Orcon genius seems a bit thick to me.

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Orcon genius seems a bit thick to me.

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cisconz

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#497210 23-Jul-2011 21:28

old3eyes: SIP is a flavor of VOIP..

Just what I was thinking

Hmmmm

Gregvp

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#497657 25-Jul-2011 15:32

Just signed up for this. Already an Orcon customer,* but hey, there's no such thing as customer loyalty these days, right? Unless the value is there.

Residential choices:-

Telecom: no. Just no. (One of the most economically destructive companies in the country, according to a study.)

Slingshot: Also no.

TelstraClear: won't go back to them on principle, since their last CEO's benighted "640kbps oughtta be enough for anybody" comment. (Actually he said something about not seeing the point of fibre to the home. Don't want to work with non-visonaries in this field.)

Vodafone: Another evil MNC. (Multinational corporation.) If there's nothing else, then maybe.

XNet: Friends have this (I set it up for them, bought the Linksys box, etc.) Costs about the same as a landline plus 30GB of data, after you've bought the box. Their website was the most secretive and cryptic I've come across, it's far better to use google than to try to get past their home page. WX is clearly targeting the business market. Too hard, and being a 'nuisance' customer ain't my cup of lemon and ginger.

Anyone else: invisible.

For me, this Orcon thingy looks like a good deal. And Kordia, Orcon's owner, is in Sam Morgan's group that's trying to bring us another pipe across the sea. The anti-Telstra. That gets my money.

To all ISPs: I give you this valuable marketing information free of charge ... this time.

* Customer, I said. Not staff member, and not astroturfing (but Orcon, if you're listening, I'm open to offers ;-) ).

Edit: Remove comment about telecom.

Lurch

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#497678 25-Jul-2011 16:30

gingerman93:The price difference was a huge appeal to me. So I signed up for the 30Gb Genius home plan, and added unlimited national calling. Price is $85, which is $15 cheaper than the previous fixed line plan I was on which only gave me 20Gb of data.

Hmm, still more expensive than the naked Vodafone + VOIP option.

VOIP (it's actually SIP, not VOIP) automatically within 5 minutes of connecting the router.

SIP = VOIP ;-)

But the biggest thing I've noticed since connecting to Genius is the international throughput. Genius goes through different bandwidth providers to the other Orcon plans, and it performs phenomenally.

That doesn't sound right as it is just a standard residential connection so would be the same as other residential Orcon customers.

Anyway it's a good product for your average home user, plug in the box and you're done. Would be very suitable for our next door nieghbour who is currently getting ripped off by another ISP.

Although after sorting out her PC I'm tempted to set her up with the same deal I'm currently on. (Either that or let her tap into my wireless connection and sign her up for a VOIP line ;-) shhhhh).

xpd

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#497680 25-Jul-2011 16:35

Lurch:
But the biggest thing I've noticed since connecting to Genius is the international throughput. Genius goes through different bandwidth providers to the other Orcon plans, and it performs phenomenally.

That doesn't sound right as it is just a standard residential connection so would be the same as other residential Orcon customers.

That dosent sound right..... (sounddude - you about and can clarify this ?)

I have noticed with the BoB routers that they get a better connection than some other routers out there, maybe thats what gingman93 is seeing...... our work ADSL went from 17mbps to 24mbps just by plugging in the BoB.

My Genius account is active start of August, Ill do some playing around then but find it hard to believe theyd have a different backbone for Genius users.

XPD / Gavin

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#497692 25-Jul-2011 17:10

xpd:
Lurch:
But the biggest thing I've noticed since connecting to Genius is the international throughput. Genius goes through different bandwidth providers to the other Orcon plans, and it performs phenomenally.

That doesn't sound right as it is just a standard residential connection so would be the same as other residential Orcon customers.

That dosent sound right..... (sounddude - you about and can clarify this ?)

Correct, its not right :-) All res customers use the same international links and have the same priority in the network.

Strangepom

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#499119 28-Jul-2011 20:33

Hmm so my new modem arrived by courier today.

Opened the box and had a play.

Here is my initial reaction

The interface looks like it is straight off an SMC modem.

