayer last night. Now that will chew through the data!

I was a geek before the word was invented!

insane

2295 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 376

Trusted

Subscriber

Reply # 601782 29-Mar-2012 10:58

w2krules:
The Internet doesn't feel quite as responsive, probably because the ping to Auckland servers is now 40 ms whereas it was 20 ms with Telecom. Not sure why this is but I will ask Maxnet. Otherwise all good so far.

Ping times vary with time of day. They were down to 26ms late last night but are back to 35ms this morning. So I doubt that this is an interleaving issue, more likely to do with something happening at Maxnet.

I enjoyed the luxury of watching Horizon in HD on iPlayer last night. Now that will chew through the data!

If you're got fluctuating latency to us then that'll be congestion at your exchange or somewhere within the Chorus wholesale network. Everyone would have the same latency fluctuations otherwise :)

Won't be long until everyone is moved to EUBA, then that shouldn't be a problem at all as the new Chorus network has much greater capacity.

w2krules

428 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

Reply # 603541 2-Apr-2012 06:29

insane:
If you're got fluctuating latency to us then that'll be congestion at your exchange or somewhere within the Chorus wholesale network. Everyone would have the same latency fluctuations otherwise :)

Won't be long until everyone is moved to EUBA, then that shouldn't be a problem at all as the new Chorus network has much greater capacity.

I'll ask Maxnet about the latency this week. I don't recall seeing this when I was with Telecom.

EUBA? Please explain what this is and how it will help - a quick search wasn't very helpful.

I was a geek before the word was invented!

insane

2295 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 376

Trusted

Subscriber

Reply # 603678 2-Apr-2012 11:20

w2krules:
insane:
If you're got fluctuating latency to us then that'll be congestion at your exchange or somewhere within the Chorus wholesale network. Everyone would have the same latency fluctuations otherwise :)

Won't be long until everyone is moved to EUBA, then that shouldn't be a problem at all as the new Chorus network has much greater capacity.

I'll ask Maxnet about the latency this week. I don't recall seeing this when I was with Telecom.

EUBA? Please explain what this is and how it will help - a quick search wasn't very helpful.

EUBA is just a progression of the underlying chorus wholesale product used to deliver DSL. it runs over their 'new' network which doesn't have the same congestion issues which are found in some locations currently.

The change from BUBA to EUBA is transparent, however if you are being affected by exchange level congestion then you may notice a difference in improved consistency of service.

w2krules

428 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

Reply # 604108 2-Apr-2012 19:58

Well, nearly a week on Maxnet and some subjective comments. I still need to ask them why Speedtest thinks we are in the middle of Cook Strait!

Some sites are quicker than Telecom (Vodafone - funny that) and others are slower. In particular, Gmail is noticeably slower to load. But eBay is much, much faster for some reason.
Performance during the day seems slower, but Maxnet is better in the evenings. I'd guess that most of their traffic is business related, which is why they are offering an unlimited plan.
It is great not having to worry about how much data we've downloaded. We have 4 PCs and 6 iOS devices in the house, so we can certainly chew through the data on a busy day.

So a thumbs up so far.

I was a geek before the word was invented!

w2krules

428 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

Reply # 608481 12-Apr-2012 21:07

Not much more to report. Maxnet is definitely slower than Telecom Business was at times, but that's more a comment on how good Telecom was. No complaints from the family - they're still able to stream video and download stuff.

It looks like we're on track for about 120 GB usage in the first month, which is less than I expected. It is really great not to have to monitor our internet data.

I was a geek before the word was invented!

sbiddle

27480 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 6945

Moderator

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

Reply # 608485 12-Apr-2012 21:16

One of the biggest advantages of EUBA is also also has the ability to do PPPoE over ADSL2+ with a compatible modem if your ISP supports this. PPPoA is still supported as the ISAM does transparent PPPoA -> PPPoE conversion. This is a huge bonus for anybody who doesn't want to deal with pesky bridge mode configuration or a Draytek DV120 for PPPoA -> PPPoE conversion.

1 | 2