Hi all,
I'm wanting to connect NBN for my parents in Surrey Hills, Vic. We're looking for a 100/40 with unlimited data as they stream a lot. Netflix, youtube simultaneously.
There's A LOT of new providers out there but really we want a reliable service with consistent speeds. Happy to pay around $100/month, and prefer a package where a modem is provided (so parents don't have to muck around with settings etc if possible).
Any thoughts or suggestions?
TIA
Cool, reliable? I read news reports that some people are struggling with service.?
Stay away from that mob, their customer service is terrible. Also, when you call them there's a bunch of myrepublic ads voiced by this guy who raises the tone of his voice at the end of each sentence. That is the worst part about them.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2600082
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2588685
People seem pretty happy, but not for fixed wireless if anyone can help me out with that..
Are exetel available? If so I recommend for nbn 100% as well as the fact they're pretty cheap
yes, we currently use exetel for ADSL2+. slow speeds, must be an exchange distance thing.
Yeah exeter adsl sucked I had it, nbn with them is supposed to be their main product & from what I've heard its pretty decent idk
Nooooo….stay away from them if you're on NBN or any Fibre Optic network. I've used them 3 years ago and I was getting only 30-40 Mb during peak hours on a 100Mb connection my ping was really high.
I don't think its available in that area yet. Says it is under construction at the moment. Can you get Cable in the meantime?
Our address says its ready and to contact an ISP for connection. They have a connection box from street to house install already.
I have NBN fibre into the home and I use www.belong.com.au which seems to meet your requirements. Their speed tests are always up to the mark at around 98 / 38 megabits / sec. Also I downloaded a little over 8G bytes from Microsoft a couple of days back and it averaged about 94 megabits per second. That was in the peak afternoon period. Only 10 years back it was hard to imagine speeds like this. It used to take me all day to download an MS Windows ISO file.
However, at the end of the month I am downgrading back to 25 / 5 because I have a limited budget and I don't want to pay the extra cost for the extra speed which has little use for me. The extra speed was a 3 month free promo. Who cares if my download takes an hour instead of 15 minutes?
Other small pluses for Belong; a 24/7 helpdesk in OZ and billing is at the first of the month. If you have a connection at the first of the month you pay the money. If you get connected during the month then you get a freebie until the first of next month.
Negatives; the supplied modem / router is crap but is required on the line for troubleshooting if you want their help. I use my own.
How are peak time speeds on belong - 5pm- 10pm?
Read my first paragraph. That download was about 6:00pm. Also I never know when is the afternoon / evening peak. I see no effect on my speeds.
Interesting fact about fibre to the home. You get 4 digital channels and these can be connected to unrelated ISPs. Last time I changed ISPs I had a connection up and running to the new one before I cancelled the old one.
Aussie Broadband have been pretty decent for me.
And being in Vic, you're more likely to be on-net (rather than off-net on their currently resold Optus service - note that they are expanding their bakhaul network to all 121 NBN POI's this year).
Good mix of local support, decent service and price.
Lately Aussie Broaband has had terrible speed in regards to youtube https://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/
Apart from Telstra, Optus and TPG (who ownes iinet,internode and westnet) I would go with telecube, skymesh or tangerine.
Can't even see ABB listed… but any report that lists Dodo as a good provider is questionable at best.
Some off-net areas are currently experiencing backhaul congestion.. according to Whirlpool.
But my (off-net) connection has never been better, I actually only just paid to upgrade my plan for next month as a result.
ABB also acknowledge that there is a problem and say that they are doing something to fix it by rolling out their own backhaul.
They've already listed the next 50 odd POI's to be connected in the coming month and have only recently
Doesn't help those few in the currently congested areas, but overall, it's another excellent sign from an ISP that is bristling with good signs and has a track record of following through on its promises.
Im on net FTTP (Brownfields). ABB is known as Wideband here. Aussie Broadband was great when I had them initially put they have slowly dwindled. This is reflected on any review page. I can give two hoots about their backhaul claims. That doesnt promise me a fix.
To your dodo questioning; it can simply be the routing they employ. If you look at the standard chart (click + mmore) you'll see the same provider listed twice. Maybe its a different tier product or using telstra vs optus. What I can tell you is that a firend in the same vicinity with thornburry as their poi on optus isnt experiencing the same issue. This goes inline with the quality report presented by google. Also if you would go to AussieBroadbands recent thread on whirlpool you'll see others repeat the same sentiments ergo only youtube having issues.
@Hahuh:
Different POI's, different experience, welcome to the NBN…
You're on-net with Youtube issues, I'm off-net with none! Same ISP, different POI's.
