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Thread ID: 138948 2015-02-14 04:36:00 Best Broadband Provider ??? AppleFan (17097) Press F1
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1394409 2015-02-14 09:48:00 Thats a bit of an open question, best Broadband ??

Best Speed ?

Best Reliability?

Best customer Service ?

Best Price ?

Unlimited --- No real "problems" but some providers have a fair use policy, so if you are continually download/uploading 100's of GB a month they may drop your speed or various other actions.

Where it will be a help, is when and if people stream TV from various sites, either in NZ or USA from places like Netflix, then data usage wont be a problem.

Cant vouch for any ALK providers, but Vodafone here is no problems with speed or reliability, and unlimited --- never had it throttled yet.


Sorry for not keeping that in mind , yes all of those are important .

Thanks for letting me know the unlimited one thing i know is orcon does not slow you down , i read this on there site . They said only things like DOS is when things could slow down . 		AppleFan (17097)
1394410 2015-02-14 22:34:00 I wrote a blurb about this a while back on G+ let me copy / paste it here:


Why not all Unlimited plans are created equal
(A long but easy to understand look at broadband plans in NZ, pricing, quality, speeds and more)

With a lot more people offering "Unlimited" plans these days, there's a few "gotchas" to be aware of. The main one being "Not all plans or ISPs / plans are created equal".

Many like Slingshot and Orcon are saying "We're not going to throttle, shape or prioritize your traffic". This is bad and I'll tell you why:

There's two main types of traffic, UDP and TCP, and they both behave very differently. I'll explain why this matters to shaping.

TCP is what browsing the web uses. It works like this:
--> You send a request to the webserver, saying "Heeey I want google.com"
<-- The Web server will send back a reply saying "Got your message", then it'll send a "OK which part of google.com do you want?"
--> Your PC will then reply and say "I'd like the website code first, then give me this picture"
If it doesn't respond, you'll try again saying "Heeey I want google.com", until you get through, or until you've tried too much / over too long a period, and your PC gives up and gives you an error.

Then there's UDP, it's used mostly for things like gaming, Skype calls, things like that.
It works by using a "send and forget" method, there's no checking to make sure that the remote server actually got what you sent.
It's ideal for games because the time required for a "confirmation" response from the Server basically doubles the delay. Same for Voice calls on Skype etc.
So here's how it looks for if you're playing, say, Halo:
<-- You get a message saying "James123 is positioned here behind the rock"
<-- You get a message saying "James123 is running between this rock and that rock"
<-- You get a message saying "James123 is firing at you"
<-- You get a message saying "You're dead"

Naturally that's very cut-down, but picture this:
You don't get the 2nd and 3rd messages, you only get the 1st and 4th messages. Because it's a "send and forget", the server just assumes you're going to get the messages.

... but what if you don't get all the messages?
Well, one minute you're fine, a split second later it catches up and you're dead.

What causes this? Usually it's network congestion in one form or another. It could be that your home broadband connection is congested because your family is uploading something to Facebook. It could be that your Telco is congested because they've got too many people on an "unlimited" plan and they don't have enough bandwidth to support all the people who they've signed up.

What do you mean they don't have enough data to support everybody?
Picture it like this:
Your home broadband connection is a straw. Your ISP gets their data from overseas through a pipe the size of a garden hose. If you're trying to suck your data through a straw, and so is 10 other people, your garden hose isn't going to be big enough. You're all going to be getting bits of air or you're just not going to end up getting anything at all.
What your ISP really needs is something bigger, like a fire-hose sized pipe!

But what if now you're looking at VDSL2 and UFB, and your pipe is the size of a garden hose instead of a straw?
Your ISPs fire-hose won't quite cut it, again they are going to need something bigger!

Unfortunately most don't bother though, because of the cost.
How much does it cost though?

Well, naturally it's cheaper the more you buy, but lets look at some lower level retail pricing that's readily available to view online, thanks to HD.net.nz.
If we have a look under their dedicated servers section, you can see that 1mbps (CIR - Means 'dedicated bandwidth') will cost $40.
If you buy 100mbps, you can split that 100 ways at 1mbps each for $3,000 which is $30 per mbps
Now these are retail prices, but still, they're close enough and they're publicly available prices that anybody can easily see and verify.

Now if one person uses a solid 1mbps the whole entire month, they'll download a little over 300GB in that month.
Keep in mind that most broadband connections are around 20-30mbps right now, so a 30mbps UFB connection (Most ISPs start at 30mbps down and 10mbps upload) can happily do over 9 Terrabytes in a single month, download only, not including uploading on top of that!

That 300GB, from one person, is going to "cost" somewhere ballpark of $30 per month for an ISP. Factor in that you do most of your "Downloading" when you get home and you watch a YouTube video, it'll download at 6mbps for a few minutes and then sit idle while you finish watching it.
Same goes for most people, they do their browsing / downloading in the evenings on weeknights, so where 1mbps was previously enough for the whole month, your ISP has to factor in that "most people" are downloading in the evenings. They're relying on the fact that not all people will be home, or online every single night, it's a balancing act.

