Broadband, Do you have it?

[Disco Dan]

Broadband, Woosh.

Very impressed with their service!

And you can use the modem within 50km of your house (basically most of auckland) - so i just grab the modem and plug it into the laptop and sit at the beach, coffee shop wherever i like

Plus the whole wireless thing is great, just find the best spot in your house to get the best signal and connect it to wireless router, bobs your uncle, fannys your aunt and you got wireless broadband network throughout your whole house! ...luvly

[speights_bud]

I know that's what Telecom claim, and I am in the area they claim has full coverage, yet because I live more than 6km away from the exchange They can't provide. Nor can they provide any of the hundred or so subscribers who live between Clyde and Omakau, yet they still count us as being in the 95% of the population who are covered. As for wireless? Yes it is available at a price, but my neighbour who tried it quickly went back to dial up. Wireless out here is just so much slower than dial-up that it can hardly be called broadband.

Ditto, only costs us about $90 a month if we want broadband here, satellite is the only option and that just download, uploading is still dial up speed.

[Lias]

Have been on broadband for about 6-7 years now.. I think I'd cry if I had to go back to dialup.

Started off with saturn cable when I was livign in wellington (Chello was the shizzle! 512down, 128 up and no data caps!) then Chello pulled out of NZ because we leeched them to death, and we had to move to parasite.net cable which was slower, crappier, and had data caps. Ever since I moved to hamilton I've lived on the various forms of DSL.

[Beemer]

I was on dialup for almost five years and coped okay, although it was a pain how long the pages took to load and receiving emails with photos in them was a nightmare. Tying up the phone line was also annoying.

We live in the country and couldn't get broadband until earlier this year. I am on the basic Xtra plan - $39.95 for 1GB per month. I have never gone over the 1GB but others say that is hardly anything so not worth having! It is only 12 times the speed of dialup due to our crappy connection and cabling, but it is like the speed of light as far as I'm concerned. One site I used to visit took 11 minutes to open (and it's just the Photographic Society of NZ!) and on BB it took 11 seconds!

I went with Xtra because they were offering a free modem and free connection but I can't wait until the year is up (fixed term contract too) when I can go back to Paradise. I have dumped all but my main Xtra email address because I was getting upwards of 30 spam emails a day! And most of it was to addresses I had never used!

I had to revert to dialup (have kept the Paradise dialup on at the lowest $10 for 10 hours plan to keep my email addresses) last weekend when the BB connection went down and it was SOOOOO slow I gave up in the end! It takes me about five minutes tops to check my webmail with BB but it was taking about half an hour on dialup.

[terbang]

Out here in the sticks we are lucky to get dial up..

[Beemer]

Out here in the sticks we are lucky to get dial up..

Don't worry, we used to get a massive speed of 24kbps if we were lucky! And every time it rains we lose the phone line anyway...

[paturoa]

I know that's what Telecom claim, and I am in the area they claim has full coverage, yet because I live more than 6km away from the exchange They can't provide. Nor can they provide any of the hundred or so subscribers who live between Clyde and Omakau, yet they still count us as being in the 95% of the population who are covered.

ahem - I'll come out of the "telecom closet"

Mate, with all respect that is a load of bollocks - if you can show me anywhere on offical Telecom stuff where your house is in the 95%, I'll give you $100.

First up go here http://www.telecom.co.nz/chm/0,8763,...,00.html?nv=sd and have a read.

[paturoa]

What a load of cock.

Ever used a DSL connection on a pair shared (at the Exchange end) connection over what used to be a party line? Which happens to be the norm for practically every rural exchange/subscriber setup.

Dial-Up is faster.

Mate, x2 for the what a load of....

[SPman]

Out here in the sticks we are lucky to get dial up..

Dial Up !
Luxury!
We get a dyslexic kangaroo with a slate and no chalk.....

[paturoa]

Dial Up !
Luxury!
We get a dyslexic kangaroo with a slate and no chalk.....

and then you run the bloody thing over!

[Jantar]

ahem - I'll come out of the "telecom closet"

Mate, with all respect that is a load of bollocks - if you can show me anywhere on offical Telecom stuff where your house is in the 95%, I'll give you $100.

First up go here http://www.telecom.co.nz/chm/0,8763,...,00.html?nv=sd and have a read.

Yep, been there done that and it tells me that my phone line is inconclusive and to ring Telecom for a more comlete test. The Telecom techs call back and tell me that No, Broadband is not available for my location. yet the pamplet that Telecom sent around a couple of months ago shows that my area is covered. I can't show you the pamplet because I've tossed it.

The Telecom call center tells me that Broadband is available for my location, but again the telecom tech says it isn't.

[Satch]

Ihug Broadband!!, what a pain in the arse!! so many problems so little up time!! At least there giving me refunds for all there fukups

[paturoa]

..And there is a large proportion of the country who can't get BB.

where are you now on that one?

....and I am in the area they claim has full coverage...

Availability. It's important to know that Xtra Broadband is not available on all phone lines. So, while broadband might be available in your area, we can't guarantee that it's available on your phone line or what your connection speed will be when you sign-up.

I'm missing something here...

...I can't show you the pamplet because I've tossed it

Thats cool, I'll leave my $100 offer on the table. Maybe some other KBer can send you the pamphlet that claims full coverage, so you can collect. Wake me up when that happens

You may well have been put crook from a conversation from a call centre rep, that does happen, no-one is perfect. If you want to have a rant about poor service then I wont even reach for my keyboard, but, mate you're wrong.

[NighthawkNZ:Me]

They still have dial up??????

[Ruralman]

+1

And there is a large proportion of the country who can't get BB.

I exhausted all available avenues to get broadband and in the end had to go for the satellite service - same issues as others in many rural locations. Too far from exchange without major cabinet upgrade, can't get wireless because we don't have line of sight to the BCL transmitter, cell phone reception poor..........
OUr dial up speed used to be between 19-26bps.
My satellite connection gives me 256Kbps download and 128Kbps upload. Cost is basically $100/month for a 3 year contract which includes the dish and all the stuff inside the house.
Unfortunately the upload isn't fast enough to run a Skype phone without a delay of about 2.5 seconds - this is a real bugger as the potential savings in toll calls was a potential attraction. Have a mate nearby who has upgraded to the 256 upload which runs skype just fine, he gets massive download but it costs $180/month. They make a lot of international calls so it is worth it for them