I chose ABB cause;
1) No "Unlimited" Plans - first warning sign of NBN congestion in my mind (the maths just doesn't stack up to offer Unlimited without oversubscribing CVC)
2) No contract
3) Decent price
4) Local Support
5) Static IP
6) Skymesh didn't service my POI
So far, over 9 months, their support has been excellent (had major NBN issues getting set up), I've had 1 IP address change due to a backhaul/routing fix that solved my Christmas congestion issues, barely get over 300Gb of my 500Gb limit - so I'm essentially Unlimited anyway.
If/when I experience further and ongoing, unresolved issues, I'll look around at my options (likely really only Skymesh or Nuskope) and make the jump, that's why I went on a no-contract plan… I knew that no NBN ISP could be relied upon in these early days of growth to be consistently good.
To my Dodo questioning - If Dodo are gaming the system and ABB are not gaming the system who is the better ISP?
Factoring into account Dodo's ongoing absolute horror stories (and yes I have personal experience from their early days)
@scubacoles: I was doing backflips and handstands when we were at our 9 month love affair. The relationship has hit a snag after the initial honeymoon period. And Im not buying into this poi issue. Others with different isps havent had an issue. Let me reiterate. Its ONLY youtube.
PS: I can give two rats asses (yes two) about dodo and their customers. The isps Ive outlines above are better in the interim.
I don't see the YouTube issues, I don't see the laggy DNS issues that have also been raised, so I guess I'm still, or at least back in the honeymoon camp. I'm still looking forward to getting on-net, if only so it eliminates blaming Optus for any future issues!
You're already on-Net, so they can't even blame Optus for your problems, if you're not seeing a resolution, then move!
I'd do the same and have said as much.
Just don't make the change and lock yourself into a contract in doing so, cause performance this month (or on some metric that can and will be gamed) is not a reliable guide to performance next month and that cuts both ways whether you have good service now or bad service now! It's the same across all NBN ISP's, if you don't get a result, move on to the next provider.
Skymesh always had a good reputation and (at least used to) have a price match clause, so you could potentially even move to them with no change to the bottom line!
Telecube look "interesting" - their website doesn't (or at least didn't) inspire much confidence though - I did look at them back in the day, just seemed a bit too much of a tin shed operation to me..
One of my mates is on Tangerine and seems to have massive congestion.. YMMV.
You're also in the lucky position where you can even test the service before you commit to cancel ABB! Sadly I'm on the povvo NBN - FttN, maxing out at 49mbps (thanks Liberal voters) and if I want to switch will have to live with the downtime.
@scubacoles: true. I'm going to give them another month or so then start looking elsewhere. It's just frustrating that downloads are top notch but the streaming of YouTube ( the only thing I predominantly watch) is taken away from me.
Edit: in regards to telecube 100% agree it's like nbnsp. Total tinshed. I mean even googling the name brings a picture of a man holding a chop stick. Maybe the CEO?
It occurred to me over the weekend that one thing in my setup that might be assisting my Youtube performance is that I have the DNS manually set and have ABB's "Secondary DNS", 202.142.142.242, as my Primary and their "Primary DNS", 202.142.142.142, as my Secondary..
I figure I may as well hit the DNS server that fewer people are hitting and maybe my theory is showing results?
I've had that setup with my ISP's ever since buying Getflix and manually setting the DNS to Getflix made me think, "wow, Getflix DNS is quite laggy, I wonder if changing the order will improve things?"
I'm not sure that I did see any improvement, but I've kept to that theory ever since.
I now have DNSmasq rules in my router to only reference Getflix DNS for sites that need Getflix access and everything else going through my ISP DNS.
Pretty confident that DNSmasq is working correctly since anything going through Getflix is still a bit laggy, but everything else is snappier.
Worth a crack anyway…
Do you have any guides or pointers for setting up DNSmasq for Getflix? Reading your post gave me a sudden realization that I might have the same issues (and it'd just be nice to know all my traffic isn't routed by Getflix). I've got an Asus AC68U with Merlin which should support DNSmasq.
I was testing with the Optus DNS but didn't really notice. I'll see if it improves. Maybe somehow the routing would point me to a better YouTube server
It was a long shot..
Most reliable Telco I've ever dealt with was Internode. Been with them for 3 years, no issues at all. Never had to call customer service (after signing up), it just worked well. No dropouts, no speed issues.
I paid for 50/20 NBN and top speed was always between 43 and 49. Never seen any lower than that on a speed test.
MyRepublic of course