[benandclare]

Had a bit of bad news yesterday in that we cant have Broadband at our new house because there are no free ports at the exchange, so we are now on the port waiting list :wah Could be dead man's shoes.............

Any body else been on the waiting list?

[ellenmelon]

After being on dial up for a day yesterday (as we had gone over our cap), I feel your pain a little. I hope you get a spot soon!

[andrewp]

What about Telecom 3G? I've been using our work modem for the last few days while we got broadband setup at our new house. I was impressed with the performance. It will probably get worse as more people switch to 3G but it's great at the moment.

[bob_the_engineer]

You know something, I don’t understand why this happens. Anyone interested in this, then post here, maybe it will motivate me to do the work.

I put a prototype line of sight 100Mbs link together on the bench years ago, just for fun. I’m sure I could do a Gbs link without too much trouble. It’s not difficult.

If you can see a building with a broadband link, 10 Mbs, 100Mbs ethernet link, or even a Gbs link then I could connect you to it for a hardware cost of a few hundred $. This would be a 1 off cost for connecting to an ISP, then your ISP would charge the “normal fee” I guess it’s a bit like buying a special modem.

I could also hop, i.e if your friend can see the building but you can’t, I could connect him/her and if you could see your friend (even if you need a telescope, and have to stand on the roof to do it) I could connect you too.

I could easily connect buildings together at 100Mbs and probably connect them at 1Gbs without much trouble. That would let you share an Internet connection with a neighbour.

Is there a market for this? Post on here if there is a good response I’ll look into ISP access and get to work.

You never know, perhaps I’ll make a few quid eh it would make a change if the engineer ended up with some cash in his/her pocket, lol engineers are notoriously bad businessmen/women , that’s why we are all poor lol.

Bob

[Kanga]

Bob, I suspect there's money to be made there. Like SERIOUS money.

We were lucky that we were close to the primary school so had faster broadband than in town. Have bookmarked this thread- might be calling on you in the future Bob ;)

[Sam B]

Ben and Clare, my partner has gone to bed so I won't sound very technical and might be talking rubbish, but we live in the middle of nowhere and we get our broadband through Rural link. It's a wireless broadband service - I think that means we receive a wireless signal from a transmitter on a mountain on the Kaimais. It's not even THAT expensive and we get 10gb downloading a month, which is a whole lot better than we ever dreamed of.

[BkyMonster]

Sound like that you are talking about is similar to this Bob?
http://www.scorch.co.nz/

OH used to work in a similar industry before we decided that telecoms were too volatile long term and he swapped to programming.

[janrzm]

We're not rural & not in your area but when we moved into our new rental we were all set up to connect get the broadband connected , to then be told 'there are no free ports on the exchange' !!
Huge issue for us as OH works from home , he had to go out a blag himself a desk in a very kind ladies office.

But anyway the good news was that 2 weeks later we got a call from Telecom to say that we were going to be connected the next day - and we were!

Frustratingly though at the outset they had no idea how long the waiting list was!!

[benandclare]

Ben and Clare, my partner has gone to bed so I won't sound very technical and might be talking rubbish, but we live in the middle of nowhere and we get our broadband through Rural link. It's a wireless broadband service - I think that means we receive a wireless signal from a transmitter on a mountain on the Kaimais. It's not even THAT expensive and we get 10gb downloading a month, which is a whole lot better than we ever dreamed of.

Cheers Sam will have a look into that :nice1

[benandclare]

You know something, I don’t understand why this happens. Anyone interested in this, then post here, maybe it will motivate me to do the work.

I put a prototype line of sight 100Mbs link together on the bench years ago, just for fun. I’m sure I could do a Gbs link without too much trouble. It’s not difficult.

If you can see a building with a broadband link, 10 Mbs, 100Mbs ethernet link, or even a Gbs link then I could connect you to it for a hardware cost of a few hundred $. This would be a 1 off cost for connecting to an ISP, then your ISP would charge the “normal fee” I guess it’s a bit like buying a special modem.

I could also hop, i.e if your friend can see the building but you can’t, I could connect him/her and if you could see your friend (even if you need a telescope, and have to stand on the roof to do it) I could connect you too.

I could easily connect buildings together at 100Mbs and probably connect them at 1Gbs without much trouble. That would let you share an Internet connection with a neighbour.

Is there a market for this? Post on here if there is a good response I’ll look into ISP access and get to work.

You never know, perhaps I’ll make a few quid eh it would make a change if the engineer ended up with some cash in his/her pocket, lol engineers are notoriously bad businessmen/women , that’s why we are all poor lol.

