Considering a switch to Orcon - anyone with buyer's remorse?

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Considering a switch to Orcon - anyone with buyer's remorse?

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#2511550 24-Jun-2020 16:23

tanivula:

Mehrts:

This was still using the PPPoE with Slingshot account credentials though.

Seems it doesn't care - I had a strange issue with my Fritzbox where it wouldn't let me do IPoE without a username/password (this has since been resolved). I had to have something in there otherwise it wouldn't connect. I'm guessing thats why yours did too with the slingshot credentials.

@Lizard1977 - did you take the plunge and swap over?

Yep, I switched over to Orcon, but my connection date is not for a few weeks yet (30 days notice required for Spark).

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Mehrts

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#2511636 24-Jun-2020 17:58

elpenguino:

Don't forget to change over all your accounts you've signed up to over the years using that ISP provided email address.

I never use ISP email services. It's just the address used to sign into the account.

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Gordy7

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#2511655 24-Jun-2020 18:51

I am going the other way.... Orcon to Slingshot.

Orcon has been excellent....

Just hoping to take advantage of the GZ price switch when my Orcon contract runs out.

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

networkn

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#2511702 24-Jun-2020 20:04

I had a terrible experience (and I mean, seriously terrible) back when ADSL was a thing. 9 Months ago they had a GZ specific special and despite reservations, decided it was too good to turn down when I was able to make the transition to Fibre.

I have switched internet providers more times than many and I also do it for a living for other people, and I can honestly tell you, if I had have a better experience with a provider EVER, I can't recall it. I was *really* impressed with them. Sign up was quick, customer service was beyond excellent and despite my street only getting fibre "signed off" the week of the RWC, I was installed and operational with as advertised speeds with a couple of days to spare.

We are a reseller for Voyager, who I also very highly rate and wouldn't hestitate to recommend, but I can happily recommend Orcon no issues.

Lizard1977

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#2512288 25-Jun-2020 15:45

Just thinking ahead to my switchover date - I currently have an Edgerouter (Lite? X? I can't recall exactly, but it's been fine for me), and I'm assuming that the Edgerouter is better than the Orcon-supplied router. What configuration changes do I need to make to the Edgerouter when the switchover happens?

Mehrts

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#2512340 25-Jun-2020 17:12

Just change the WAN settings to DHCP with VLAN 10. I didn't have to change MTU settings by the way.

Refer to this for specific details.

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backfiah

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#2512392 25-Jun-2020 17:36

They were arses when we were with them previously --- screwed us around with leaving them after our contract expired, and even tried to set the debt collectors on us. Difficult to get somebody who can properly address the issue when it's more complex.

Lizard1977

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#2523366 15-Jul-2020 10:24

For anyone interested, my switchover date was Monday 13 July (just gone). I wondered when it would happen, how it would go, and what troubleshooting I would have to do, and made a mental note the night before to come home at lunch on Monday to check things out.

Then I woke up at 6am on Monday when my phone buzzed, with an email saying that the switchover had happened. A quick check on my phone confirmed that everything switched over seamlessly, and I didn't have to lift a finger or change a single setting. Pretty happy with that.

Of course, I did the inevitable speedtest, to see how close I was getting to the promised 900/500 speed of the Gigantic Fibre plan. I didn't have much time to test, but I found the d/l speeds on a wired (gigabit) connection to be about half what was promised - anything from 400-500mbps. Upload speeds were closer, around 415mbps at its peak. Wireless speeds, directly next to the AP (Unifi AC-Lite) weren't that high, topping out at about 60-70mbps. I'm not too fussed about the speeds though. Download speeds aren't a major issue, but much happier about the upload speeds for backing up my server to Backblaze.

When I get the time in the next couple of weeks I'll review my whole networking setup to see if the download speed can be improved. I'm fully aware that speedtests aren't a real world representation of performance, but I suspect that I may have some gear in my network which may be a bottleneck, and now I have a decent plan it would be good to have the gear to make use of it. One thing I will be looking at is my access point. I think the Unifi is a solid piece of kit, but the wireless speeds were a little underwhelming. My first check will be the connection back to the switch, but I'm also contemplating a mesh network to improve wireless speeds throughout the house. For instance, my PC in my bedroom is the furthest away from the AP, and it clocked max speeds of only about 5mbps. There are a bunch of variables I need to eliminate though - the wifi card in the PC for instance - and I may be able to run a cable through the roof to provide a wired connection for stability. But a good quality mesh network that can maximise the top speeds of the Gigantic Fibre plan would be nice and neat.

Mush1364

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#2523876 16-Jul-2020 06:40

I find that i get mixed results when benchmarking my connection, Orcon servers do not give me the best numbers but some of the other ISP servers do. I am enjoying the AX wifi std as i'm getting 2.4gig connection to the router at 12m, so have abandoned the 1gig lan cable.

Note: I was getting between 1.2 - 2.1 connect to router but noticed neighbour was on the same channel as me, switching channel made the difference.

Lizard1977

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#2525962 20-Jul-2020 11:25

I spent an hour or so behind the TV tidying up (a little) the cabling for my network, and running a few tests.

Firstly, I switched over from the Edgerouter ER-X I have been using for a couple of years, to the supplied Orcon router. I never quite got the hang of the Edgerouter - I found the interface too complex and confusing for me with my limited time to learn the "advanced" interface. For some reason after the switchover it reset my settings for DNS4ME, and I couldn't work out/remember how to revert to the original settings. So I plugged in the Orcon router, and in 5 mins I had it up and running with everything working perfectly.