So lets say an ISP has 100 customers, lets pretend they have 100mbps of "international bandwidth", this means that if 20 people are watching a YouTube video in 1080p at 5mbps, that leaves a grand whopping total of: NOTHING REMAINING

What about the other 80 people who want to use the internet?

Well, if you're Orcon or Slingshot, then those customers who may be wanting to game at that same time are going to run into problems.
That, or the people who want to watch the 1080p video, they're going to have buffering problems.

But what if YouTube knew that they could all watch the video in 720p instead, and the gaming got priorities, and those who are downloading their "Linux ISOs" (Codeword for pirated movies) were able to download theirs slightly slower so that it didn't adversely affect somebody elses Skype calls?

You see back in the day, a lot of ISPs would use "Oh you just have a bad / cheap ADSL connection" as an excuse to load, say, 1000 customers onto a 100mbps international connection. Many people didn't know better. They just took it at face value.
Now we're on faster connections. People expect that if you're on a 20mbps VDSL2 connection, or a 30mbps UFB Fibre connection, that you should get pretty close to that.

Traffic Shaping / prioritization is definitely a cost-saving method for ISPs. You could get a 200mbps pipe so that all the people who want to download at "peak" times can, and can do it as fast as they like. That's then going to double the cost of the connection though.
Or, your ISP could shape a few things that don't really need priority, give priority to things like Voice / Skype calls / gaming, that does need priority, to ensure a better overall quality for you, along with saving you money because your ISP doesn't have to buy so much additional bandwidth to account for peak times.

It really is about "How much does your ISP care about your connection?", vs "How cheap can we sell a connection to a customer".

You see a UFB connection will cost an ISP ballpark $40 -> $60, just to pay Chorus for your connection, not including any data charges. If you then presume an ISP is spending $30-ish on your international bandwidth alone, you're not left with a whole lot for them to pay for:
- Running their Datacenter / servers / switches / firewalls etc
- National data / peering charges
- Paying their support staff to help you with signing up or when your connection goes wrong
- Paying their admin staff who chase you when you don't pay your bill
- Covering the cost of dedicated wiring for your VDSL2 connection into your home
- Chasing up installation for the UFB connection with Chorus, getting your landlords permission to install UFB, usually takes half a dozen hours per-connection
- Any early disconnection charge to Chorus if you're not on a contract and you don't stay for 12-months
- And everything else that goes into your connection

And they're only left with (In Slingshots case of $85 a month for unlimited VDSL2 or $89 for unlimited UFB) somewhere around $15 a month to cover all those costs.
You know that one support call that took you 2 hours to fix your broadband? Yeah, that meant that your ISP basically makes no profit from you for the next 18 months...

Lets look at routers for example as another cost your ISP incurs:
The ones most ISP's give away for free, like the Huawei / Technicolor (Thomson) routers, they're not worth the $199 they tell you they are.

In fact, they likely buy them for around $25-30 a pop, in blocks of 1,000+ (Depending on a few things). This "cost" to them if they're not charging you a sign-up fee is also spread across your monthly payments

Compare that vs a better, higher quality, more reliable router that might cost, say $80. Suddenly the "sign-up" cost of a router has just tripled.
When your ISP says "We're giving you this router free, no strings attached", it doesn't mean "This is kick ass and awesome!", it means "This was the cheapest we could bulk-buy".

This is why a number of ISP's are now starting to "lease" them. The Orcon Genius is leased because they heavily customize it for the Orcon services, it's no good anywhere else.
The free one you get from Slingshot will work anywhere, relatively happily. At least, as happily as a cheap router can.

It's why I recommend if somebodys ISP has "given" them a router, free, to keep, that they sell it immediately. It'll likely work fine if you're just doing one or two web pages at a time, with one or two PCs (Think: Grandma / grandpa connections) but as soon as you wanna do anything more than "the basics" or with a number of PCs / Laptops / Phones / Tablets, you need something better.
Why? Because unless your ISP is intentionally making a big loss, there's no way they can actually afford to give you a decent router, to keep, for free.

TL;DR:
So the next time you see an ISP saying "Hey, we don't throttle your data or slow you down in any way", it's either a lie, or it's to your own detriment. Think twice.
The next time you see an ISP saying "FREE signup, no contracts", think "They're covering the cost of that somehow in my monthly amount, so they must be cutting costs elsewhere". Either that or they're gambling that you won't actually leave before 12 months is up.
The next time you see "Free router worth $199", there's no way it's worth that much, and there's no way they'd let you keep it if it was.
The next time you see "Unlimited data" think "Have I heard good things from other people about this service? Do I have any family or friends who have this service who are happy?"
The next time you see "We're going to give you this extra service like SkyTV or this free Antivirus product", think "This is going to be costing them, somehow, so where is that money going to be coming from out of the $ I pay them per-month? Are they going to be skimping on my speeds to cover this cost to a 3rd party?"
This is why a lot of "smaller guy" ISP's, such as Actrix, consistently get the best reviews in Customer Service, Speeds, Customer Satisfaction and pretty much every way that you can think of. They get this because they cost that little bit extra, and because they're not cutting corners as a result.

