Installed Broadband!

We have Telecon Wireless broadband installed.

I don't like the fact that once the 1GB has run out I go back to dial-up, this 1GB that we were told was HUGE and would be more than enough for what we want, well apparently it seems it's not!

What I want to know is, can the existing equipment installed be used for other providers?
The box on the windowsill is a D-Link wireless ADSL Router, I've seen these in Dick Smiths!

Hi MM,

Let me explain a few things here:

1) You don't actually have "Wireless Broadband". This would mean that your connection to the internet is without wires whereas in fact, your connection is via the phone line (using ADSL).

2) What you do have is a "Wireless Router" which enables you to surf anywhere in the house. This is what the D-Link Wireless ADSL Router does for you.

OK, now that we've got that out of the way, the answer is YES, you can use your equipment with any other ADSL provider in NZ. Here is my recommended provider XNET who will do the best possible price deal for you along with the best Help Desk of any ISP I have ever dealt with:

www.xnet.co.nz/hsi/index.shtml

For your situation, I would go for the middle option: RIVER.

It will give you the best possible download speed, and the price is only $7 more than their entry-level STREAM plan.

Then I would recommend you go with the UNLIMITED DATA USAGE option. This will avoid the situation you are in now i.e. being throttled back to dial-up speed. The way this works is as follows:

You pay $1 per GB over and above the monthly subscription. So if you use 5GB, you pay $5, total for the month $38.95 which I'm sure you will agree is very reasonable.

You can sign up on-line and I would expect it to take just a day or two to get things rolling.

We have been an XNET customer for almost 2 years now and in my experience they are the best ISP we have ever tried from the following list:

Voyager
New Net
Clear Net
IHUG
Compass
World-Net
Xtra
Paradise Net
Orcon
ICONZ

XNET are owned by WorldxChange who can also do some great prices for your toll calls.

Let me know how it goes.

Cheers,
Grant.

mm what do you use your internet connection for? Unless you are always downloading music files, I would be surprised if you really did need more that 1GB. Even when we had broadband and OH downloaded msuic all the time, we still never exceeded 1GB

Hi Moggy,

We have 3 kids at home and Inger uses quite a lot of data with LSB, Photobucket etc and our usage is always close to 10GB for the month. It doesn't take much to burn through it, especially if your kids are into gaming...

I think gaming would probably be the culprit in your case Grant, LSB doesn't transfer much data as it is text based and only if you were uploading hundreds of photos to photobucket would that be a problem (especially not if you resize them first for us poor people on 31K dialup)

Oh Grant I luv you! If yer weren't married already!!!! There'd be plenty of room in the barn for ya!! Thnaks for explaining the broadband/wireles thingy, I did wonder why it came through the phone line!!:0

Moggy, I suppose I have uploaded a fair amount of photos online and Mini-dweller downloads music etc so I expect we go thro it because of that. But I still thought we'd get more for our money.

Ok so I'll have a word with Barndweller and look into changing it over and give XNET a try, your recommendation is enough for me Grant!

Grant I might do it when you come up that weekend and you can talk me through it, if you don't mind, I never understand half of the instructions anyway!!

Cheers for the kind words MM []

OK, we'll get it sorted in a couple of weeks when we come for a visit. Sounds like a plan! [8D]

Sooper Dooper!

MM, I'm an IT smarta** who has done lots of installations of ADSL for friends and neighbours, including getting the wireless working around the home and barn. If you need local help, just yell.

Just be careful with some deals of installing broadband, where they sign you up for free this and free that, but lock you into 12 months of usage to pay for it. Some won't let you slide to some other ISP without painful payment.

I visited a friend to fix his kitchen lights, and noticed they had a new ADSL modem on the floor, not installed. Seems they had battled with an XTRA tech for hours, trying to get it going, who finally concluded the modem was faulty and sent them another. I got the original going in 6 minutes, they now have a spare. Seems the tech didn't understand what this Windows ME was.

Thanks for that wyseyes! I don't usually swap and change around but I'm just frustrated with Telecon and I think they cost too much for what they offer. As long as the new provider gives me what I want for a good price then I don't really care about being locked in for a year.

quote:Originally posted by maggies mum
As long as the new provider gives me what I want for a good price then I don't really care about being locked in for a year.

Don't worry MM

I just checked with WorldxChange's Operations Manager and this is what he said in response to my question:

Does WxC's policy of "No Minimum Term Contract / No Termination Fee" still apply to XNET signups?

Yes it does no change there.

So:

1) It won't cost you anything to join (takes about 2 weeks on average for the changeover to take effect).

2) You can leave at any time if you want with no charge to do so.

3) You don't need to notify Telecom about changing providers. In fact WorldxChange say it's best if you don't because this can slow the process down.

4) WorldxChange will handle the entire process for you.

5) You can keep your existing XTRA e-mail address by paying Telecom $3 per month (billed to your phone account).

6) I can set up forwarding from your existing e-mail address to your new one, which can remain in place as long as you wish.

Howzat?

I think all contingencies are covered now.

Cheers,
Grant.

If you download updates to Windows, Office, Norton ..... it is amazing how quickly 1Gb disappears.

Reckon thats what is doing it GBP all those automatic updates

Thanks for finding all that out for me Grant. I did e-mail telecom and they said the new provider usually changes it all over, but 2 wks! how can that be?? Why so long?? And I will keep my e-mail addie cant be bothered to change all that as well

As you can understand, Telecom don't exactly fall over themselves to let customers go to another provider...

However, 2 weeks is longer than it usually takes, they are just covering themselves here.

I just checked again and 2 weeks is the time for new installations I think. I will ask the Operations Manager how long it usually takes when changing from another provider.

Catch ya later...