Something that has been of interest lately is ISPs, and how the average person chooses their broadband provider.
The many people I know of who have broadband are broadly split in to two categories. Those who are technically minded, and those who are not. Â I know quite a few of the former, due to the fields I work in and my interests, and as with all of us, also quite a few of the latter, being friends, family, etc with less technical knowledge. I have carried out some ad hoc research with a number of people, and the findings are revealing. Those who fit into the first group who have a fair understanding of technology shopped around, and the vast majority are not with Telecom’s Xtra. Those who fit into the second group are overwhelmingly with Xtra. Several reasons appeared for this.
Firstly, those who are not technically minded thought that broadband in New Zealand is supplied by Telecom, either through Xtra, or resold through the third party ISPs. Many associated broadband with the ‘telephone company’ as it comes over the phone line, and as such picked up the phone and called Telecom, who supply their phone line.
Those who are aware of third party ISPs though that as broadband is delivered over Telecom’s network it’s all exactly the same. They did not see any benefit in shopping around as the belief was that it would be identical performance no matter the provider. Further to this, Xtra broadband is billed on the same account as the landline, which is convenient for many people.
Those that were technically minded shopped around, and we’re aware of surveys, such as those run by Epitiro, which rank our top 5 ISPs according to exhaustive tests run from many locations throughout the country. The results have TelstraClear, Slingshot, and Orcon as the top 3 providers in the last two quarterly results. The last two spots were held by ihug and Xtra.
Another influencing factor with this group was that they were more likely to have their landline with someone other than Telecom, choosing to go with other providers who resell exactly the same product as Telecom. Reasons for this varied, but were either because of perceived better customer service, or due to wanting to move away from Telecom because the customer bearing grudge with the way the incumbent had acted in the past with regard to New Zealand’s telecommunications situation.
However there have been some changes in the industry in recent history which should have some effect on the situation. Firstly more ISPs are reselling phone lines, as they see the value in selling phone line, broadband, and tolls bundles. This makes it possible for customers to choose another provider and be billed all on the one statement.
Secondly naked DSL is now available. Until now a customer had to have a phone line to get ADSL (broadband). This has changed now – a customer can get ADSL without having to have the phone connection. A small number of ISPs have released products based on this premise, and while no numbers are available, the uptake looks promising.
Thirdly, broadband has come into the public eye recently, as it’s ability to provide a competitive edge for our country has been discussed by the business community, home users, and the government itself. Part of the puzzle is getting New Zealand as a whole connected via undersea cables, but there is also the ‘last mile’ or getting these high speeds to the end user. In a country with a small population spread over a relatively large area, this is an expensive proposition. The National Party has proposed a public/private venture with an open access fibre network (anyone can provide services over it) which looks promising.
Lastly, Telecom has a new CEO – Paul Reynolds – who has experience with retail/wholesale perspective from his time with British Telecom in the UK. Reynolds is currently overseeing the operational separation of Telecom, which includes a newly formed wholesale unit which will sell on equal terms to all ISPs, including Telecom’s own Xtra.
In conclusion, do you fit into the above categories? If so, which?
As always please contribute via comments below, or in our forums.
Comments
23 responses to “Broadband Providers – how did you choose yours?”
We got Quicksilver a couple of years ago when they had free nat traffic but then they got bought out by Woosh and it turned to crap 🙁
Want to change but don’t know who to go with as heard bad things about all of them on geekzone and gpforums
We went with Telecom by default because we assumed they supplied our phone line which the broadband worked on so they’d the broadband too – they put us through to Xtra who signed us up straight away. We stayed with them a while before switching and the service was much better once we did.
Energetic Bunny
We had Quicksilver around the same time and noticed the same thing when Woosh bought it out. We changed to Slingshot, and have definitely noticed a better product.
You will always hear bad things about every company, as people are more likely to be vocal about bad service than good. The media also prefer ‘bad’ news to good, so tend to give these incidents more coverage as well.
Alan
Many people have done exactly this, and a fair percentage of Xtra’s custom must be due to this very reason. Being the incumbent does have it’s advantages, and I’d say this would be a major one.
I’m another of the QSI customers who got annoyed with Woosh and left but until i had to talk to them it was fine having them own QSI.
Sadly im in the small catergory of limited choices for needs hence im at world-net and supplied the above speedcheck 🙁
As others have mentioned above, we saw an advertisement for broadband and called Telecom as a matter of course. Our perspective at the time this occurred was that Xtra was the main provider of broadband, and the others were second class bit players.
I’d like to mention that this view has since changed greatly after experiencing our product and the service friends and family receive from alternative providers. We are changing our provider in the near future with a view to receiving a better end result.
My brother worked for an ISP so we just went with them and they were pretty ok and better than xtra so all good. Want to change again though as international speeds are getting crappy
First time around we got a pamphlet with our Telecom bill so the olds rang and signed up. Have to talk them out of Xtra but their email addy is @xtra.co.nz so have to work a way around that.
Reading the posts so far, it looks like many people did as we did and chose Xtra as the default. I am sure there are many people still with them because of their email address – it took a while before we changed to gmail but we’re glad we did as we can now swap providers without having to worry about email addresses.
To be honest my first ISP was xtra, but it wasn’t because i went there by default. I assumed they had the power being they controlled the lines so they would provide the best service. But i guess after a yr of the then 2mb download speeds where they finally got to real ‘broadband’ speeds, i noticed they were not the best and saw improvement from every other company i went with after.
I’ve changed with the times to services that suited my needs at the time.
Well, the overwhelming majority seemed to have picked Xtra as the default for one of several reasons. It’s a good place to be really. Hopefully now with other companies selling packages including phone line, tolls, and broadband, the market will become more diverse, offerings will differentiate, and providers will realise they have to keep on their toes to capture and keep market share!
We took one look at Xtra and ran the other way. We have Telstraclear broadband and it’s been very good. The customer service is not good but haven’t had to use them much.
There is no way we’d ever go with Xtra.
We’re with ihug at the mo which isn’t that flash aye. Was with orcon before that and that sucked even harder. Who are the good isps in nz????
TelstraClear speeds are pretty good even if their helpdesk isn’t. Doesn’t seem like the traffic shape anything everything just goes fast.
Performance wise, I was happy with TelstraClear and Slingshot. Xtra’s was very poor, Orcon was not even usable, and Quicksilver was ok for NZ data – their international capacity was lacking.
We’re with Telstraclear and the speeds are great. We’re not that far away from our cabinet which the Downer guy who installed it said we connect to so that probably helps a lot too.
We are about to make the move, so wish us luck 🙂
Were with Orcon for years and was OK until all the leechers jumped on. Had good prices back then and was a cool purple colour!
Pretty average now 🙁
Don’t know about before but going with Slingshot if they do the off peak data thingy. Data banking is cool too but off peak is the real deal!
We went with TelstraClear because we had dial up through them for years. They seem pretty ok.
Hey this editing this is cool. I just missed a ‘t’ and could come back and put it in 🙂
I didn’t choose mine my ex did. We got Orcon and still them but it seems pretty slow most of the time.
Don’t live in NZ anymore but olds signed up with Telecom by default like most people. They received a letter with their phone bill so gave Telecom a call. Must be good to be the default provider for a whole country.
had to go with xtra cause had them at work and they reckoned we needed it for vpn conn to work stuff
Was with IHug and it was ok for a while then started going down hill, now Vodafone’s bought them it’s turned to complete crap.
The broadband report out seems to think Telstraclear are the best and others have been saying Snap (hadn’t heard of them before) or Slingshot. I want some feedback from users of each before I move again (and maybe end up disappointed again)