Remember: You get what you pay for when it comes to ISPs, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If it seems cheap, it probably is, and statistically you're far less likely to be happy or get the speeds you're expecting.

Hope that helps you in your decision about going for unlimited vs data cap, and looking at the pricing too.
Figures are ballpark but you get the idea. The explanation of how TCP vs UDP works is rough, but again it should give you a good picture of it. 		Chilling_Silence (9)
1394411 2015-02-15 02:04:00 Of thsoe listed:

Other (Actrix, Xnet, Snap)

then

Spark. 		pctek (84)
1394412 2015-02-15 02:42:00 Remember: You get what you pay for when it comes to ISPs, there's no such thing as a free lunch . If it seems cheap, it probably is, and statistically you're far less likely to be happy or get the speeds you're expecting . Aint that the truth ;)

Been around to a person place this week, they were with Vodafone, and one of the spark reps came calling a while back, promising the earth at a lot lower cost . What they "forgot" to mention was she would also lose all the other services she had with Vodafone .

The Spark Modem turned up, and she couldn't figure out how to set it up, called the help desk and all they said was simply plug in the same as the old one .

ERRRRRRRR Vodafone cable and Spark are completely different :groan: Spark simply assumed she had a phone jack where the computer was -- Hence had to run cables under the house .

To say she was a bit annoyed they didn't tell her she would lose the TV is an understatement .

Once the spark was going I did a few tests, The internet speed was noticeably slower than Vodafone's, and speed tests confirmed it . :groan:

SO cheaper with spark - not really, less services yep, so if you take the fact you are only getting half what you had before no wonder its cheaper . 		wainuitech (129)
1394413 2015-02-15 04:13:00 Yeah Spark been a bit shady lately...
They offered my wifes grandparents an upgrade from ADSL to "Ultra Broadband". Coz Chorus had just been down their street a few weeks earlier laying fibre, they thought it was "Ultra Fast Broadband". Turns out it was VDSL2, not UFB. Their VDSL2 product is simply called "Ultra Broadband", without the 'fast' in it, it's so easy for people to get confused.

They've been doing it all over the show, preying on peoples ignorance, just as with wainuitech. They don't care in the slightest...

@wainuitech what were the speeds like nationally / internationally vs the customers sync speeds? 		Chilling_Silence (9)
1394414 2015-02-15 05:22:00 @wainuitech what were the speeds like nationally / internationally vs the customers sync speeds? Didn't do a lot of testing, just noticed when downloading a couple of programs & updates they seemed slower on Spark.

All I did was fire up speedtest. They were on Vodafones LightSpeed 40G which tops out at 15 Mbps, (and it did on testing last time I tested it) On spark the speed test tops out at around 5Mbps.

The cable I ran is CAT5 roughly 10 -12 Mtrs, which wouldn't slow anything due to its length, the modem is now in the kitchen.

The lose of the TV didn't go down to well.

I know with the plan I'm on with Vodafone, if using a download manager I often top it out 100 Mbps. 		wainuitech (129)
1394415 2015-02-16 00:04:00 I vote for Orcon.

I never liked Vodafone from a customer and staff perspective.
So happy I left them 		Ninjabear (2948)
1394416 2015-02-16 04:35:00 Aint that the truth ;)

Been around to a person place this week, they were with Vodafone, and one of the spark reps came calling a while back, promising the earth at a lot lower cost. What they "forgot" to mention was she would also lose all the other services she had with Vodafone.

SO cheaper with spark - not really, less services yep, so if you take the fact you are only getting half what you had before no wonder its cheaper.

Do people not do their own research anymore before they buy something? Salesmen only want to sell, doing whatever it takes to make you buy...:illogical 		Agent_24 (57)
1394417 2015-02-16 05:34:00 I would like to thank "Chilling Silence" for his explain for how things know , i did learn alot , so a big thanks and also thanks for everyone who voted in poll and gave their opinion , im happy for more comments . AppleFan (17097)
1394418 2015-02-16 07:08:00 Do people not do their own research anymore before they buy something? Salesmen only want to sell, doing whatever it takes to make you buy...:illogicalSome of them are really pushy and some people feel intimidated by them.

Had one around here a few weeks back, I started asking some technical questions and he just sounded more pushy in his tone and couldn't really answer. He wouldn't take No for any answer.
I started to close the door on him when the dog comes running around the corner, she decided she didn't like him, Growling / Barking -- so opened the door a bit -- he soon left when he saw her coming ;) 		wainuitech (129)
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