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The home150 dialup plan is almost completely non-functional at night, there
appears to be no where near enough bandwidth. The really frustrating thing
is that if the problem is a fault the tech staff on the phone appear to be
very non-technical and sound like they are uniformed as to any problems that
might exist anyhow. Talk about an inefficient way to run a company, you ring
tech support, they flounder for what seems eternity and at the end of it you
are left with no explanation or solution to the problem. I can understand
isp's having problems from time to time but if they don't inform their
customers of this how is the customer expected to have patience when they
don't even know if the problem is being looked at.
This problem as existed for at least a week now but I have no idea if this
problem is being worked on or just ignored, the tech staff certainly know
nothing so what am I suppose to think, talk about bad customer relations. So
is anyone else having this problem, I assume that because there are no
complaints here that it is only people in certain areas of the country that
are being affected.

Of course I will now change to another isp yet again, the internet use to be
so reliable and the customer service good before every man and his dog got
on the bandwagon and yes it was just as cheap if you shopped around, of
course xtra were charging a lot more than others for a long time but most
people just accepted xtra as it was already on their computer when they
bought it.

I'm on Clear net home 150, and having no problems. I sometimes get a busy
line so have to dial 2 or 3 times, but once i am in good as gold. where are
you dialing in from... I'm in Hamilton and downloading at a steady 5kb/sec.


"rock" <> wrote in message news:...
> The home150 dialup plan is almost completely non-functional at night,
there
> appears to be no where near enough bandwidth. The really frustrating thing
> is that if the problem is a fault the tech staff on the phone appear to be
> very non-technical and sound like they are uniformed as to any problems
that
> might exist anyhow. Talk about an inefficient way to run a company, you
ring
> tech support, they flounder for what seems eternity and at the end of it
you
> are left with no explanation or solution to the problem. I can understand
> isp's having problems from time to time but if they don't inform their
> customers of this how is the customer expected to have patience when they
> don't even know if the problem is being looked at.
> This problem as existed for at least a week now but I have no idea if this
> problem is being worked on or just ignored, the tech staff certainly know
> nothing so what am I suppose to think, talk about bad customer relations.
So
> is anyone else having this problem, I assume that because there are no
> complaints here that it is only people in certain areas of the country
that
> are being affected.
>
> Of course I will now change to another isp yet again, the internet use to
be
> so reliable and the customer service good before every man and his dog got
> on the bandwagon and yes it was just as cheap if you shopped around, of
> course xtra were charging a lot more than others for a long time but most
> people just accepted xtra as it was already on their computer when they
> bought it.
>
>

What do you use to measure your download speed. If you're reading it from an
internet explorer progress bar or inside Kazaa or something you may be
surprised how inaccurate they can be. You should try DuMeter for pinpoint
accuracy.

http://www.dumeter.com/

And bandwidth is only half the equation. Before the hoards joined the net I
could ping NZ game servers as low as 80ms, but usually 120 to 160ms. Now
with dial up the average ping is around 280ms, with the lowest ping I can
get at 170ms (extremely rare). But even then this figure is deceptively
generous; these days we also have time outs of up to 8secs, which of course
gets you kicked from the game server. This never used to happen but is now
present across all ISP's I have tested (5 or 6).

My Home 150 experience was just like the rocks; very poor.

Joe.



