Alternatives to All You Can Eat?

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Alternatives to All You Can Eat?

Buttonmash

361 posts

Ultimate Geek

#82260 26-Apr-2011 11:58

We've been using Slingshot Naked ADSL for quite some time and I've usually been able to cram everything into the after hours period.

Recently though our on peak usage has increased to the point we're actually paying more than we would be on their All You Can Eat plan.

But since the All You Can Eat plan has been discontinued, I'm unsure what to do. I've only heard horrible things about Worldnet. Does anyone know what Slingshot are doing? Is it coming back or is it as dead Big Time?

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#462430 26-Apr-2011 12:46

Have you considered downloading less as an option?

A lto of people have genuine reasons for wanting heaps of data of course, but most of the people I know who use lots of data are downloading heaps of content (whether legally or illegally) that they never end up using (whether it be music, games, movies etc), and so it is just a waste of bandwidth for them.

Buttonmash

361 posts

Ultimate Geek

#462433 26-Apr-2011 12:54

I'm a heavy user of Steam, where individual games tend to be around the 10GiB mark. We also make use of Crashplan to back up all our personal data with hundreds of gigs stored off site and tens of gigs created every month.

Steam can't easily be scheduled (Windows scheduler to start it up really is the only option). And Crashplan is heavily throttled by Slingshot during the off peak hours. We often have to allow on peak backups to run just to keep on top of our data creation.

This on top of the giant system updates that comes with being mac users, and the large amounts of streaming video etc that goes along with being a typical internet user these days blows our cap every time.

We can't really reduce our usage easily unfortunately.

scottr

262 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#462622 26-Apr-2011 17:18

It's been temporarily removed from sale, it will be back but I'm not sure when.

wanghou168

453 posts

Ultimate Geek

#462633 26-Apr-2011 17:30

As far as I know Megatel is offering some plans with big caps
100$ for 100G or possibly more, but there are excess charges

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Ragnor

8223 posts

Uber Geek

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#462636 26-Apr-2011 17:33

NZNet are offering some high data plans, note: prices are ex GST and the "unlimited" plan is subject to fair usage clauses in their terms
http://nznet.net.nz/services/dsl_broadband.php

NZCrusader

646 posts

Ultimate Geek

#463153 27-Apr-2011 21:10

I can unofficially say ( as well as scott has also said ) that AYCE is put on hold.

It is supposedly on hold until more bandwidth is purchased / network bandwidth upgrades.

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Buttonmash

361 posts

Ultimate Geek

#463168 27-Apr-2011 22:50

NZnet are definitely a significant cost hike. Hmm. I may have to see how our usage is tracking before making a call, and cross my fingers that AYCE comes back sooner rather than later!

Should have made the move earlier :(

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Ragnor

8223 posts

Uber Geek

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#463324 28-Apr-2011 12:26

How do those old expressions go.... pay peanuts get monkeys / you get what you pay for.

Buttonmash

361 posts

Ultimate Geek

#463349 28-Apr-2011 13:21

you get what you pay for.

I disagree. In New Zealand we get shafted. Not that I'm blaming Slingshot, rather Southern Cross who sets the international data rates.

exportgoldman

1202 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#467281 9-May-2011 20:04

NZCrusader: I can unofficially say ( as well as scott has also said ) that AYCE is put on hold.

It is supposedly on hold until more bandwidth is purchased / network bandwidth upgrades.

Hmmmmmmmm. I worry this plan is going to go bye bye. I've been on this plan since it came out, and saw it disapeared during the last round of plan changes.

I remember the Slingshot team were nervous but ready for the onslaught of the unlimited plan with 4x the bandwidth allocation that Telecom gave Big Time, and the ability to scale the bandwidth up with each user joining the plan.

I've noticed that AYCE is getting slower and slower and worry about it as our flat has 5 people and it would be painful to manage a non-unlimited plan.

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Ragnor

8223 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#467587 10-May-2011 14:50

exportgoldman:

4x the bandwidth allocation that Telecom gave Big Time, and the ability to scale the bandwidth up with each user joining the plan.

Yeah right.

Slingshot clearly work on the complaint-o-meter system, once enough people complain they order more international bandwidth/transit if they have too and if they can afford it.

Big Time was too good, only had three problems with it in the year or so I was on it. Two periods of peak time latency which were fixed after heaps of people reported it and that one time they rate shaped all international which was reversed shortly after.

Telecom has several orders of magnitude more international transit than Slingshot. Lower contention and congestion on international than Slingshot for sure.

Telecom did make a lot of silly mistakes with both Go Large and Big Time, including:

- Pricing it too cheaply originally at $100/mo for phone and dsl
- Not having caching up and running before launching the plan (both Google caches and Transparent proxy came later near the end
- Naive exploitable traffic management, certain domain names were white listed by http referrer which is dead easy to spoof.

If Big Time was still around a ton of people would still be on it rather than AYCE imo.