Had the installers come in on Tuesday and took about 5/6 hours but a nice job. BUT...my voip isn't working. Been onto MR and they said it probably wasn't a wiring problem but a configuration issue. They will talk to Chorus. First ethernet test was 7/95/50 but a few minutes ago it was 9/95/19
I signed up with MyRepublic's 3-month UFB trial in late October 2014 after having the slowly-deteriorating-in-service-and-quality Vodafone cable. They said I would be connected within 7-21 days so I was pessimistically hoping to be it by Christmas. Though they couriered me a new Asus RT-N56 router fairly promptly, Christmas came and went without any sign of an ONT installation. This is hardly their fault as that part is Chorus' end of the deal and Chorus contract that job out to Downer here in Wellington. Besides this, they informed me, after someone had earlier been sent over to scope out the job, that they needed consent from Wellington Electricity to access the power pole outside my house and it was them dragging their heels that was causing the delay. Finally, at the end of January, the Downer guys called, made an appointment, then showed up to do the job. I had to go back to work and left them to it. They installed the ONT (which turned out to be a large box as big as a cigar box and with several flashing lights on it), about a foot off the ground below the shelf on which my TV and router sit. This meant that the entire thing was visibly distracting, flashing lights and all, to anyone looking in that direction, let alone watching TV. Not just distracting, but a box. On the wall. With flashing lights. I unscrewed this box off the wall where it had been screwed into the Gib lining (without them even bothering to locate a stud in the wall, so it just about fell out anyway). Alongside where they had screwed the ONT to the wall was a smaller box into which the actual fibre cable from the street ran before feeding it to the ONT. This little box, about the size of a cigarette box, they had glued to the wall. Farking cowboys. Despite my best efforts with a razor blade and some solvent to remove it, I still managed to tear the wallpaper getting it off. Still, it's not as bad as looking at the box(es) and flashing lights mounted on the wall, which now reside on the floor, hidden behind something nearby. These cowboys had my phone number. They could have asked me if I wanted the boxes mounted and if so, where.
Anyway, aside from that, I was pleased to get connected, even though it was three months later (and to be fair, the delay and the ONT mounting fiasco were not MyRepublic's fault, but Wellington Electricity's and Downer's, respectively). The interwebs connection was up and the Voip phone works fine too, after I got a (not supplied) cable for it. I have their Gamer 100/50 plan and the resultant interwebs service has been pretty good. I haven't tested worse than about 25/95/45 and I've never experienced an outage. Downloads and torrents are super fast and nothing ever lags or buffers, though I haven't tried any serious online gaming yet. The router is pretty good and is nice and slim. It now feels like this little part of NZ is suddenly up with the times and in the 21st century.
The 3-month trial ends at the end of the month and I decided a full contract was more expense than the the jump in speed justified, so I was hoping to bug out to Big Pipe for a cheaper plan with no fixed term but they haven't made it to Wellington yet. I might have to downgrade to their ADSL (or another ISP without fixed terms, which I loathe) until they do. Though I'm not keen on doing that, I'm not so keen on $109/m for 12 or $119/m no term. Seems pretty expensive, especially when others (e.g. Big Pipe) offer similar plans for $30-40/m less. If I had a family or more than the one flatmate with many more devices it would probably be worth it but I reckon I might have to wait until the offers get a bit more competitive. I am never, ever, ever going back to Vodafone. They can... well, use your imagination.
Forgive the long speil, but I hope this helps someone. Happy Easter.
Still got the voip issue. Got a TXT from MR on Saturday saying the UFF people had sorted my phone. Saw a steady green light instead of the pulsing light on the white box....but still not working. Rang MR (always good to get a rapid reply with a NZ accent...talked me through and phone jack was plugged into Tel2 instead of Tel1.....tried dialling out and yipee, it worked. Tried ringing home number from mob.....no go! Rang MR and they admitted that they had failed to follow up the email from previous ISP (Wireless Nation) and port my number over from them to MR....said will happen on Tuesday 3 different stuff-ups but hopefully all will be sorted tomorrow.
Wireless Nation couldn't beat MR's deal but I had great service from them.
My brief experience with MR which I posted on their facebook site and thought I should post here as well:
Switched from Snap to MyRepublic a couple of weeks ago. MR submitted order to UFF which got lost and delayed the switchover by 1 week (the usual communication breakdown!). Other than that, communication with MR was fantastic (very helpful and patient guys AND they would call me back and keep me updated with progress unlike Snap!! Average speed after switching has improved 10% on same plan compared to the previous provider. I am very impressed with MR and I highly recommend them. THANKS team (especially Caleb & Nathan).
I had an issue with a UK sharebroking site, last week. I emailed the company and they told me they'd had a problem but sorted it out. After another few days when I couldn't access it, I rang them and they assured me all was well.
Took my android tablet and laptop to son's and everything worked well. Came home and rang MR help desk...got through very quickly to Nathan?? He got me to ping the site, then another few pings then decided it was a DNS issue. Went into Asus router configuration and in the WAN tab, WAN DNS setting, changed from "connect to DNS server automatically" then typed in 8.8.8.8 in Server1, then 8.8.4.4 in Server 2. Everything working sweetly, now. Big thanks.- excellent service! But why did that site stop working?
fishb8: I had an issue with a UK sharebroking site, last week. I emailed the company and they told me they'd had a problem but sorted it out. After another few days when I couldn't access it, I rang them and they assured me all was well.
Took my android tablet and laptop to son's and everything worked well. Came home and rang MR help desk...got through very quickly to Nathan?? He got me to ping the site, then another few pings then decided it was a DNS issue. Went into Asus router configuration and in the WAN tab, WAN DNS setting, changed from "connect to DNS server automatically" then typed in 8.8.8.8 in Server1, then 8.8.4.4 in Server 2. Everything working sweetly, now. Big thanks.- excellent service! But why did that site stop working?
That hasn't fixed the problem - it's simply made the problem go away. It's also potentially introduced other problems with your connection. Ultimately it was their DNS that was (or even is still) broken, not your setup.
The fact you couldn't connect using their DNS suggests their DNS didn't have the correct IP addresses for the site(s) but switching to Google DNS "fixed" the problem because Google's DNS did have the correct IP addresses.
The problem with using Google DNS is your DNS lookups are now MUCH slower. Rather than your DNS server being a few ms away, it's now 40+ ms away in Sydney, or (possibly) depending on MR's network setup 140ms away in the USA.
Using Google DNS can also break CDN content, the most obvious of which is finding video content from CDNs being a lot slower to stream. While Google's DNS has improved a lot in this respect, it's not perfect.
No ISP user should really be using 8.8.8.8 / 4.4.4.4 as their DNS as a replacement for their ISP DNS servers unless they fully understand the implications, of which there are both pros and cons.
Have just been connected to MR fibre, everything went super smooth. Below are a few speed test results just in case anyone was interested (note, my location is New Plymouth, non-gamer plan). If you want to see a particular speed test to a certain server via MR, let me know :)
Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly
to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.
Retired Mod
Trusted
Biddle Corp
