Wow! The internet works

January 10, 2012 by
Filed under: Cost of living, Hubby's Views, Only in New Zealand 

It’s been an interesting experience dealing with different internet service providers here in Wellington.  Capital city, you’d think you could get a decent internet connection.  We’ll skip the whole two pieces of wet string connecting  NZ to the rest of the world, and Ultra Fast Broadband that the Govt is pumping Billions of Dollars into – ultra fast to where?  Jeez, I’d go for an internet connection that doesn’t need resetting multiple times a day.

So it was with some trepidation that we decided to watch X-Men: First Class through iSky.  This is the Sky thingy that allows you to watch movies and other box office stuff, through your internet connection.  In this enlightened age, our ISP wont even charge us for the data downloaded, it’s gratis!!

Now, normally if we try watching a few minutes of something on YouTube (not breaching any copyright there naturally), we have to let the video stream down and then watch it.  Rather than watch it there and then. It’s an inconvenience, but ho hum. You can hear the cogs whirring.

Two hours of a movie via the internet??  It seemed to be asking a bit much. Hamsters can’t run that fast!

So it was with some incredulity and surprise that we watched the whole thing, with some pauses for a coffee break, without a hitch.  No pausing, no buffering, no glitches, no having to refresh the browser etc.  While the download clearly didn’t like fast on screen action, with the picture jumping around a bit, it still worked.

Which got me thinking. Clearly it’s possible to provide a decent internet service capable of delivering 2Gb+ of data within two hours.  So why did it take me over eight hours the other week to upload 3Gb of data?  Why can’t the internet  service be this reliable the rest of the time?  We’re already paying for the internet connection, why is it we have to pay for extra content before we get a decent service?

Or perhaps it’s that the internet is being swamped by so many people watching (paid for and copyright respected) content, that the rest of us plebs have to make do with the left over bit of wet string.

And oh the irony.  We finished watching the movie, went to check email, and the connection died.

 

Time for another reset.  Should have kept the movie streaming…

Related posts:

  1. Why the Internet costs so much.
  2. Crap internet in the city – again.
  3. @StephenFry – loves the coffee, hates the internet.
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Comments

5 Comments on Wow! The internet works

  1. Fran on Tue, 10th Jan 2012 5:45 pm

    2. Which ISP provider are you using? Telestra Clear have been having a few problems just recently.

  2. Avalon on Tue, 10th Jan 2012 7:17 pm

    3. We are with xNet – which was recommended as they charge a flat fee for connection and then $1 per gig for data. It actually works out a considerably better deal that way.

    They bounce thorugh Telecom.

    Hxx

  3. Scott on Tue, 10th Jan 2012 10:25 pm

    4. Hi, your upload speed is normally a fraction of your download speed. Upload requests for pages etc are normally small, its the downloads that take the space, I’m on cnet also, they aren’t the worst, not the best either, but its the $ a gig that’s the winner, they don’t do that plan any more for new starters though. Looking at speedtest.net I’m getting 6.84 Mbps download but only .80 Mbps upload. It’ll always take longer to upload v download the same amount of data. Have you checked your modem ? Did you have intermittent connectivity on your last provider, or just xnet ?

  4. Hubby on Wed, 11th Jan 2012 12:31 am

    5. Hi Scott,
    Yeah download vs. upload… Download speed is so piss poor I hardly notice the (lower) upload speed.
    0.46Mb Download, 0.42Mb Upload as of right now. Sheesh – at least UFB will mean all the page adverts load first and faster than the actual bloody content I’m trying to read!!

    (Not on Avalon’s Guide of course, which doesn’t prioritise page loading of adverts ahead of content)

  5. Scott on Wed, 11th Jan 2012 11:18 am

    6. .46 down ? that is archaic ! have you spoke to the other residents to see if its universal in the building ?

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