Changing Isps A unique view into the lives of Statesmen and RadioChick

[travstatesmen 0]

Here in New Zealand, our Internet access is stifled, nay, strangled by the ex-State Owned monopoly company Telecom, which with deregulation in the early 1980's was split off from the New Zealand Post Office (a government department), and became one of the first fully privatized telcos in the world by 1990. And yet, this monolithic corporation that sends most of its profits off-shore these days, still for the longest time (until 2006 officially) maintained control over the telephone infrastructure of New Zealand, including that all important "local loop", the cable from the streetside distribution boxes to each individual home.

 

What this has meant for most users is that the concept of "Broadband Internet" has been a farce, a joke at best, an embarrassment on a global scale at worst. We have had terrible record, and in 2006 we rated as one of the worst countries in the OECD for Internet access! There is more information about the state of the Internet in New Zealand available on this wikipedia page if you are interested.

 

So, why do I tell you all this? It is background information about the events unfolding in the lives of Statesmen of Travian and Radio Chick this week. Wifey has her eye on some nice cheap voice call rates, and hubby has his eye on a faster Internet connection, and both dreams are about to be fulfilled as we finally give the monopolistic national carrier the flick. But before the change happens, it's about time that we had a bit of a tidy-up. The home telephone arrangement and our network cabling spaghetti is in serious need of sorting out. Up until now the telephone has been plugged in to a 25 meter extension that can reach practically any part of our home, snaking its way dangerously across the floor. Our in-home computer network is not much better. While we do have an 802.11g WiFi router in the home, the Ethernet connection between the router and the ADSL modem is another cable wandering lazily across the floor, waiting to trip somebody up. So I have been busy moving things around and stapling down the cables, making everything neat and tidy in preparation for the change to the new ISP/telco.

 

As part of the change we will be losing some of the services that we have had from Telecom, such as the "Call Minder" service, which is a voicemail system based at the exchange. Our new telco, Vodafone, does provide such features, but they are not as competitively priced, so we will be going back to a "stand alone" digital answerphone for such facilities. A thermal fax machine that has been collecting dust for years is going to be brushed off and set up as well. We get to keep our existing home telephone number as part of the change, so that is nice. I'm going to need to set up the new ADSL modem that Vodafone have sent me, and configure it into my network. I use Network Address Translation on the internal network, amongst other security features, and all that will need to be configured properly so that I can access the outside world again through the new ADSL modem, and out through the new ISP back to Xisto and the rest of the Internet.

 

Our Internet connection may be out for a day or two, but I plan to have everything back up and running again over this coming weekend. It will be interesting to see how our Internet connection speeds compare between now and after the change. Here is a Speedtest result from right now....

 

....yeah, I'll go back again after the change and post another one so that the speed difference can be seen. We are currently using Woosh Wireless as our ISP, but rather than using the Wireless connection that they offer (which we aren't in the coverage area for) we are using a repackaged ADSL connection from Woosh which originates from Telecom, as all New Zealand ADSL offerings used to.

 

I write this as I sit and recover from moving things around the home, to get into the corners and staple the cables down. Now I should start moving everything back again. Once I've read and replied to a few more posts.......

 

.... procrastination ....

 

Edited September 24, 2008 by travstatesmen (see edit history)

[rvalkass 5]

My Speedtest from all of 10 seconds ago:

 

 

I think the UK is the worst developed nation for broadband speeds. They recently considered upgrading the entire country to fibre optics. The cost? £5.1 billion. It'll never happen, and in the meantime I'm paying £28 (US$50, AU$61) per month, plus £11.50 per month line rental for this connection... And that doesn't include phone calls. Or digital TV. Or any of the other stuff other countries seem to bundle together with their connections. C'est la vie.

 

I also have a bundle of wiring resembling a plate of spaghetti that currently forms the internal PC network, and connects the phones up. It's in that state where it works, and no-one wants to touch it just in case it stops working The XBox, one desktop and one laptop are wireless now, and I'm sure their ethernet cables are in there somewhere...

[kingjim007 0]

My strategy in Aus is to get the cheapest line rental from Telstra, the fastest and most competitive ADSL which for me is 8000/384 and then use SKYPE to make all local, country or international calls. Skype you can also set up voicemail and some other cool stuff. I have worked this system and found it to be the cheapest.If in Australia I recommend you visit whirlpool.net.au to compare plans etc...is a great site.And wireless is a pain sometimes so I stick with cables...less goes wrong apart from the occasional tripping and swearing :)KJ

[travstatesmen 0]

rvalkass, I understand that in the UK your Internet access is part of your telephone bill, is that right? So I guess you're tied to your national telco just like we were then, huh? No wonder it's slow for you! I hope that your government legislates for local loop unbundling over there, so that other ISPs can put their switch gear directly into the telephone exchanges, as is starting to happen here in New Zealand.

