I'm looking for some advice in choosing a broadband Internet service provider.

I've recently moved to a new suburb that is listed as an ADSL2 enabled suburb. ( http://iinet.com.au/dslams/updates/ )

My priorities are

1) Low latency (for gamming)
2) Downloading high amounts of data (20+ gig)
3) A max 6-month contract.
4) 256minimum upload a second

Can anyone help me out with a recommendation of ISP and plan and maybe supply a little bit of information as to why you think that isp/plan is best for my needs?

Thanks for any assistance you can give me with this.

I'm checking out whirlpool now but it’s not quite as 'efficient' as i remember it.

iinet have all of that (but not sure about contract lengths).

i am with them (medium plan) and i dont have any problems.
20gig peak / 20gig offpeak
nice pings to gamearena bf2/dod servers.

s'all good.

last edited by StreX at 11:20:45 24/Jul/06

Thanks for your advice StreX.

Sorry about the link. Just take the brackets off each side of the link.

I was hoping there would be a small ISP that i've not heard of and maybe doesnt advertise its plans on the internet (call for quote type situation) that would allow me to download alot of data and still have okay latency times (minimal hops to backbones).

You're probably best off looking at / posting on the forums at: http://whirlpool.net.au/

Err.. your moving to an error with an iiNet DSLAM and want to know what ISP to go with? I'd say iiNet is the one you want to go with..

Broadband Choice - http://bc.whirlpool.net.au

Execellent mine of info for ISP's if you really want to find specs and details.

iinet seems to be the win at the moment now and I beleive that they have a no fixed term contract available.

last edited by jesu at 13:45:06 24/Jul/06

Thanks jesu!

I was just looking at a few more ISP's

I seams iiNet have a theoretical 70gig of data per month if you get there phone and all that the price is kept down but Internode support 80gig whenever you want eg during business hours and they dont require you to switch your phone to them. Plus they have NO contract period, just a small cancilation fee.

Internode sounds better then iiNet, can anyone help me out?

backup up strexy
i seen iinet first ok

We are on the Acacia Ridge exchange (Sunnybank Hills) with iinet adsl2 and it's great. 20/10mbit connection with 40peak/40offpeak cap which is more than ample for what we use and no real complaints at all.

I've recently moved to a new suburb that is listed as an ADSL2 enabled suburb

That doesn't necessarily mean you'll be given an ADSL2 port. Likely that you will, but not guaranteed, and you can't do a thing to make them give you preference. Just because an ISP rep on the phone tells you there are ports free and you'll get a port doesn't mean anything. Search whirlpool for the horror threads of people who have been promised ADSL2 ports and instead were put on the more expensive Telstra ports :P

iiNet are good value for money if you're on their ADSL2 hardware, but recently they have been culling/downgrading the speed of their regular (non-ADSL2) plans from 1.5Mbps to 512kbps and/or increasing the prices of these plans. They also haven't been doing relatively well financially lately, so expect some changes (such as sell-offs of companies they bought), etc.

Other ISPs have been doing the same thing to non-ADSL2 plans citing price increases by Telstra, but iiNet have in at least 2 consecutive plan changes ended up making their plans more expensive or cutting the speeds ... so I can no longer recommend them as a good ISP as I had previously been doing for several years.

Check out Internode as an alternative. They give lots of freebie traffic (more than iiNet) and host their own Steam content server, etc. I can't guarantee they too won't reduce the value of their plans, but they don't really have a history of doing so in past.

I'm with iiNet. I pay $70/month for 1.5Mbps::40GB, but this plan has been withdrawn pending 'analysis' and the CEO has pretty much said it will either be reduced to 512k or increased by $20 by the end of the year. Once that happens, hello Internode!

last edited by parabol at 18:08:40 24/Jul/06

bah i hate the fact that if you move to iinet you have to also bundle it with the phone :( for me that mean moving from optus cheap ass phone like to telstra then to iinet to much trouble imo, just gonna stay with opars cable i guess..

don't go with iinet, they can't even make their own website work :@

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Please contact the server administrator, *email removed* and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

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Lunch, you bastard! hehe, i'm on the A/R exchange too, and i'm with iiNet, but they've run out of ADSL2+ ports, so i'm on the mad download plan, but i'm still waiting for them to add more ports so i get the mad speed.

edit: also, u don't have to have your phone with iiNet if u don't want, it just means u can't get the 2+ plans

last edited by Erik-the-Red at 20:57:48 24/Jul/06

ive moved from an adsl2+ exchange at annerley, to salisbury, where the exchange is just getting done

cant wait, coz its only about 1k up the road, so i should be getting almost full adls2+ speeds!

huzzah

thank you for everyone who contributed expecially parabol for your very imformative post.

i was getting the vibe that iinet was under pressure, internet doesnt bundle a phone and offers a slightly better deal with no locked contract or anything.

does anyone know if internode is a member of PIPE?

they are a member of pipe but if its still the same as when i was with them then pipe peered' data was not free, i didnt use any Pipe stuff though, well in fact i didnt use the connection much apart from downloading the random file or trailer and played games on it so my monthly usage rarely got over 1-3gb

cant recomend internode enough though if you can get their dsl 2+, really nice stable connection

tuffnut: what's wrong with optus cable though?