Bob


We're moving into our soon to be neighbours in 2 weeks and will able to connect into their internet wirelessly, whilst staying in their flat. Not sure how they would feel about us using this long term, will mention it to them.

Congratulations on those who've been up graded recently :cheers

[Bobbysox]

We found ourselves in the same position, Telecom stated we would have to wait till someone moved out of the area to free up a connection, it took 3 months. Good luck.

[benandclare]

Spoke to our provider yesterday and we're 5th on the waiting list and the number one waiter has been waiting 139 days :wah

[petri]

Spoke to our provider yesterday and we're 5th on the waiting list and the number one waiter has been waiting 139 days :wah

One could assume it would make economically sense to add a new small dslam or interface card to accomodate the half a dozen new customers..

[benandclare]

One could assume it would make economically sense to add a new small dslam or interface card to accomodate the half a dozen new customers..

Any ideas how much they cost?

[A&G]

Hi

Have you tried www.farmside.co.nz ?

[benandclare]

Hi

Have you tried www.farmside.co.nz ?

Aye had a look at them but feel too much money for too little data. Have heard not that a brilliant signal too.

Our fav to tide us over till the ports become available is Orcon. Set up price is steep but they all are but the speeds and data package would suit us.

[petri]

Any ideas how much they cost?

I'm not familiar with Telecom NZ's vendor of choice, it might be some big player with less suitable / more expensive options but in theory they might have some older DSLAM's available from the city areas, where they are upgrading to ADSL2(+) capable units.

An 8-port mini DSLAM can be bought for a bit over 500 USD but with a traditional telco all the questions of provision, how it fits their network infrastructure, regulation to offer the pipe for other providers etc. rise.

Perhaps it's just my business part of brain that doesn't buy the "we're full, please wait" argument ;-)

[Tomsk]

When we moved into our house we got the same story, not enough ports available, had to onto a waiting list & were incredibly frustrated by the delay & complete lack of information. We did research a rural provider, I forget their name now, but overall they were expensive & kept breaking appts or not turning up to assess our suitability, so we got quickly very disenchanted with them. Then we got a flyer with our electricity bill (Trustpower)...they were offerring broadband services at a very competitive price. Rang up TP, got broadband in 3 days, apparently using Telecom lines, at a fraction of the price that Telecom wanted. Still don't quite know how that happened, I guess we just got lucky, but it might be worth looking at power suppliers in the area. Someone told me (I don't know who or how accurate they were) that Telecom's stranglehold on domestic phone services was being challenged & that they had to give up a % of their lines to competitors wanting to provide telecomms services.

[nellyt]

You'll probably find piggy-backing or sharing some else's connection breaks their contract.
I'm assuming we will be too far out to get DSL and will have to use satellite. Sorting out the kit to then share this with the collection of houses in the area seems a great idea until you read the small print of the contract which all seem to say one dish-one house.....so yes, great idea Bob, but you'll be doing the providers out of $ and they will not be happy if they find out.

I've been trying to find out if there is a DSLAM near us but am yet to find anyone at Telecom who is willing/able to help. All they can say is whats your telephone number. Thats difficult when its a coil of wire in an empty field.
If you have a contact at Telecom you're able to share Ben, then please PM as we're only a few km down the road.

[benandclare]

If you have a contact at Telecom you're able to share Ben, then please PM as we're only a few km down the road.


Not got anyone at Telecom in particular but the guy from Chorus who installed our phone might know.I'll have a dig through my mobile and see if I can find his number for you. Suspect you may come under the Oxford exchange as it's changes about 400m down the road from us

[benandclare]

Ok update time.

Spoke to Telstra yesterday and still over 180 days for longest waiter on port waiting list and we're still number 5.

So phoned up Scorch at 3.30 pm and by 4.30pm today had broadband with speeds of 512 and 256 with 5gb per month for $80 ish a month.

So a big thumbs up to the Scorch guys :nice1:nice1

[KelvinAng]

Welcome back to civilisation :D

I wondered if I will ever be able to move out of the city... I'm on the net just about every minute of my waking hours (working in this industry doesn't help, either!).

[Duncan74]

I wondered if I will ever be able to move out of the city... I'm on the net just about every minute of my waking hours (working in this industry doesn't help, either!).

I'm hoping that will be a major plus, slow or unreliable internet to reduce the amount of time spent online.... Actually, the capped expensive data charges are possibly best, there when you need it, discourages aimless browsing...

[Sam B]

Well we live miles from anywhere, and our internet (wireless broadband from Rural link) is fast enough and very reliable. I live on the internet, and my partner relies on it, so it's great that we can live here and still get it. At a price.