I don't think that the Orcon Support staff on the ground has any idea of what is going on higher up the chain. I am waiting for a physical move to get away from there service Orcon is /has actually become unusable for me in the evenings. It was at about 5 kbs for 40 mins tonight (I site i host with them as lighten quick while everything else made a snail look fast.)
After MANY months of them telling me it’s my equipment. I sent another complaint after having a 150 kb connection last night and I get this back today.
"We are currently aware of this issue, and steps are being taken to fix this. A new link to the USA will be commissioned and in action on Tuesday night (9/11), and Pacnet, Orcons' International upstream provider will be preforming maintenance on the Orcon international links on the 14th.
Umm why lie to me for months on end could be the question. But I don't believe that the upper management even share this with the support making them look like incompetent plebs
Daylo: Recession and bandwidth figures aside, they're still terrible in comparison to others.
Dunno bout that, try slingshot!
It seems that its not *ALL* isps having major congestion issues, its the mid-tier ISPs. Telecom and TCL dont seem to be having the dramatic increases in peak congestion like Orcon, Slingshot, WxC have had in the past year or so. Line speeds increasing while prices stay constant is a big, not widely recognized issue, but it seems that the 2-3 biggest ISPs arent struggling with this as much as the medium size ones
Ive only got experience on snap, telecom and slingshot so am basing this on what I have read on GZ.
I believe its due to the kind of people the different ISPs attract. ISPs such as Orcon who have a young public image attract young users who tend to use the internet more than those older users who prefer to get their broadband bill with their landline bill.
All it takes for a wholesale ISP to suffer from backhaul congestion (which no amount of $$ can fix) is to have an average user data usage of 10GB per month, which is rather small if you ask me. Its fairly easy to tell if this is a problem for any ISPs, just do a national speedtest and see if its much slower at certain times of the day.
Furthermore ISPs with a high number of residential users will always have large peak time demand in the evenings and are more susceptible to shortages of international bandwidth at that time for a number of hours. The only way to get around that is to rely on caching and incentives for users to do their downloading during the ISPs quiet times, generally after 2am.
I guess for Orcon they really need to make sure they get as many users onto their LLU network, and off the wholesale network to sidestep any backhaul congestion issues. I suepect this will be accelerated given the commerce commission has just ruled in their favour around the placement of equipment in road side cabinets.
ISP in crisis? I don't really think so. ISP with issues that all ISPs have or are facing, yes.
Yup, International connectivity issue has now been resolved and there is also more international bandwidth being commissioned on Friday so this will hopefully resolve allot of issues.
magu: Interesting to see no one complaining about Snap. I'm considering the switch.
If you want to change to Snap, don't hope for a static IP, even if you ask for one.
They have one assigned on their end for a friend of mine, but his actual IP changes every couple of days.
I've had a static IP with Snap for the last 2 years, it's never changed. Must be an issue thats only with your friends account. A few friends of mine also with Snap have never had any issues with their static IP's
khull: The whole idea of consumer sovereignty means that people as consumers get to choose where and how they spend their money on.
Sadly that is not the case for everyone in NZ. Due to the appalling way in which Telecom/Chorus manage broadband in NZ you can be held to ransom without any internet access if, when moving ISP's, they "discover" that there are no ports available for you. This is particularly problematic in new suburbs where Telecom and Chorus seem to be quite slack in putting enough capability in for houses that don't yet exist (but will six months down the track)
I have had personal experience of this and know other people who have as well.
You're told you can be waiting anywhere from two weeks to two years with no sympathy and no concern or sense of urgency to sort the problem out. Trying to find out more info like where you are on the list and when they actually expect to increase capacity is met with no answers.
So if you're stuck with a muppet ISP like Orcon in a location that is potentially at capacity for ports then really you're unable to move as you risk getting out of the frying pan and into the fire.
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khull: The whole idea of consumer sovereignty means that people as consumers get to choose where and how they spend their money on.
Sadly that is not the case for everyone in NZ. Due to the appalling way in which Telecom/Chorus manage broadband in NZ you can be held to ransom without any internet access if, when moving ISP's, they "discover" that there are no ports available for you. This is particularly problematic in new suburbs where Telecom and Chorus seem to be quite slack in putting enough capability in for houses that don't yet exist (but will six months down the track)
I have had personal experience of this and know other people who have as well.
You're told you can be waiting anywhere from two weeks to two years with no sympathy and no concern or sense of urgency to sort the problem out. Trying to find out more info like where you are on the list and when they actually expect to increase capacity is met with no answers.
So if you're stuck with a muppet ISP like Orcon in a location that is potentially at capacity for ports then really you're unable to move as you risk getting out of the frying pan and into the fire.
A churn from one ISP providing ADSL over Telelcom wholesale to another is normally seemless and should not result in what you describe.
You didn't disconnect with the old ISP before signing up with the new ISP did you?
The simple fact I decided to leave Telecom was to support a NZ based ISP with a call centre in Auckland, unsure why they do not work longer hours or atleast have a few guys at Tier 1 going till midnight, I am sure they could fill those with someone coming in like 8pm to 12pm.
Xnet seemed to be going in the same steps/signs as Orcon, from what I experienced with speeds etc etc. However I did get the port changed and I have not had a single disconnect now, since I have had like 100 of them in the past and constant bad speeds; The Chorus tech told them "Nothing wrong when he checked the exchange" on the first place. The irony huh.
Hopefully they pull through.
One thing they should do is cater for gaming, set profiles for servers located in different locations around the World, EG WOW = West Coast USA / Starcraft SEA = Singapore (I think), FFXIV Online = Tokyo etc etc - it would be a milestone to have these added onto a plan and also would legit make them show they are taking a step forward to showing interest to the community at large, instead of larger generic plans. I do know they did a few WoW servers, but I am fairly sure with some contact to gaming companies, which in turn would boost some amount of sales to play games if your in per say Whangarei on ADSL1, but get a good line to the servers and not on 300-500MS Ping - I know this from previous experience of living in Rural NZ in the past, but far more Rural then Whangarei.
Anyhow hopefully the best for them, just a bit slow with getting results sorted and resolutions really.
"We are currently aware of this issue, and steps are being taken to fix this. A new link to the USA will be commissioned and in action on Tuesday night (9/11), and Pacnet, Orcons' International upstream provider will be preforming maintenance on the Orcon international links on the 14th.
PROBLEM NOT SOLVED IN FACT THEY ARE EVEN SLOWER !!
I VOTE ORCON FOR THE WORST ISP IN NZ AWARD
I would put my speed test up, if the page took under 3 minutes to load. LOL alas is is past being funny.
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