Fucking ADSL and Slingshot

[Whynot]

basically the whole adsl network in NZ is becoming a joke at the moment ....
everyone i know gets pathetic speeds during peak times.

lets all go back to dial up .... it was slow but at least it was fairly consistant

[Dai]

I may be preaching to the converted here but I have experienced broadband in the UK and here in NZ. I work in the IT industry and up until two months ago was involved in transfering a call centre to home based via VOIP over ADSL.

We suffered major degridation of the service at peak times and the system became unavailable.

The cause of this was not our speeds. We bought commercial connections. What absolutely buggered the system was the CONTENTION ratio of users per line.

In the UK the heaveist contention ratio is 50/1 here in NZ as I found it is a minimum of 150+/1.

What does this mean? It means that Telecon is ripping you off. e.g. a pipeline only has so much bandwidth. They promise you a certain speed but the line is shared with 150+ other people. If a line only carries 54 mbs and 150 people who have all been promised 7.5mb all log on then each of you will only get a tiny share of that 54mb.

I hope I have explained this enough to understand. When you sign up for broadband try and tie them down to a contention ration of <50. Bet you cant.

[Wasp]

wait, contention ratio is the number of people sharing an exchange right?

saw this at http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/...25721B0007F730

Telecom has also updated its Fair Use Policy (FUP) for the Wholesale Broadband Service (WBS) Cabriolet plan. Apart from the existing limit of 700MB in a day between the hours of 4pm and midnight, users who exceed 200MB in a single hour will be placed on a watch list for a week.

is it just my messed up calculations or does this equal 50kb/s average per hour?

[Dai]

wait, contention ratio is the number of people sharing an exchange right?

saw this at http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/...25721B0007F730

Telecom has also updated its Fair Use Policy (FUP) for the Wholesale Broadband Service (WBS) Cabriolet plan. Apart from the existing limit of 700MB in a day between the hours of 4pm and midnight, users who exceed 200MB in a single hour will be placed on a watch list for a week.

is it just my messed up calculations or does this equal 50kb/s average per hour?

Contention ratio is the number of people sharing a broadband line.

They can promise you the greatest speed but when 150+ people all use that line at the same time you are not going to get anywhere near the speed promised.

Trying to get a "quart into a pint pot"

The other thing that will badly hinder development of broadband here is the data cap limit. That is just another way for the ISP' and Telecon to rip you off. It costs them no more to have unlimited data.

[WRT]

is it just my messed up calculations or does this equal 50kb/s average per hour?

By my (quick) calcs it's more like 200 kilobits per second if you are trying to download 700mb in 8 hours.

[Wasp]

no, i meant the 200 megabytes per hour limit.

200megs / 60 = 3.333... megs a minute
3.333.... / 60 = 0.0555... megs a second
0.0555... megs/s = 56.888.... kilobytes a second


700 mbs in 8 hours between 4pm and 12am is:

700/8 = 87.5 megabytes per hour
87.5/60 = 1.458333... megabytes per minute
1.458333... / 60 = 0.02430555... megabytes per second
0.02430555... megabytes = 24.888... kilobytes max per second

[Hoon]

Yep my Xtra connection has dropped from a solid 3.5Mbps (450KB/s) down to about 1Mbps (128KB/s). Sucks but no cap more than makes up for it for me so I'm happy.

I'm one of those that fit into the "can so they will" bracket. I've downloaded 20GB in the first week so you can all blame me However I'm starting to run out of stuff to grab as I'm sure others will as the novelty wears off so predict things will settle down soon.

This isn't the first time this has happened. Everytime Xtra unleashes a new "better" plan, it always blows for the first month or so until they sort their shit out.

[Karma]

Yeah Ok, that is a constructive comment ......

[snip]

With regards

I think you've misunderstood me, I was referred to the fact that a Slingshot customer will have no joy taking a complaint to Xtra / Telecom. If you're an Xtra customer then by all means go for it.

[GR81]

3 days on go large - steady 3900kbps... and my address has an "RD1" in it!

it's because you're not sharing your exchange with shitloads of other people.

im not on the unlimited plans for the 'unlimited' speed, its more for the larger caps they allow.

i also got this a while ago from orcon (when i was complaining about line speeds etc about 3 months ago)

Hi Jeremy,

Thank you for your email.

While Telecom controls many aspects of ADSL broadband in New Zealand at the moment, such as the contention ratio on DSLAMs, many users and internet providers alike are unsatistifed with the situation and speaking up about it. This is a very real issue in the telecommunications industry at the moment, and as such, hopefully Telecom will find good reason to improve the situation for everyone.

With local loop unbundling coming along, we will eventually be able to provide services which we have full control over and which we ourselves deem to be suitable for our valued customers.

In the meantime, we do still endeavour to offer our best effort service to you, so please do let me know if you require further assistance in the future.

Regards,
Orcon Internet

[Ixion]

no, i meant the 200 megabytes per hour limit.

200megs / 60 = 3.333... megs a minute
3.333.... / 60 = 0.0555... megs a second
0.0555... megs/s = 56.888.... kilobytes a second


700 mbs in 8 hours between 4pm and 12am is:

700/8 = 87.5 megabytes per hour
87.5/60 = 1.458333... megabytes per minute
1.458333... / 60 = 0.02430555... megabytes per second
0.02430555... megabytes = 24.888... kilobytes max per second

I think its 200mB and 700MB (bytes not bits)

So to get to mbs (bits per sec) you should multiply by 8 not divide ?

It's still a very low figure though, 200MB is less than one CD.

So really their fancy plans are good for nothing but casual surfing and email?

Figures. Why would a monoploy give other than crap service.

[Flyingpony]

I'm still on dial up and noticed no degradation or improvement of service

[Titanium]

The Head of XTRA Broadband Services

Who received one today congratulating them on their new found power and speed of their Telecom Broadband Plan ........

Pfffffft wake up and smell the steaming pile of shit dude .......

[pervert]

I'm still on dial up and noticed no degradation or improvement of service

A plan that delivers 5-6kb/s max isn't a service...

I hope you don't pay for dial-up, the ISP should pay you for enduring it...

[Wasp]

I think its 200mB and 700MB (bytes not bits)

So to get to mbs (bits per sec) you should multiply by 8 not divide ?

its 200 megs in 8 hours so divide 200 by 8 gives you the max per hour.

anyone want to do the simultanious equation to figure out for how many hours you can dl at the hourly limit before you break the nightly limit? i really cbf (im on orcon anyways HAHAHHAHAHHA)

[Ixion]

Bytes, not bits. Limit is in megaBytes, speed is in megabits. 8 bits to a byte.