I ran some speedtests and was still getting mixed results depending on the server but I found that Stuff Fibre's server in Auckland returned a max result - 950mbps down and 500mpbs up. That was over a wired connection. I got about 500mbps down and 300mpbs on my iPhone 11 Pro right next to the Unifi AC-Lite. Not the same as wired (but I never expected that), but still pretty good.

At the other end of the house (about 80m away through several thick walls) the same device only managed about 30mbps. So I think I would get some benefit adding a second AC-Lite in a "mesh" setup.

aphocus

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#2528739 25-Jul-2020 18:52

I'm recently changed to a 1gbit plan with Orcon from Spark, but it's the worst performance I've had in like 10 years (voda, 2degrees and spark mostly), I consistently get 200kB/s on very very mainstream CDNs and I have trouble doing ADSL2 speeds on most downloads, even big things like downloading Windows from Microsoft's website I only get 1-2MB/s, the only time I've seen REAL WORLD performance is with Epic Game Store downloading at 50MB/s, BitTorrent 25MB/s, most of the time I barely break 10MB/s on Steam or a website.

At this stage I think their 1gbit plan is a scam. I've not seen full speed in a real scenario, and the majority of the time it's slower than standard fibre plan (10MB/s i.e 100mbps). I can literally save $5 and go to a different ISP doing full speed 100mbps.

I rang support about 2 months ago, and after the initial consultation, the person failed to catch up via email and after repeated attempts to get a response via email, I made a new email and they some how "forgot" my personal email associated with the flat account.

I've also noticed terrible load times form a subjective view of web pages, probably due to some of the assets being stored on amazon S3, and that being one of the CDNs with abysmal performance.

It takes 12 seconds to load an uncached (12MB~) front page of YouTube for example.

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=81&topicid=268176

WoodyPC

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#2531390 30-Jul-2020 13:58

Mehrts:

1. Give the 30 days notice to your current ISP, they should give you a "disconnection" date. Make sure you get this in writing.
2. Let your new ISP know which date they can make their connection. This may be a day or two before the disconnection of your current ISP. Also get this in writing.
3. Once your new connection is up and running, you should be notified of this by email/text. This is when you can plug in the supplied router, or change the appropriate settings if using your own gear. You should also be able to see your usage/account details with your new ISP.
4. Double check with your original provider that your account actually has been closed.

This, be vary wary of Vocus groups ISPs when cancelling. They want that extra 30 days fee extremely bad. I thought I was getting just one more month but apparently not.

Went form Slingshot to Stuff so getting charged by the same company for twice for 1 connection. Get everything in writing. Other IPS I have never had this a problem with.

Stuff is defiantly faster though.

Gordy7

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#2531408 30-Jul-2020 14:35

WoodyPC:
Mehrts:

1. Give the 30 days notice to your current ISP, they should give you a "disconnection" date. Make sure you get this in writing.
2. Let your new ISP know which date they can make their connection. This may be a day or two before the disconnection of your current ISP. Also get this in writing.
3. Once your new connection is up and running, you should be notified of this by email/text. This is when you can plug in the supplied router, or change the appropriate settings if using your own gear. You should also be able to see your usage/account details with your new ISP.
4. Double check with your original provider that your account actually has been closed.

This, be vary wary of Vocus groups ISPs when cancelling. They want that extra 30 days fee extremely bad. I thought I was getting just one more month but apparently not.

Went form Slingshot to Stuff so getting charged by the same company for twice for 1 connection. Get everything in writing. Other IPS I have never had this a problem with.

Stuff is defiantly faster though.

It is not clear what you have done on changing ISPs.
If you follow Mehrts guide you should only be paying extra for a few days data overlap.
I have always found Orcon speed to be excellent.

Gordy

My first ever AM radio network connection was with a 1MHz AM crystal(OA91) radio receiver.

WoodyPC

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#2531422 30-Jul-2020 14:55

Gordy7:
WoodyPC:

This, be vary wary of Vocus groups ISPs when cancelling. They want that extra 30 days fee extremely bad. I thought I was getting just one more month but apparently not.

Went form Slingshot to Stuff so getting charged by the same company for twice for 1 connection. Get everything in writing. Other IPS I have never had this a problem with.

Stuff is defiantly faster though.

It is not clear what you have done on changing ISPs.
If you follow Mehrts guide you should only be paying extra for a few days data overlap.
I have always found Orcon speed to be excellent.

I have switched to Stuff Fiber, from Slingshot. Slingshot asked if I wanted to cancel that month(June), which I thought meant the end of June, which would have left me with no connection, and I wanted 1 more month till the end of July.

The switch went great on the day, then got a bill for August from slingshot. Apparently what I said on the phone was not that. They didn't even cancel on their end after the switch over.

I just thought it was unusual as I have not had this problem from any other company.

Stuff Fiber is defiantly giving me better speeds, both connections were with a Fritzbox.

tripper1000

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#2531426 30-Jul-2020 14:58

When i switched from a lesser Orcon Fibre plan to gigabit my speeds also ran at 1/2 of the advertised rate. (double checked every thing) didn't complain right away because it was the middle of lock down and I didn't want to risk total loss of internet. After about 3 or 4 weeks it came right. Possibly something related to the billing cycle(?).

I realise you've already switched, but for anyone else reading, I was with Orcon for years, switched away, regretted it and came crawling back.

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