Wireless Broadband

[keeweegal]

How common is it in NZ? Having had it for a couple of years now, we're quite partial to it. As our "wireless box" was supplied by our provider, Orange (ex Wanadoo), it will only work on their network.

I wonder whether we should buy the wireless router/network thingy (you can see how clued up I am!) here as its probably cheaper or do we pay the extra in NZ but at least get something that's guaranteed to work?

Any ideas?

Thanks
Sal

[kokopeli]

Hi Sal,

We brought a BT Voyager hard-wired modem and a Netgear wireless modem from the UK. They both work fine in NZ, although we had to change the VOP settings. Dead easy to do and (despite all the negative publicity they've had) the Telecom help desk talked me through it. Interestingly, we don't need to use the IDSN filters (little white boxes) that we had to use in the UK.

I'd be interested to know why your Orange modem will only work with them. I suspect it's clever marketing more than a technical issue.......

[Taffy]

Just a note of caution, UK equipment is not approved for use on the NZ telecom system. Even though it's pretty much the same system, if anything in the area blows up and they find you using non-approved equipment, you're up for the whole repair bill.

Grab yourself a new unit here. They're not that expensive and it's better than getting in deep water!

KP, unless you've had a permanent splitter installed, you defo need to have those filters installed! It will work without the filters, but you'll get connection problems, and a crackly phone line if someones using the internet.

[MotherBear]

Originally Posted by Taffy

....... but you'll get connection problems, and a crackly phone line if someones using the internet.

Oh, don't I know it! We've tried to get a splitter here but, for some stupid reason, they're from the UK and not compatible. Either that or we've got a dicky line. If anyone rings me, the Internet goes off and I get terrible hissing at my end of the line. Luckily it's mainly hubster that rings, so all I need to do is say 'yes' and 'no' where I think appropriate because half the time I just can't hear him through all the noise.

[kokopeli]

Originally Posted by Taffy

UK equipment is not approved for use on the NZ telecom system.

That would be right eh!?!


If there ever were any problems......(hypothetically speakingof course).... two good defences would be:

1. You made it perfectly clear to the Telecom Help Desk that the modem was from the UK; and

2. They sell exactly the same model in Dick Smith.


At least that's what my lawyer said!

[Taffy]

I had a broadband filter when I first got here from the UK. Man oh man did the Telecom guy give me a roasting for using non-approved equipment! I told him it's the exact same system as BT uses, but he said it doesnt matter if it doesnt have the approval sticker on it!

Fussy bleeder.

[KiwiHopeful]

I just got my wireless network set up a couple of days ago, using the ADSL modem provided by iHug--it was free when we signed up--and my Linksys wireless router from home.

Everything works fine together.

For $30 at Dick Smiths I bought a new 12v adapter, allowing me to plug it right into the mains rather than into the stepdown transformer.

I don't know what equipment costs in the UK, but I paid about $50 for the router back in the US and a similar model here costs $150! For some reason, modems, routers, and cards all seem to be much more expensive here, unlike most other electronics.

[welwynrose]

what are the speeds like for the broadband in NZ - I'm use to 20mb broadband at home - can you get similar/better speeds out in NZ

[Ace]

I have a Linksys combo router / wireless access point from ihug, and I've been reasonably happy with it.

For away-from-home wireless, Vodafone also offers a modem that lets you connect over the cell phone network. It's not cheap, though. I had it for a short time, while waiting for my DSL to be installed, and was happy to let it go.

I get about 3 Mbps in Nelson. Not as good as a cable modem in California, but it's still pretty decent. The main thing I don't care for is that all of the ISPs have limits on your data use. After hitting the limit, they either charge you extra per GB of data downloaded, or they slow your connection down to a crawl.

Ihug definitely isn't perfect, but their pricing is a little better than Telecom's. They also offer a $10/month discount if you get your home phone through them along with an Internet connection.

[kokopeli]

Originally Posted by welwynrose

what are the speeds like for the broadband in NZ -

Telecom play silly games with download and upload speeds and data limits. Of course, it all depends on what you pay. You'd have to check with Telecom for exact details, but I think we pay something like $50 a month for a 6Gb data cap. We get decent download speed (most of the time), but can only upload at a maximum of 128kbps. We don't always get that though, so it gets painful when I have to send big files. If I go over the data cap, our connection defaults to dial-up speed. Now that IS painful.