 

Well, things have stalled with our change to our new ISP, as the national carrier Telecom rejected our first application, as the new ISP had copied down our account number incorrectly, and thus the whole application was declined and we had to start again. I have been assured that the changeover will take place next Wednesday (local time) so I'm looking forward to getting that done.

 

In the meantime, as part of the renovations and changes in our place, we have helped a friend to move some of her furniture into our place, and have removed some of our old stuff. As part of this change, she gave me her old computer, which was destined for the dump. It is an HP Pavilion 510a with an Intel 1.2GHz processor and 256MB of RAM. I have added an extra 256MB of RAM and a DVD writer to it, and it will come in quite handy as an extra part of my home network. I'm using it currently to try to resurrect a Dynamic partition on one of my previous hard drives, to get at the stored data there. I shall NOT be using Windows 2000/XP/Vista's Dynamic partition options any more! If I want a RAID array, I have found that it is better to use a hardware solution rather than using the software option offered from within the Operating System. [/rant]

[rvalkass 5]

rvalkass, I understand that in the UK your Internet access is part of your telephone bill, is that right? So I guess you're tied to your national telco just like we were then, huh? No wonder it's slow for you! I hope that your government legislates for local loop unbundling over there, so that other ISPs can put their switch gear directly into the telephone exchanges, as is starting to happen here in New Zealand.

No, Internet access is not part of the phone bill - I just happen to have chosen the same ISP as the main national telecoms provider. BT used to have a complete monopoly, but it was opened up a few years ago to allow other telecoms providers and ISPs. The problem is that BT still owns all the telephone cabling, so line rental has to be paid to BT, whether you use them for calls/Internet or not. However, people like Sky and Virgin are now basically setting up their own networks, with much better cabling, more modern equipment, and no line rental to BT! Unforutnately, I live miles from the nearest town, so they won't extend their network out here unless I pay for it - many thousands of pounds!!!

 

Well, things have stalled with our change to our new ISP, as the national carrier Telecom rejected our first application, as the new ISP had copied down our account number incorrectly, and thus the whole application was declined and we had to start again. I have been assured that the changeover will take place next Wednesday (local time) so I'm looking forward to getting that done.

Good luck. I've had nothing but trouble switching ISPs in the past, so I hope that you have better luck over there!

[Saint_Michael 3]

Aaah the good ole transition of ISP, did they give oyu a big hoopla and tell you not to go and they treat you better?? Anyway I was thinking on top of assuming since I don't know how your living arrangements and prices for various things. I would suggest that you purchase a cordless phone thus getting rid of one set of long wires and as for your cable wouldn't it be feasible to get a shorter cable cord for your modem?

[travstatesmen 0]

It seems to me, Saint_Michael as if you live in a country where Internet access is fully deregulated, where the free market and full commercial competition is in force. You probably don't know what it is like to deal with a monopoly!

 

Telecom New Zealand have only recently lost their stranglehold on the Internet here, and they are still somewhat in denial about it. It is almost a foreign concept to them that anyone in NZ should get access to the Internet without them being involved somehow, and making a profit from it. No, there was no sweetener, no offer to improve their service levels if I stay. I'm just a number to them. When more people start taking up offers such as Vodafone and Telstra-Clear are making to encourage customers away from Telecom, then they will look around and start noticing that they are no longer New Zealand's preferred ISP (hehe, somewhat like Mr Mugabe was Zimbabwe's preferred president!) and they will start slashing prices and increasing service levels to meet or to beat the newcomers to the market. Then the price wars will begin, and we will eventually have here in New Zealand the free market and full commercial competition that you appear to enjoy now.

 

As for cordless phones, we have been through three of them so far, and they all seem to die. Admittedly our financial situation is such that we don't buy brand new, so that may be part of the problem. The modem cable is now snuggly stapled around the wall skirting, and is no longer a tripping hazard in the home. Having the modem closer to the WiFi router means that I don't need a great long Ethernet cable between them any more either, so my single Ethernet cable is now short and tidy and also cannot be tripped over. I should have done this long ago, but I never got around to it until now.

{note=jlhaslip]Merged 2 consecutive postings[/note]

Okay, we are now connected to Vodafone, and boy is there a difference! We used to be with Woosh, connecting through the Telecom New Zealand network, and now we are with Vodafone, connecting through the iHug network that Vodafone acquired recently. Have a look at the differences in the speeds!

 

Interestingly, Speedtest shows that the ISP's server that I am now connected to is in Napier, Hawkes Bay, which is about 200 miles away, whereas the server for Woosh was based right here in Auckland, less than 50 miles away.

[jlhaslip 4]

Great numbers there for the line speeds. Can I move to New Zealand???I also live "outside" of town, and the telphone company doesn't provide high speed out here, so I am on Cable DSL. Not sure of the nmbers, but it really doesn't matter a great deal for the Interweb stuff I do...