"Wombus" <> wrote in message
news:3f5318db$...
> I'm on Clear net home 150, and having no problems. I sometimes get a busy
> line so have to dial 2 or 3 times, but once i am in good as gold. where
are
> you dialing in from... I'm in Hamilton and downloading at a steady
5kb/sec.
>
>
> "rock" <> wrote in message news:...
> > The home150 dialup plan is almost completely non-functional at night,
> there
> > appears to be no where near enough bandwidth. The really frustrating
thing
> > is that if the problem is a fault the tech staff on the phone appear to
be
> > very non-technical and sound like they are uniformed as to any problems
> that
> > might exist anyhow. Talk about an inefficient way to run a company, you
> ring
> > tech support, they flounder for what seems eternity and at the end of it
> you
> > are left with no explanation or solution to the problem. I can
understand
> > isp's having problems from time to time but if they don't inform their
> > customers of this how is the customer expected to have patience when
they
> > don't even know if the problem is being looked at.
> > This problem as existed for at least a week now but I have no idea if
this
> > problem is being worked on or just ignored, the tech staff certainly
know
> > nothing so what am I suppose to think, talk about bad customer
relations.
> So
> > is anyone else having this problem, I assume that because there are no
> > complaints here that it is only people in certain areas of the country
> that
> > are being affected.
> >
> > Of course I will now change to another isp yet again, the internet use
to
> be
> > so reliable and the customer service good before every man and his dog
got
> > on the bandwagon and yes it was just as cheap if you shopped around, of
> > course xtra were charging a lot more than others for a long time but
most
> > people just accepted xtra as it was already on their computer when they
> > bought it.
> >
> >
>
>

"Joe Citizen" <> wrote in message
news:ucG4b.134045$...
> What do you use to measure your download speed. If you're reading it from
an
> internet explorer progress bar or inside Kazaa or something you may be
> surprised how inaccurate they can be. You should try DuMeter for pinpoint
> accuracy.
>
> http://www.dumeter.com/
>

Thanks, I did not emphasize the extent of the problem obviously, no need to
measure it as there is basically nothing to measure, ie webpages, email
etc.. take an extremely long time to download and the connect box in windows
shows very little activity, like nothing most of the time then short bursts
of data, when I said the connection was almost completely non-functional I
was not kidding. Although nighttime internet is normally slower the problem
as explained as been around for the last week or so, so something has
changed with the network, whether it is something clear will fix, I don't
know as they don't acknowledge the problem to start with.

In article <ucG4b.134045$>,
says...
> What do you use to measure your download speed. If you're reading it from an
> internet explorer progress bar or inside Kazaa or something you may be
> surprised how inaccurate they can be. You should try DuMeter for pinpoint
> accuracy.
>
> http://www.dumeter.com/
>
> And bandwidth is only half the equation. Before the hoards joined the net I
> could ping NZ game servers as low as 80ms, but usually 120 to 160ms. Now
> with dial up the average ping is around 280ms, with the lowest ping I can
> get at 170ms (extremely rare). But even then this figure is deceptively
> generous; these days we also have time outs of up to 8secs, which of course
> gets you kicked from the game server. This never used to happen but is now
> present across all ISP's I have tested (5 or 6).
>
> My Home 150 experience was just like the rocks; very poor.

If you want the super low ping times you should be prepared to pay more
to get it on a niche ISP.

"Roger Ramjet" <> wrote in message
news: om...

> One of the things you have to realise with dialup modems is no matter
> who the ISP is there are many factors that can cause poor
> connectivity. Often it is an exchange issue where ISPs (and their
> helpdesk staff) are unaware there is a problem.

Yeah this is easily ruled out though by trying another isp from the same
location.
>
> The point is, before you go changing ISP every two weeks - check your
> equipment out. Borrow a friend's user and pass from another ISP and
> see if it is any better.

Yep I do all that and more. Everytime I have had to change isp it has
definitely been a problem with the isp, unfortunately the tech staff you
talk to don't have much idea and even though you can provide a logical
argument to pinpoint the problem with them they are unable to understand or
reason a logical explanation, it's as if they have so little confidence in
what they know that they can't actually think anything through, they have
stock answers and can't think outside of these, probably because they have
no technical understanding at all and only know what they know from wrote
learning with no actual comprehension of any of it. Now if you could get
this info to someone who actually knew what they were talking about you
could get some action but these people are just not accessible and the so
called tech staff you do talk to are incapable of passing the info on. They
really should have someone qualified available to customers who are
reporting apparent network errors which the techphone person is unable to
resolve or understand but I know I might as well wish for magic powers as
wish for this to ever happen so it leaves you with the only solution of
changing isp's if the problem does not go away in a reasonable time.
For the record I have never had an internet problem that I thought was the
isp but turned out to be my problem, I only ring the isp when there is a
problem at their end which always turns out to be futile but I live in hope.
Also of note is that in the earlier days of internet I had none of these
problems when it came to reporting network problems and isp problems were a
lot less frequent then, at least with the isp's I used.

