Fast-track comes into view

By PAUL BRISLEN

At last, Aucklanders have a reason to be happy if they can see the Sky Tower.

Wired Country's wireless communication service for central Auckland is available to anyone who can see the black band under the main ring of the tower from within a 12km radius.

Wired Country is the telecommunications branch of electricity lines company Counties Power.

It is offering super-fast internet access and voice calling, and will be challenging Telecom in the biggest market.

David Slack has been testing the service at his Devonport home.

Slack is an old hand at the broadband internet access game. He is an author and speech writer who works from home and he says he couldn't be happier with the service.

"I was using [Telecom's] JetStream service and was pleased with its stability but always conscious that it was a mixed blessing." Slack was referring to the low traffic limit on JetStream's full speed service. "

The Wired Country service has much higher monthly traffic limits, so users can get on with connecting without worrying about "bill shock" at the end of the month.

"It's as fast as JetStream but without any of those commercial limitations," Slack said.

Telecom charges for each megabyte of traffic above the limit at 5c or 20c a megabyte depending on the user's plan.

Wired Country's service differentiates between traffic delivered within New Zealand and international traffic.

National traffic on Wired Country's network is free, so users can send and receive data within New Zealand without it costing anything at all. International traffic is limited but at quite a high level - 6.5 gigabytes on the entry level plan.

Connections of users who exceed the limit will be limited to much slower speeds for the rest of the month.

Telecom customers are limited to 500MB a month of national and international traffic on the basic JetStream plan, rising to 10GB on its JetStream Surf Flatrate plan.

Slack did look at Telecom's new JetStream Surf plans that allow higher traffic limits on slower connection speeds - 256kbps for download and 128kbps for upload - but decided against it.

"It was OK for surfing and email, but as soon as you try to download a file or send something large at the same time it just couldn't cut it."

Wired Country uses symmetrical speeds - users send data at the same speed at which they receive it.

For Slack, who sends a lot of data to the United States, this is vital.

"I need to send at broadband speeds as well as receiving."

Ihug also differentiates between peak traffic times - 2pm to 2am - and off peak. Most of the traffic allowance is for off-peak hours.

Slack says installation of the Wired Country service is a breeze - a technician installed the plastic antenna on his roof next to the Sky TV dish.

"There's a radio receiver they put in at the junction box and that's really all there is."

Slack runs a network of three PCs, so is familiar with networking issues. But he says even the beginner would be happy with how easy it was to configure the new connection on the PC.

The biggest drawback is the need to change phone numbers.

Number portability, where phone companies let customers keep their number when they move between providers, has been a hotly contested issue in the industry for about 10 years, but an answer seems no closer. Wired Country reseller Ihug suggests customers sign up for a Telecom service that will redirect calls to the new number at a cost of $22 a month.

Herald contributor Juha Saarinen has also been testing the service and says anyone who plays games online or who wants to use "real time" services such as voice or video conferencing will be well served.

"It's better than JetStream for that kind of thing."

The big issue for such real time services is the delay between entering a command on the keyboard and it being received by the server at the other end of the connection.

This delay, "latency", is measured in milliseconds and Saarinen says Wired Country's service has a lower latency than JetStream.

This is great news for gamers, a growing market who are typically early adopters of broadband internet connections and tend also to be high-traffic users.

As well, a low latency means Wired Country's reseller internet providers, such as Ihug, will be able to provide high-quality voice calls as well as internet access.

Because the calls are much cheaper than they would be on copper lines, Ihug offers nine relatively cheap smart-phone services.

These include caller ID, call hold and "do not disturb" for free.

Customers can buy all the other services - including conference calling, voice mail and call forwarding - for $9.95 a month.

Charges for Telecom's
smart services start at $5.70 a month for two services.

Prices for extra services range from $2.50 to $7 each a month.

Ihug Connect

Price: from $69.90 a month to $149.90 a month

Herald rating: 8/10

Pros

Fast service, high traffic limits, smart phone services, cheap tolls, no need to pay for a Telecom phone line.

Cons

Limited availability outside Pukekohe, central Auckland and central Hamilton. Customers have to change phone numbers.