Michael Foreman: Ihug's speedy Ultra bargain broadband

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

As a fairly heavy internet user still relying on an ordinary modem connection, to say I was looking forward to having ihug's Ultra fast broadband service installed would be an understatement. I was counting the days.

For residential use, Ultra costs $59.95 for 300 hours a month, or $39.95 for 30 hours, with an installation fee of $99.

There are no traffic charges but if you exceed your agreed time online you pay $1.50 for each extra hour.

The service is available in two forms. The superior terrestrial service comes via a transmitter such as Auckland's Sky Tower, but you must have a clear line of sight to the tower. Ultra's second option, the original direct satellite service, is available anywhere in the country but at the moment it is not as fast.

Ihug director Tim Wood says the difference in speed is the result only of the amount of bandwidth allocated - about 45 megabits per second for the terrestrial service compared with 9 megabits per second for the direct satellite version. Both services receive the internet via satellite or direct transmission, but outgoing signals must be sent by landline - either a conventional modem or, as is popular for business Ultra users, DSL (Digital Subscriber Line).

Unfortunately a site test had confirmed that my location in Onehunga was not suitable for the terrestrial service - One Tree Hill blocks the view of the Sky Tower - and an alternative tower in the Waitakeres is obscured by trees.

Ihug says it will take another two or three transmitters to fill all the gaps in Auckland's terrestrial coverage.

But before these transmitters come on line, Mr Wood says, the direct satellite service will be given about 40 megabits of extra bandwidth when the original equipment is upgraded in "a couple of weeks," which will put it on a more even footing with the terrestrial service.

On the appointed day the installation team arrived, two pleasant young chaps carrying a 90cm dish. After drilling a hole in the wall to allow a cable into my office, they jumped up on the roof and proceeded to align the antenna with the aid of a compass and some kind of signal strength meter.

"Our satellite is next to Sky's - exactly 10 degrees from true north," one of the installers explained, pointing up at the empty northern sky. Despite myself I couldn't resist the urge to follow his gaze.

Installation usually takes a couple of hours, but thanks to a couple of teething problems, including a suspected bent dish, I didn't get online until the next day.

However, these difficulties were easily overcome by the installers and competent technical support, and once Ultra was running it proved to be well worth the wait.

The first web destination I tried was the Napster MP3 download site where, with my 56k modem connection, any download speed over 1Kb/second is good. With Ultra the first file started coming in at 8Kb/second and later on other tracks were downloading at what to me was an unprecedented speed of 17-18 Kb/second.

But with a peer-to-peer service such as Napster, you are very dependent on the speed of the server and the connection at the other end, so occasionally a file would still trundle down at 1.1-1.8 Kb/second.

Going on to the web, the greater speed of Ultra highlighted the huge differences in server speeds that are usually hidden by slower connections.

Busy overseas sites can sometimes crawl along, but pages from local sites flash up almost instantly after a momentary delay.

Speed is very difficult to assess because it varies throughout the day depending on how many other users are online.

Mr Wood says top whack on the terrestrial service is reached with downloads of 90Kb/second to 1 gigabit/second.

The direct service probably achieves much less than that, but even so there is no way I would now go back to an ordinary modem. It's broadband for me from now on, no matter what it costs.

Suddenly you have enough bandwidth to download several large files simultaneously and still surf almost unimpeded.

Text-based newsgroup messages come up in a jiffy and even postings carrying images or sound files arrive in a second or two.

But just as I was beginning to get a little euphoric, a sudden downpour hammered on the roof.

Immediately a little red cross appeared on the Ultra icon on the taskbar, which told me the satellite signal wasn't getting through and I was back on the slow modem connection.

This phenomenon, known as rain fade, is fortunately quite rare - it has happened only once more in several weeks - and it's usually momentary.

In a strange way it helps to keep you in touch with nature.

I now always check the weather before starting a big download.

* Peter Sinclair is on leave.

ihug Ultra

Napster MP3


BOOKMARKS

CLUNKIEST: Regency Duty Free and airportshoppers.com

We thought net ordering of duty-free goods saved time. You fire off an order the night before you fly and your selections await you at the airport, right?

Wrong. Regency warns net orders will not be processed between 5 pm and 8:30 am, and both firms ask you to place orders two days before collection.

Both should wake up. Online duty-free ordering is going to become a big business, especially when passengers can surf and send e-mails from a plane, as they already do on several United States airlines. Singapore Airlines starts trials in November of two satellite-based systems as part of its CyberCabin concept.

Advisory: Easier to shop in person.


Regency Duty Free

airportshoppers.com

Singapore Airlines


TIMELIEST: Local Times Around the World.

An admirably simple site, maintained by Australian company ClariNet Internet Solutions, tells you the local time at various points around the globe.

Advisory: Unlike many others of its ilk, this site inspires confidence in its accuracy.

ClariNet Internet Solutions