+ $70 per month better than the $130 I paid last month for 30GB
+ Attached phone can be detached from the main device, I was worried that it was all one unit.
+ Analog phones can still be used from analog port on the side of the device.
+ Included phone is DECT not VOIP, means extra handsets can be registered easily

- I don't see any easy way of adding a VOIP phone (registering mac address etc)
- I would like to have seen packaged soft phone software included to allow me to use my landline from my PC remotely.

I'm thinking that lots of port forwarding ranges would need to be enabled for VOIP if I decide to use this as a secondary device. I have no idea what these ranges are (other than 5060).

If anyone has had success registering a SIP phone with this modem/router I would be keen to find out how.

Talking to the support staff I found out that this is ready for the 'fibre to the premisis' rollout due in the next 5 years. This promises to bring speeds of up to 100Mbps (reqiures media converter). Seems rather pitiful when you compare to S.Korea that is going 1Gbps to ethe general public by 2012.

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sbiddle

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#499132 28-Jul-2011 21:11

Genius isn't a SIP proxy - there is no way to "register" another SIP device to it.

A soft phone from a remote location is also something that's a lot harder than you probably think. You can only have a single SIP registration against a proxy at the same time. If you registered a soft phone remotely you would find inbound calls randomly switching between the softphone and Genius depending on what device had the most recent SIP registration. Getting around this would require multiple numbers and ring groups.

cisconz

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#499157 28-Jul-2011 22:36

sbiddle: Genius isn't a SIP proxy - there is no way to "register" another SIP device to it.

A soft phone from a remote location is also something that's a lot harder than you probably think. You can only have a single SIP registration against a proxy at the same time. If you registered a soft phone remotely you would find inbound calls randomly switching between the softphone and Genius depending on what device had the most recent SIP registration. Getting around this would require multiple numbers and ring groups.

Unless Orcon inherited the original italk server ;P

Hmmmm

Strangepom

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#499190 28-Jul-2011 23:53

sbiddle: Genius isn't a SIP proxy - there is no way to "register" another SIP device to it.

A soft phone from a remote location is also something that's a lot harder than you probably think.

That's disappointing, I was hoping to be able to add more (if limited) devices to it.

As for the soft phone, if the router had some form of basic pabx functionality then setting up a remote phone should be fairly simple. As this is just for home use I would rather not go out and get a PC just to use as a server that is on 24/7.

I have set up soft phones before but that was when I was installing iPECS systems, an LG voip pabx solution for small to large businesses.

maverick

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#499209 29-Jul-2011 06:16

cisconz:
sbiddle: Genius isn't a SIP proxy - there is no way to "register" another SIP device to it.

A soft phone from a remote location is also something that's a lot harder than you probably think. You can only have a single SIP registration against a proxy at the same time. If you registered a soft phone remotely you would find inbound calls randomly switching between the softphone and Genius depending on what device had the most recent SIP registration. Getting around this would require multiple numbers and ring groups.

Unless Orcon inherited the original italk server ;P

Probably they seemed to have invented everything else ...not their fault more the lack of credible reporters out there that actually understand technology and could properly report on press releases.

Yes I am a employee of WxC (My Profile) ... but I do have my own opinions as well

https://www.facebook.com/wxccommunications

xpd

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#499230 29-Jul-2011 08:32

Ive written up bit of a review if anyone wants a look. Im not a reviewer/journo so no nit picking :-p

http://www.xpd.co.nz/2011/07/28/review-orcon-genius/

XPD / Gavin

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#499231 29-Jul-2011 08:43

So I signed up online last week on day one. Called them yesterday for an update as I hadn't had anything since my first email, was told that the order was "rejected in error". So it's been dead in the water since last week. Hopefully they get it sorted next week now.

gzt

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#499258 29-Jul-2011 10:05

xpd: Ive written up bit of a review if anyone wants a look. Im not a reviewer/journo so no nit picking :-p http://www.xpd.co.nz/2011/07/28/review-orcon-genius/

Great review. How would you rate the ease of use and quality of the built in answerphone?

xpd

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#499270 29-Jul-2011 10:41

Dosent actually have a built in answerphone as was initially thought when comparing to the iiNet offering - it appears to use the standard Orcon voicemail system which is fine, does the job.

XPD / Gavin

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#499275 29-Jul-2011 10:45

Hanging out now, had the genius delivered last Saturday but am still waiting waiting

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