FryUp: Going backwards
— Going backwards
— Yebbut why?
— Who blinked?
Going backwards
Having ADSL2+ from Orcon was great. Imagine getting 20Mbit/s downloads over a phone line. No, seriously — I escaped all the problems that plagued the launch of Orcon's @Home service, and had the DSL line humming along rather nicely in Freemans Bay.
Orcon deserved the pat on the back from Communications Minister Cunliffe at the recent TUANZ Telecommunications Day, in my opinion.
Now however I've returned to the wondrous North Shore, to a non-LLU area. Due to some mix-ups that weren't anyone in particular's fault, there's no DSL in the house yet. I'm not sure how well it'll work either, as I believe the part I'm in is serviced via roadside cabinets. Here's hoping it won't be the ones with a meagre 2Mbit/s backhaul shared with all other customers.
Meanwhile, Vodafone's HSDPA worked really well at my place. Got full strength, which meant around 2.5Mbit/s downloads and the ususal 384kbit/s uploads. Telecom's T3G EV-DO Rev A doesn't seem to cover our house though, unusually enough, and only finds CDMA 1xRTT to lock onto. A couple of days ago though, something happened... now I'm lucky to get one bar of HSDPA and 120kbit/s downloads. The modem drops down to GPRS much of the time, and that particular connection alternative is painfully slow to use for anything beyond simple emailing.
I'm not sure what's going on with the 3G connections, but suspect the nearby roadworks are to blame. I'm guessing some access points have either been turned off or relocated.
I can see the magic black band on the Sky Tower, so maybe it's time to go back to wireless? I think Compass still has the Wired Country service running; it was very good and stable once the initial network issues had been ironed out, and I was quite happy with it. It's maxes out at 2Mbit/s down and 1Mbit/s up though, and it'd be nice to have something quicker in 2008.
A WiMax connection could be a faster alternative, but don't think anyone's beaming a signal towards the Shore, unfortunately.
Connection suggestions would be very welcome.