[Natasha]

Hiya guys

Was just ondering if anyone could advise us on the internet in NZ. Alex and I use it quite alot for personal use. At the moment we have quite a good deal on broadband. We are under the impression that it is quite expensive in NZ for not such a good service, we may have this wrong however. It is really important to us that we have broadband. Please advise.

[Jenny & Mark]

One of the best internet service providers in NZ, is Orcon. http://www.orcon.net.nz/products/bitstream

I still use them for email and my website, despite the fact that I am now living in Canada. Their service is great. They're always friendly and helpful. They've grown from a small business into a large company based out of Auckland. Broadband is not as nice in NZ as it is elsewhere as it is capped, but Orcon's rates are comparable to other NZ ISP's. Prices start at NZ$29.95/month with additional costs depending on how much you upload/download each month (this sucks I know, but every company in NZ does it, so there's no getting out of it ... yet).

Other ISP's:
http://www.ihug.co.nz/
http://www2.paradise.net.nz/plans/highspeed.html Paradise
http://jetstream.xtra.co.nz/chm/0,,202853-1000,00.html Xtra


Jenny

[sarahw]

Hi,

Jenny & Mark have pretty much summed it up - main thing is there is no such thing as unlimited broadband..... yet.

We have 2 pc's generally on most of the time & we've only used up our allowance (for uploading a website to the internet with lots of data in it) on 2 months in 18 so I'd say the useage levels aren't bad. We pay around $30 with Xtra (Telecom) Jetstream broadband.

Service has been good, apart from the other week when the whole country went down for a few days! (but the same happened one night with Sky TV last month!)

There's quite a few providers out there, but I'd certainly go with one that has good levels of customer service.

[veronica]

always worth doing a forum search on topics like this as its been covered before. watch out with actual figures though as stuff like that is always changing. we are with telstra and a couple of months they upped our allowance for the same charge.

[montana]

Hi there. We got ours through Telecom and for the modem it was NZ $180 (for wireless) because they had a special on and we pay about NZ $90/mo for the connection.
Telecom is not that friendly and helpful but unfortunately there does not seem to be a great deal of competition.
Both the ethernet and the wireless connection seem to work well- wireless can be a little patchy occasionally.

[colindp]

It all depends on location, in the UK I had AOL's platinum service which was brilliant, However I live in rural splendour on the South Island and get squat but slow ole dial up. I have been told that cable broadband is not possible, I can not have wireless broadband as I do not have line of sight to a mast, I can not have satellite broadband because of the $1000 dollars for the equipment and the $100 per month subscription charge.

[sarahw]

Colin - there was a Campbell Live on this subject the other week & the fact that rural dwellers weren't getting the same service as townies. Telecom pledged on TV that they were going to be improving things soon. Fingers crossed their interpretation of soon is the same as ours!

[colindp]

Sarah,
I had seen that programe and several others discusing the issue of the lack of broadband for rural dwellers. However, I only live 7 km ouside of Dunedin and still cannot have a broadband connection??
As you say lets hope it will not be too long before that is corrected...

[sarahw]

7km outside a city - well that is positively rural isn't it?! (hee hee!) That is a bit backward of them isn't it not being able to get broadband to you - I could understand if you were in the middle of nowhere! Good luck!

[Smiler]

Colin

Have you spoken to Avalon? They are miles out in the boonies and recently achieved BB connection.

I know that Telecom quoted an astronomical price but they went with another company who were very realistic.