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Thread ID: 30617	2003-02-25 19:00:00	OT - Poor Ickle Farmers.	nz_liam (845)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
123888	2003-02-25 19:00:00	I serrously question where they got the "$300 million a year" figure in this (www.stuff.co.nz) article. And from my own experience farmers don't want fast internet anyway, a. they don't want to fix their electric fences, b. they wont part with the cash for a satellite confection, c. they don't use it much anyway (usually just the odd e-mail), and d. the equipment they are using is SOOO slow that it is actually the problem NOT the phone lines, (I have seen horrendously slow speeds on some boxes, plonk in a new box and the speed increases three-fold). Yes it would be great to have broadband in rural schools, where it is a tremendous learning tool, but figures ($$) just don't stack up when putting it into rural areas, (I mean if they REALLY wanted broadband they would either get a satellite or get the rest of the community on board, it only takes about 15 people to want broadband in an area for telecom to put it in to the exchange for free. And for the record, I live (or rather lived) in a rural area, and could push 8gb of data through a 56k connection in a month, (we made sure we didn't have clicky noises from fences!). Cheers Liam	nz_liam (845)
123889	2003-02-25 19:33:00	And for the record heres a few things that you can do to speed up your connection. 1. Buy a DECENT computer, you don't go drag racing at meri meri with a model-t, same diff. 2. Buy a Dynalink RURAL modem, they help! 3. Upgrade you 1800's 3 wire phone jacks to the new 2 wire ones ($10 at the warehouse). 4. Check your electric fence is properly earth'd, check your neighbors fence, and if necessary walk round the farm with a pocket radio and fix ALL the shorts. 5. Call telecom, get them to do a line test, often the metallic noise/whatever can be out of sync, and just require a little tweaking. 6. Unplug your sky/what-doesn't-need-to-be-plugged in, I have seen sky boxes bring line speeds to a halt, unplugging them fixes the problem. 7. Get satellite internet, you cant argue with 400kbps. 8. Form a local broadband group; if you get enough people interested then telecom will put it into your area. 9. If you have a mate in town with fast access, put a wireless gateway in his back yard (one with a high gain antenna), then do the same in you back yard, you can easily get 10km line of sight (and I've heard 30km quoted). And if all else fails move to the city :p, or put up with it. Cheers Liam	nz_liam (845)
123890	2003-02-25 20:12:00	I agree with you regarding the farmers. It is however essential that broadband be rolled out to all schools. This is because there are several large scale e-governmet initiatives on the horizon that will require schools to have broadband access to function properly. As for the cost, the government will be picking up a large part of this.	BIFF (1)
123891	2003-02-25 23:01:00	well from what i see on a day to day basis is the rural phonelines are bloddy horrid. 5km from town and down to 1kB/s :( however with most peoples pc's its NOT the pc (excluding winmodems in slow pc's) but more of the setup. string the modem, tweak the settings, tweak IE, clean out spyware and it runs a whole lot better. as the article said most people just put up with it. why is that ? why do people put up with crash happy pc's? why do they put up with extermly slow connections? liam you just happened to be lucky and be one of the few rural people who got a 50k conection. 99% would get 33k or less.	tweak'e (174)
123892	2003-02-25 23:09:00	City and rural living both have advantages. One of my pet irratants is those who feel that they should be able to have the luxury of the bush as neighbours, and yet still have it all the city perks. One thing that annoyed me about the woman i bred with was the prattling about how the govt should do basicly everything to get everything in "her"valley up to city standards, inluding 10 channels of **** and all the rest of it. Of course theres no way she would get one of those "rip off" sky dishes, or sacrifice her isolation in a middle of nowhere west coast valley to have any of these "important" things. In life we take our choices, and live with the consequences Sheesh .Clueless	Clueless (181)
123893	2003-02-25 23:23:00	> about the woman i bred with lmao ;-) nice way of putting it B-) somepeople just want their cake and eat it to.	tweak'e (174)
123894	2003-02-25 23:28:00	Dont get me wrong, i lived in Millerton, a clifftop town on the Wild West Coast, just north of Westport for 7½years . The populaton there at the moment is about 30 people . I still love the place . I just think people should just except their choices, we can live in partial isolation sourounded by nature, or in the thick of it, as i do in inner CHCH . From home, i look out my door and see Jade Staduim on the other side of Wilsons Road . This is a sight that is as ugly as an ugly thing . I've acclimatised to the constant traffic from Ferry road The rewards i get for this sad location are the ability to do what i do with most things in walking distance from me, and of cource, cable internet . Bringing Cable, or a localised branch of the phone exchange that handled DSL into a small town like Millerton would be insanity . It's just too much work that benifits too few . . Clueless	Clueless (181)
123895	2003-02-25 23:28:00	I farm and I am intereted in computers. Most of what you say I agree with (apart from poor ickle farmers, with what's coming I'd say poor ickle townies once the spending dries up & that should be happening about now!). Anyway, I digress, why Fonterra wants to pursue this broadband thing is totally beyond me, they have plenty of other problems on their plate and the figures quoted that show a benefit to farmers are spurious, to say the least. Farmers, generally, are not particularly interested in computers, except as a tool (apart from the odd exception like myself). Anyway there's only so many hours in the day to get the important stuff done and when one gets in it is time to think of other things; some of the best farmers I know don't even own a computer and would have no intentions of doing so, but they are still doing pretty well. The electric fence thing is a difficult one to solve, its very easy to sit in a comfortable office and pontificate but to physically get out there and fix it is not as simple as it might appear (mind you my son & me have tidied ours up) and your neighbours fences might be having an effect. A good idea is a Gallagher electric fence tester, place it on the line & it will show the direction to go in to find the fault and how much of a leakage it is (the flow of electricity is like the flow of water). Getting Telecom to tidy up the wiring in the house is a good idea, also done this and it made a great difference. Rural modems are good but not the be all and end all. What made it for me was getting a satellite connection, now, I would definitely recommend this, I get some blistering downloads at times. Use my computer for business from time to time, but mainly for fun i.e. digital camera, e-mail, learning stuff etc. Couldn't justify paying for a Broadband though.	jcr1 (893)
123896	2003-02-25 23:45:00	Disclaimer #2: I am not the woman from the isolated West Coast valley that Clueless bred with... Is there an emoticon for "staunch reply"??? Dyan	Dyan (2333)
123897	2003-02-26 04:03:00	> I serrously question where they got the "$300 million > a year" figure in > this (www.stuff.co.nz > html) article. > > And from my own experience farmers don't want fast > internet anyway, a. they don't want to fix their > electric fences, b. they wont part with the cash for > a satellite confection, c. they don't use it much > anyway (usually just the odd e-mail), and d. the > equipment they are using is SOOO slow that it is > actually the problem NOT the phone lines, (I have > seen horrendously slow speeds on some boxes, plonk in > a new box and the speed increases three-fold). > > > Yes it would be great to have broadband in rural > schools, where it is a tremendous learning tool, but > figures ($$) just don't stack up when putting it into > rural areas, (I mean if they REALLY wanted broadband > they would either get a satellite or get the rest of > the community on board, it only takes about 15 people > to want broadband in an area for telecom to put it in > to the exchange for free. > > And for the record, I live (or rather lived) in a > rural area, and could push 8gb of data through a 56k > connection in a month, (we made sure we didn't have > clicky noises from fences!). > > > Cheers > > Liam Are you for real Liam? Your posting IS tongue-in-cheek. Right?	Baldy (26)
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