Broadband Internet Connection - Thoughts

[Andyt]

Hi! all!,

After 2 years of trying, I finally have a ADSL connection at home. The change from a dial up connection to ADSL in terms of the difference in your browsing habits is amazing!, no more being the state solitaire champion waiting for pics to load!

Which brings me to the point of this post, now I can browse the posted picks and checkout sites that are recommended instantly without a second thought. The pleasure of "checking-in" with the D70users website and being able to read all the latest posts before my coffee gets cold is a real pleasure!

For those forum members still on dial up due to unavailability in your area check out the HiBis scheme with your ISP and see if you qualify. For those who think broadband is dearer than dial up, remember on ADSL you don't pay for call connection, the money saved is more than enough to cover the small additional cost per month.

I am happy now
Regards to all,
Andyt

[Glen]

Congrats Andy, you will never go back

[Onyx]

Andy, I too was stuck with dial up for a very long time, due to unavailability of DSL and/or cable in my area.

Unwired came to my rescue, broadband is the online experience as it's meant to be.

[bago100]

At the moment, I'm hooked into my son's Bigpond via a router and wireless connection. He's leaving home in a week or so and I have to decide whether to keep the $50 per month almost unlimited Bigpond cable or whether to go back to dial up or maybe ADSL.
Do any forum members have any specific advice about what I should do and who to go with?
Would appreciate your opinions
Thanks

Graham

[MCWB]

Graham,

If you've already got Telstra cable connected you're probably better off staying with it. No connection fees as you're already connected, and $50 aint bad. Depends how much data you get and whether it's enough for you though, there are some great ADSL deals around at the moment if not.

With respect to braodband vs dialup, we were paying $30 a month for dial-up, plus line-rental for a 2nd line, plus call costs, which came to about $60 a month, and we were pulling down about 1 GB at 5 kBps. Optus cable with 12 GB peak/24GB off-peak costs us $70 per month (and one could do the same comparision for Telstra cable, ADSL etc). For $10 a month extra it's a no-brainer.

[Andyt]

Hi! Bago,

From my shopping around I found that the trend is to offer "cheap" broadband by bundling phone, (local & long distance calls) mobile and broadband together. Similar the way the insurance companies do it.

I have been with Westnet for 5 years now and cannot fault their service & support or competitive pricing. We here in the west generally stay with local companies as when service & support is required we end up in a phone que pushing buttons and waiting for a human being to talk to. The big blue/orange one is usually the ISP of last resort here.

Shop around and see if you can get free connection and maybe a modem too.

Regards,

Andyt

[daniel_r]

Bago,

I've found http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/ is a good place to start and to compare plans. They also have a fairly active forum that you have a look at to get a better idea what people think of their ISPs.

D.

[gstark]

Graham,

If you've already got Telstra cable connected you're probably better off staying with it. No connection fees as you're already connected, and $50 aint bad. Depends how much data you get and whether it's enough for you though, there are some great ADSL deals around at the moment if not.

With respect to braodband vs dialup, we were paying $30 a month for dial-up, plus line-rental for a 2nd line, plus call costs, which came to about $60 a month, and we were pulling down about 1 GB at 5 kBps. Optus cable with 12 GB peak/24GB off-peak costs us $70 per month (and one could do the same comparision for Telstra cable, ADSL etc). For $10 a month extra it's a no-brainer.

And you were paying way too much.

Exetel are just going national, and have plans starting from around $25/month. They're a no-frills carrier, meaning that they don't provide as much hand-holding as other ISPs, but the quality of the connection, and the realised speeds are second to none.

And despite last week's issues, I have no hesitation in giving them my recommendation; they're about the best value around, and whereas Optarse and Hel$tra will try to tie you into a 12 or 24 month contract, Exetel (like most reputable ISPs) will only require 6.

And for those who can't get DSL, they also are doing some deals on unwired modems as well; we just picked one up this week for while I'm out and about.

If you want more details, PM me.

[Aussie Dave]

thanks Gary. My ADSL plan runs out in a few months (I'm with Optar$e), so I will definitely look into Exetel as an alternative.

We really need more and more ISP's to come out with lower pricing structures to force the big guys to lower their profit margins.

[Killakoala]

I trialled UNWIRED but i found it to be lacking, especially in latency and reliability. There were connection dropouts on an hourly basis, sometimes more often. I was glad to get rid of it. I was considering going back to Dialup, which would have been an improvement on speed.

I am now using iBurst wireless and other than the odd occasion where i have problems, it's ten times better than Unwired. Plus no contract, no Telstra and no cables running into my house. I am now TOTALLY Telstra free. Three cheers..........

Plus with the Ozemail iBurst account i have i also have Dialup access for when i am away from home and wireless when in Syd, Bris and Melb. Try doing that with your ADSL plug-in-the-wall thingy.

Of course that kind of thing is useful for me as i travel a lot. If i didn't i would probably go with Exetel ADSL as from all the reports i have heard, including the Admin here, it is possibly the best around. However, i have also heard great reports from Westnet.

[gstark]

I trialled UNWIRED but i found it to be lacking, especially in latency and reliability. There were connection dropouts on an hourly basis, sometimes more often. I was glad to get rid of it. I was considering going back to Dialup, which would have been an improvement on speed.

