Anyone have a broadband contract?

Sniipe

I was looking to get Broadband for my sister - its crazy expensive in Sydney. Just wondering if any of you have broadband over there and what's good.

Anyway its for video skyping home to Ireland.

There is an ADSL 2+ plan from 'Yes' Optus listed here:http://broadbandguide.com.au/sydney

I can't believe the startup costs run from 200 to 2000...

woolymammoth

http://bc.whirlpool.net.au/

I fine some of the options available here can be a little confusing at first. But if you give yourself a chance to read into it, it's not so bad. Most ISPs here tend to sell you a download quota and connection type. You'll not often see an advert that says "2/4/8/12MB Broadband!" It's normally "ADSL2+, with 10 gig download quota and speeds up to..." if you know what i mean.

The incumbent Eircon equivalent here is Telstra (Big Pond). I would recommend avoiding them. I'm with an ISP called Internode, and I have to say they have their sh.t together. Almost everything is automated with them, from subscription to billing to whatever, and it runs smoothly and on time every time we dealt with them.

Just did a speed test from South Australia to Dublin, we have ADSL2+, and got a pretty good result there, + 10 Gig download for $60 p/m. Startup cost is usually to get connected, different companies will waive them depending on the package.. you know yourself. Check out that whirlpool link and do a comparison anyways. From what i've read iNet are good too.

Anto.

[edit]
forgot to mention, I do use skype and google for voice and video chat to ireland. It works good only that my dad has one of those ****ing 3 mobile broadband things in cavan of all places. So i usually get nothing for a minute, then a minutes worth of converstaion in 6 seconds! Terrible altogether. Also, get naked broadband if you can!

Sniipe

cheers for the info and for the Edit entry

Ok, I'll let my little sister know to get the naked broadband. So have you video skype'd ireland perfectly?

I only ask because she is in a hotel now and we have perfect quality with little to no latency and we are looking for similar... she has 2 month old so its really her we are looking at and not my sis

I'd imagine that 3 mobile isn't great in rural areas.

I notice that your current ping is 724... I will get her to ping Ireland from her hotel tonight to see how that compares. (interestingly I did it on our work internet - http://www.speedtest.net/result/701883758.png - probably not good enough; I must get onto them and change it from digiweb's 2mb up and 2mb down 1:1 contention)

woolymammoth

Sniipe wrote: »

I notice that your current ping is 724... I will get her to ping Ireland from her hotel tonight to see how that compares.

well now Sydney is a bit closer to teh interwebs than I am! :pac: So you should get better ping times.

Yes, I've had perfect video chat on skype and google. It just hickups on my dads end more often than not.

I should've said it's Naked DSL. Not that that makes any difference to us, but for anyone who doesn't know, well, just call it Naked DSL. It works out cheaper since you cut out the telephone element and the line rental.

Incidentally, your post made me look up my own account and I found out that internode recently restructured their plans, and I can get double the download quota for the same price happy days!

Sniipe

wooly you are a mammoth of information, thanks again.

I noticed from your whirlpool (fridge company?) link that internode's easy broadband bundle is the consumers choice and that iinet's naked home 3 bundle is [edit]9th[/edit]?

I see your in Adelaide; so I pinged it and got similar ping results - from work's stupid connection

woolymammoth

Sniipe wrote: »

I noticed from your whirlpool (fridge company?)

I thought so too first time i saw it. But alas, 'tis not!

As Dilbert would say, accurate numbers aren't any more useful than the ones you make up. The forum shows that for ISP popularity at #4 we have incumbent Telstra Big Pond. That is only a stat that is true in exactly the same way there are a lot of people in Ireland with eircom. The house i'm in now, they had "broadband" with telstra, getting an abysmal <30k download MAX, paying line rental + phone and it was costing almost $100 p/m.

Like i said before, the plans here (in Oz) are a bit different, and focus more on bandwidth quota. Therefore, some plans will be a lot more popular than others depending on what people wanna download. So I wouldn't take as much note of a plans popularity as I would of a Companys popularity.

Just to point out the variety of plans and their popularity or lack thereof, here is some of what i mentioned previously about why my quota is now going up over 80 broadband plans being cut!

If you're really curious, check out this visual trace route, and see how you're connecting from Dublin to Sydney.

Sniipe

Thanks Wooly, DODO's NAKED ADSL2+ Bronze is what she is going for which is $40 and then €10 for the mobile which they make you take. Thanks for all your advice.

Its a 5gb cap tho (with an extra 5gb off peak), I guess she will have to to bump up to the next option with all the skype video calls she makes. (estimate about 600mb per skype video call per hour)

The next option is 10gb with 100gb off peak extra for an extra €10

woolymammoth

Sniipe wrote: »

Thanks Wooly, DODO's NAKED ADSL2+ Bronze is what she is going for which is $40 and then €10 for the mobile which they make you take. Thanks for all your advice.

Its a 5gb cap tho (with an extra 5gb off peak), I guess she will have to to bump up to the next option with all the skype video calls she makes. (estimate about 600mb per skype video call per hour)

The next option is 10gb with 100gb off peak extra for an extra €10

Man that doesn't sound right that they make you take a mobile. So she'll paying $40pm + $10 for a phone she probably won't use, +$x if she does, and a conditional 10gig cap that means she might never be able to use! Did you do a full search to see if there are better deals? Sorry don't mean to sound like a d.ck, I mean i don't know where she lives but i'm sure there's still a better deal to be had. I could be wrong though.