> unfortunately the tech staff you
> talk to don't have much idea and even though you can provide a logical
> argument to pinpoint the problem with them they are unable to understand or
> reason a logical explanation

Whenever you call an ISP (no matter what ISP) you are unlikely to get
a network architect or somebody with high level qualifications because
they are low paying jobs (Clear's 150 plan is $14.95 a month). Most
tech staff will know the basics and most have some qualifications this
side of the firewall (A+, MCP etc).

As far as your problem is concerned - it could be caused by; faulty
extension, faulty splitter (at jack), wrong modem drivers, damaged
modem, exchange problems (0867 # problems included), unsupported spec
(v92), faulty jack point, poor phone line (line noise), a virus and of
course ISP problems which can include local or international routing
problems and capacity issues. Either way you can work out the cause of
the problem a through process of elimination.

In article <>, "rock" <> wrote:
>The home150 dialup plan is almost completely non-functional at night, there
>appears to be no where near enough bandwidth. The really frustrating thing

Just want I dont want to hear, Ive only just joined up with Clear.

One thing Ive noticed is ISP's will NEVER admit to a lack of bandwidth.
When Ive changed ISP's ive kept the old one for a month & I could do direct
speed comparisons.
Unforntunatly the fast/reliable ISP's arent cheap. The last good ISP I was on
charged more than DSL rates if you exceeded the monthly limit.I thought I'd save myself
$30 a month by switching. The new ISP just got worse each month, so now Ive just switched to
Clear.

(One poster may be having trouble with the modem 'retraining' & dropping speed??)

Hi again,

Everyone here has made some pretty good points.
I really think you should give ping plotter a go as I mentioned earlier.

It will determine...
1. Is the problem your pc?
2. Is the problem your line, local exchange or path to your ISP
3. If the problem is on your ISP's network.
4. Is the problem an international bottleneck.
5. Is the problem restricted to the site (s) you are trying to access.

It is well worth it and easy to understand after around 10 minutes reading
the guide at the website. Its free!

http://www.pingplotter.com/

Joe.

"rock" <> wrote in message news:3f542ac4$...
>
> "Roger Ramjet" <> wrote in message
> news: om...
> > > unfortunately the tech staff you
> > > talk to don't have much idea and even though you can provide a logical
> > > argument to pinpoint the problem with them they are unable to
understand
> or
> > > reason a logical explanation
> >
> > Whenever you call an ISP (no matter what ISP) you are unlikely to get
> > a network architect or somebody with high level qualifications because
> > they are low paying jobs (Clear's 150 plan is $14.95 a month). Most
> > tech staff will know the basics and most have some qualifications this
> > side of the firewall (A+, MCP etc).
>
> Yeah I know and understand why this is the case but it would be nice if
you
> were put onto someone more qualified in the event that the normal
telephone
> tech staff could not sort the problem.
>
> >
> > As far as your problem is concerned - it could be caused by; faulty
> > extension, faulty splitter (at jack), wrong modem drivers, damaged
> > modem, exchange problems (0867 # problems included), unsupported spec
> > (v92), faulty jack point, poor phone line (line noise), a virus and of
> > course ISP problems which can include local or international routing
> > problems and capacity issues. Either way you can work out the cause of
> > the problem a through process of elimination.
>
> All but the isp problem have already been eliminated very easily thanks to
> the nature of the problem.
>
>

> Thanks for that, I will try it. By the way the home150 plan is not
unlimited
> but limited to 150 hours a month.

Yeah I know, I strayed a little there talking about Home 150 then talking
about dial up in general.
I used to be with Home 150, and ZFree before then, and even ClearNet before
that, among others.

Cheers, Joe.