Rural broadband suppliers

Rural broadband suppliers

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Discussion

Richard Gee

Original Poster:

201 posts

214 months

Wednesday 25th October 2006
quotequote all
Have had no joy with Xtra as our new place is more than 5km away from the Exchange. I am currently talking to a company called Farmside. Does anyone know of any others I could ask about rural broadband, which I think will be satellite delivered?

Thanks all,

Richard

kylie

4,391 posts

258 months

Wednesday 25th October 2006
quotequote all
You could try "Woosh", otherwise keep trying different people at Xtra. When we shifted house over a year ago we were on Xtra Jetstream and wanted to transfer our connections to the suburb we are now in. They said it didn't reach that neighbourhood so we went to woosh. I later found out after meeting the neighbour that they were on Jetstream and they wondered what the fuss was about rolleyes So we were given the run around big time.

You could try door knocking your neighbours and see what they are on and the person who hooked them up (most important). This is what I am going to do next time if we ever have any trouble. Woosh not as fast as Xtra, but found its perfect for our needs as we dont download heaps of stuff anyway

Richard Gee

Original Poster:

201 posts

214 months

Wednesday 25th October 2006
quotequote all
No joy with Woosh Kylie - just tried them and they said that if Telecom don't provide broadband through the line, they can't. :-(

So, looking like what the best satellite delivered service through this Ipstar satellite thing is. Anyone got any knowledge?

Kiwi XTR2

2,693 posts

233 months

Wednesday 25th October 2006
quotequote all
You could try asking the economic development dept at the local Council.

A number of Council's have taken up the issue on behalf of their constituents. So they may (or may not) know what's your best option.

Esprit

6,370 posts

284 months

Wednesday 25th October 2006
quotequote all
Welcome to the third world.... :|

Richard Gee

Original Poster:

201 posts

214 months

Wednesday 25th October 2006
quotequote all
It aint so bad!! :-)

Nobody can do an ADSL or a radio/wireless service there. Basically all of the satellite delivered stuff in NZ comes via the Ipstar satellite and there are about five resellers offering various packages based on that satellite. The best deal is from a small company called Wireless Nation - 2mb download, 1mb upload and 10gig of data per month. All the resellers have a one off set up charge of about $499 but I guess there is no way around that :-( and I do need it for working and more importantly, posting on forums :-) Once I'd gotten over the set up charge, the monthly charge of $119 compares very well indeed with the other providers using Ipstar. Farmside do 5gig of data at 512kb download for $150 per month and the same set up charge, Iconz answered the phone and couldn't hear me so I thought I'd pass on them, Snap didn't answer the phone at all and Natcom offered the same speed as Wireless Nation, but only offered 3gig and were $179.Orcon were $300 per month for 1gig of data and 2mb/1mb speed!! Plus they wanted a three year contract or me to buy the kit at $1900!!!!

I think Wireless Nation are a small company, but there were no spelling mistakes on their web site or on their email to me earlier today. A big plus for me! Plus they only tie you in for 12 months.

So, Ipstar and Wireless Nation it is!

Famous last words....:-)

Funny though, apparently the Xtra connection I'm on is supposed to be pretty fast, but when I'm downloading pictures, 2mb takes about 3 or 4 minutes - ie SLOW!! Does download at 2mb/s theoretically mean that the same process should take one second on satellite? I wish I knew enough about IT to understand all of the gobbledegook!!! At least a big digger isn't going to crash through the satellite whilst digging roads though!

Esprit

6,370 posts

284 months

Wednesday 25th October 2006
quotequote all
Remember the difference between bits and bytes... at 2Mb/s, a 2MB pic should take about 8 seconds

Richard Gee

Original Poster:

201 posts

214 months

Wednesday 25th October 2006
quotequote all
Xtra broadband is absolute pants here then!!!

Izza

571 posts

277 months

Thursday 26th October 2006
quotequote all
I'm in the same boat. Too far from exchange. They could put a "cabinet" in, but due to population density (lack thereof) is wouldnt be econmic blah, blah, blah.

fckers.

I looked at Farmside but they changed their pricing recently so that Wireless and Satelite are the same price. Wireless used to be 2/3 the price of Satelite.
Other option is cellphone modem thru Telecom or Vodaphone.
But they are $90 per month for 1gb traffic.

Oh well, getting good speed on the dial-up atm, it aint so bad, just stay away from flash etc heavy sites.
At least I've got b/band at work.

Esprit

6,370 posts

284 months

Thursday 26th October 2006
quotequote all
Izza, just convince work you neeed broadband at home and get 'em to pay for it :P

Izza

571 posts

277 months

Thursday 26th October 2006
quotequote all
Telecom need to upgrade the lines from copper!

Who was the twit that sold all our state assets again?

That wouldnt wash with work, I work in local government remember?
Tighter than a nuns....
and they've given us laptops with cell-modems for that.
Funny thing is their slower than dial-up cause of all the stupid servers, firewalls etc.

GravelBen

15,698 posts

231 months

Thursday 26th October 2006
quotequote all
Izza said:

That wouldnt wash with work, I work in local government remember?
Tighter than a nuns....



Timaru District Council? or Ecan? Spent summer of 04-05 working at the TDC, management were stingy as hell but never made anyone work efficiently, I remember it being policy to come back to the offices for lunch, even if we were working half an hour away.

Kiwi XTR2

2,693 posts

233 months

Thursday 26th October 2006
quotequote all
GravelBen said:
Izza said:

That wouldnt wash with work, I work in local government remember?
Tighter than a nuns....



Timaru District Council? or Ecan? Spent summer of 04-05 working at the TDC, management were stingy as hell but never made anyone work efficiently, I remember it being policy to come back to the offices for lunch, even if we were working half an hour away.

Must be a South Island thing :jafa: nuts