My experience with Unwired (through Exetel) thus far is good. Still very limited experience, but the connection I saw was rock solid.

Latency is not an issue for me; it's mainly an issue when you're gaming, and that's not something I'm inclined to do; latency doesn't affect transfer rates or speeds realised; later this morning I'll be in Marrickville and will probably be using it totally unplugged.

[Onyx]

Killa, my Unwired experience wasn't anything like yours either. I didn't have any drop outs or connection issues, then again my house was 600m from the nearest transmission tower.

Latency is no better/worst than dial up - which eventually sadly lead to me giving up online gaming...

Gary - you might wanna download a little utility Navini Diagnostics. It gives a whole host of features and info on top of what Exertel might have given you - for example the distance to transmission tower.

Personally, I dunno why you went with Exertel. Unwired directly offers a greater range of pricing plans, more flexible contract lengths, none of the "service activation" BS extra charges, and cheaper modems to boot!

[gstark]

Personally, I dunno why you went with Exertel. Unwired directly offers a greater range of pricing plans, more flexible contract lengths, none of the "service activation" BS extra charges, and cheaper modems to boot!

Actually, it's way cheaper with Exetel.

The same connection that I have is $10 more expensive per month goiing directly to Unwired; each provides 1GB of traffic, bit then Unwired throttle the connection, wheras with Exetel I simply pay an extra $3/GB

I am not interested in throttled connections of any kind, thank you very much.

The modem is far cheaper with Exetel (they have some refurbs for just $70 now) and with Exetel I get a static IP, which is a facility that I like, as it allows me to configure my home routers to access them from the unwired connection.

So no, going directly to Unwired has no interest for me at all.

[Oneputt]

Once you use ADSL you can never go back to dialup.

[Killakoala]

With UNWIRED, i found the latency to be a bit disconcerting. Theoritically it should not be much differetn to dialup, but in practise a web page would take quite some time longer than dialup to start downloading.

Although i have never played games online, i did find the latency of wireless unusual.

iBurst is much better and i get ping times of about 70ms to my ISP (Ozemail), 257ms to this site and 300ms to google.com

With UNWEIRD i was getting about 200ms to Unwired and in excess of 2 seconds to US or other offshore sites.

A continual download such as with eMule or elsewhere would be fine and with 256K download i would get about 30kbps, same as i get with iBurst.

But iBurst does not have the connection dropouts that Unwired had/has. I feel that this is due to iBursts better building penetration.

To put it in camera perspective, Unwired is the SIGMA of wireless (IMHO)

[gstark]

To put it in camera perspective, Unwired is the SIGMA of wireless (IMHO)

That may well be the case, but this, for me, is a luxury item; I don't really need it, but I have it because I can, and it's not in any way a critical usage issue for me. Consequently, I'm happy to have and use a cheaper otpion.

By way of contrast, my choice of lenses is a critical issue, and a compromise solution is not a choice.

You say you had a 256K connection? Mine is 512, and I really would never go any slower; Lindy has a 256 DSL connection, and I do see a difference in speeds, but that's an attribute of the line speed rather than the latency.

Again, as I say, it's still early days wrt my Unwired conenction, but I saw little differnce in load times of web pages when compared with my desktop system at home, which is usually connecting through our 1500K Swiftel link.

[jethro]

if you want sheer speed have a look at internodes new adsl2 plans you will see on http://www.internode.on.net

[resnikov]

internode while a little more expensive then some isp have a great network and helpdesk.

i can get my plan for $20 cheaper else where but i stay with internode because of the quailty of service.

[Holden]

Bago,

I've found http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/ is a good place to start and to compare plans. They also have a fairly active forum that you have a look at to get a better idea what people think of their ISPs.

D.

I agree with daniel_r , whirlpool is a great source of info for broadband plans

[Frankenstein]

Bago,

I've found http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/ is a good place to start and to compare plans. They also have a fairly active forum that you have a look at to get a better idea what people think of their ISPs.

D.

Great advice. I knew nothing about broadband (except that I needed it!), but this site has everything you need to know, either in the FAQs or in the forums. As well, you can compare ISP plans after entering your requirements.

As well, I got to learn about this site from a Whirlpool post TODAY (in their Gadgets forum), so it's been doubly valuable.

Frank

[LOZ]

Just out of interest I tested my connection speed through tcp IQ no 1 is what I am paying for and no 2 is what I am getting .Question is am I been ripped off or is this expectable for $50 per month 512Kbits/sec - 431.94 KBits/sec = 80.06Kbits/sec ?
2/ Broadband Provider: Netspace
Technology: xDSL
Speed: 512Kbits/sec down, 128Kbits/sec up
Connection shared: No
Postcode / Zip Code: 02



2/ Download speed 431.94 KBits/sec
53.99 KBytes/sec 431.94 KBits/sec
53.99 KBytes/sec
Upload speed 111.48 KBits/sec
13.94 KBytes/sec 111.48 KBits/sec
13.94 KBytes/sec
DNS Speed 425.00 mSec 425.00 mSec
Latency 0.00 mSec 0.00 mSec

[bago100]

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts, experiences and discussion on this topic.
I have to go off now and digest your thoughts and do some research and then make a decision.
Cheers and thanks

Graham