Your experiences with Orcon's unbundled ADSL2+ network?

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Your experiences with Orcon's unbundled ADSL2+ network?

corksta

2397 posts

Uber Geek

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#21535 30-Apr-2008 01:04

Currently I'm with Supra on their 20GB Naked DSL plan, but I'm experiencing issues identical to the Xnet international issue that has generated such an enormous thread - national speeds consistently fast, international speeds only decent very late at night or first thing in the morning, rest of the time web browsing/downloads not much better than dialup.

The guys at Supra have been great and I've been very impressed with their customer service. I've brought this issue to their attention and they got me to complete the standard line speed tests, which confirm the above, but not sure how much hope I can have that the issue will actually be fixed - can it even be fixed? I emailed them my results yesterday so will wait and see what happens.

If it can't be fixed I can't carry on like this as it's beyond frustrating and will have to change. It looks like Orcon have finished unbundling the Takapuna exchange (that's where we live), even though their web site hasn't been updated yet, so just wondering what kind of speeds people are experiencing on Orcon's unbundled exchanges, and probably most importantly, are their international speeds good and consistent?!

On a side note, the stats on my router's page that show signal noise, attenuation, etc, are they fixed based on the exchange you're connected to, or do they vary depending on who your ISP is regardless of the exchange you're on?

Thanks for your comments!

0o0

46 posts

Geek

#127636 1-May-2008 16:19

Your routers stats; line attenuation, noise etc are all dependent on the exchange you're connected to and the quality of the copper line to your house. Although you will get slight varitations with different router/modem setups. If your attenuation is under 35-40dB, ie. you live roughly less than 2-2.5km from the exchange, you'll probably notice quite a large difference with adsl2+.

As for international speeds, i'm about 3km away from the ellerslie exchange and syncing at ~4.8-5Mbps with a line att of 45-47dB. This relates to speed test results of 4.3mbps to auckland, around ~4mbps to aussie, 3-4mbps to usa and europe at around 3mbps with significantly higher ping times.

Although this is nowhere near the 24mbps, with a attenuation of 45db i wasnt expecting it either, orcon adsl2+ is however a nice improvement over 2.5-3mbps sync speeds with ihug less than a month ago.

speed tests taken around 3-4pm:

mgbridges

118 posts

Master Geek

#128904 6-May-2008 19:44

I was cut over today. The process hasn't been all that smooth - I needed Duncan's help to get the order moving and the confirmation email went astray. Anyway, the scheduled cutover date was today and the phone line went down for about 2-3 hours but now seems to be working fine.

However, I didn't get any details of the connection parameters for the broadband service. Strangely my router still seems to be able to make a connection using the old (Xnet) parameters but the connection is patchy - I can access some sites but not others. Annoyingly, one of the sites I cannot access is Orcon's, so I can't look at the FAQs or find the support telephone number. My router is also generating a lot of DoS errors although these seem to have eased up since I rebooted the router.

So at the moment I have a working phone line and a half-working internet connection. My router claims to be connected at 6000 download and 1000 upload, but I'm not getting anywhere near that throughput in reality. However, I'm sure that'll sort itself out when I get the correct broadband connection parameters to update my router with.

Now, if only I could find that support phone number...........

Martin

mgbridges

118 posts

Master Geek

#128908 6-May-2008 19:59

Replying to myself because I feel like a dunce - maybe I should have tried orcon.net.nz instead of orcon.co.nz?!

Successfully got through to the FAQs and set the parameters as per that. Connection seems a little more stable now. I'd still have appreciated an email letting me know these settings rather than having to dig them out myself, but it seems to be working.

Cheers,

Martin

LennonNZ

2459 posts

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#129098 7-May-2008 12:27

mgbridges: Replying to myself because I feel like a dunce - maybe I should have tried orcon.net.nz instead of orcon.co.nz?!

Successfully got through to the FAQs and set the parameters as per that. Connection seems a little more stable now. I'd still have appreciated an email letting me know these settings rather than having to dig them out myself, but it seems to be working.

Cheers,

Martin

To make things easy for customers we use port based auth (a little like the Xtra Go Large Accounts. As you are connected to our own equipment that we look after we know who the customer is so the customer on Port X means they are customer Y. So the login/password really doesn't make any difference.

This makes for example as you said moving from another ISP -> Orcon LLU easier on the customer (as they don't usually have to do anything on their router).
We can also ship out routers with default settings on them and all the customer really had to do is "plug it in" into the wall and computer and it should work.

If you want to change the details use username@orcon.net.nz with your password.

Thanks
Craig Whitmore
Senior Systems Administrator
Orcon Internet Ltd

mgbridges

118 posts

Master Geek

#129247 7-May-2008 21:49

Just ran a couple of Speedtests:
Speedtest - Auckland

Not earth-shattering, but significantly better than I was getting with Xnet.

YouTube videos stream fine. However, downloading updates from the Ubuntu distribution site is very very slow, and occasionally times out. So something is still not quite right.

Overall, pretty positive.

Martin