Ok, so wireless modem internet sucks. Three of my housemates also use these, and we have decided it's time to get real internets.

First problem: what is all this talk about need a phone line? How do I know if we have one or not, and if I don't have one, how do I get one? We want naked, however you apparently need the phone line so they can convert it or whatever.

Second problem (not really a problem): Recommendations for service providers? Good/bad experiences? I will have to work out how much net we use and what speed we want, blah blah, but I'd like to know what you think is the best provider out there. Also, I'm not going with telstra.

Thanks muchly!

For raw quota, people generally go with TPG. Reliability and guaranteed full speed isn't their priority however (e.g. I was able to get 1.2MB/s during the day, but only 400kB/s max in offpeak leech-time where most of our quota resided)

For excellent reliability, speed (they are almost -never- congested) and heaps of freebies (Steam content servers, etc), Internode is the way to go. Less quota but it's offset by the reliability/bonuses I mentioned assuming you care about them.

Then there's iiNet that is in between the two. i.e. Good quota, good reliability, many freebies, however they aren't as "nice" as Internode (I've had my plan reduced in quota/speed/value 2-3 times over a period of a couple of years, as they did not think them through).

Generally in sharehouses people go for TPG, as there's always someone leeching.

I'd highly recommend having a look here: http://whirlpool.net.au/survey/2009/

Scroll 3/4 of the way down to the "Why customers stay with their isp" table, which gives a very nice summary of what's good/bad about each major ISP. As hinted by my opinion, Internode dominates in all areas except price - where TPG wins out (and fails at everything else).

Also visit here to see if your area likely has ADSL2 (not guaranteed on a per-house basis though), and which companies offer it there:

http://adsl2exchanges.com.au/

last edited by parabol at 23:39:43 09/Mar/10

dont get tpg!

they have great download caps but so unreliable, our adsl2 is f***ing dog s***

probably phone line supreme.

My mate has just been through this process of getting internet. He spoke to TPG first, and I'm not sure if this is fact or what but apparently the house you are in has to have a phone number in order for them to give you even naked adsl. He was told something about piggy backing off Telstra being the reason but I find it quite odd.

He chose to go with iiNet instead who just require your address, they can then check if a phone line has been active in that house before (does not need to be connected) and they set it up for you.

Internode, reliable, excellent freebies. Not as cheap as other budget ISPs but if you're not leeching that hard it's hard to beat. I've switched over to them about 6 months ago from Bigpond (I was Bigpond customer for 9+ years) so far it's been rock solid never had any outages that I've known of. And access to news server is major + for them :)

I can confirm that I just signed up to iinet naked dsl without a phone number, just the address of the premises

though I have never heard an adequate explanation why they say there needs to be "a phone line" (i.e. the fact that there has been a phone service to the premises at some point in the past)

even a brand new building will already have the outlet wired to the mdf, which is in turn wired to the exchange right? isn't the point of naked dsl that they are basically renting that copper and plugging it into their own gear?

sparrow, have a review of the freebies offered between different ISPs, to me if you want a quality connection it comes down to iinet & internode.

If you just want a massive cap, go with TPG. If you want a top quality connection go iinet & internode.

I've used internode in the past but I switched back to iinet because iinet had free downloads from itunes contents & internode didnt, we have an apple TV and my GF rapes the free itunes downloads, over 100GB in free downloads every single month, she's crazy...

If I was moving in somewhere else on my own i'd probably stick with iinet. I find their service a bit more friendly then internode, thats just my experience. Both of them have awesome networks superior to TPG.

with internode at the moment, though im thinking of changing out, even though they're very reliable far to expensive for an upgrade in speed and i dearly need one. :$

para is exactly correct with his first post

im an iinet user and have been for years, my only complaint (extremely minor) is for some reason innet suck balls at moving your account if you change locations

appart from that, im 100% happy with their service

I've been with TPG for ages. You can get Nakked or bundle plans if you want a home phone.
Great data caps, Great price and I've had no real issues with reliability. Service department is somewhat lackluster, but i've never had a reason to call them... Anything my end I can fix and anything their end another 1000 people call them about it and it gets fixed for me.

However I am moving at the end of the month and i'm getting iiNet Nakked ADSL2+
iiNet have been great in the setup stages and probably have the second best rep (Internode is the best) you can get out there for service and reliability. iiNet comes with free VoIP and a 'land' phone number if you still want a house phone.
You could also get a bundled plan if you wanted an actual home phone.

The Phone line just means that at one point in time (ever) the house needed to have a home phone, which pretty much every single house has. Even if it's disconnected now, as long as it was there once you're fine.

:/

http://www.speedtest.net/result/743007189.png

Yeah, parabol's post is good apart from the TPG recommendation.

I setup ADSL2+ with Internode last May in our new house - the quickest way to do this is to connect a landline via Telstra (costs $60 connection or whatever), then sign up for Naked DSL with the ISP which disconnects your landline phone in the process.

I was told at the time by the Internode guy if I didn't take this approach it would take up to 2 months to get ADSL2+ connected. It took me 2 weeks using this approach. I don't know if this has improved, since it's clearly illogical - but the issue is that whenever you want to connect ADSL2+ they always ask you what your phone number is. If you don't have one, then it slows things down.

Highly recommend Internode and iiNet.

my TPG works fine, I'm a fair distance from the exchange and my max theoretical sync speed is 5.5mbit, I regularly pull down 5mbit .. so no complaints there
damn cheap too

Had a bunch of different ISPs and am now with iiNet on a naked plan and they are awesome. 100Gb/mth (50+50), free local & national calls, 18Mbit sync speed and easily top it out when grabbing Linux distributions for the princely sum of $79.95/mth.

TPG just released new plans yesterday heh
$49.95 for 130GB (70 peak/60 off peak), 1Mbps/1Mbps shaping after you go over your cap

they now own PIPE too, so I would expect their bandwidth costs to drop and their service to improve even more

para is exactly correct with his first post

im an iinet user and have been for years, my only complaint (extremely minor) is for some reason innet suck balls at moving your account if you change locations

appart from that, im 100% happy with their service

I'll be moving house next month sometime, interested to see how the relocation of my iinet service will go...

I've been with iiNet for years and never had any problems
I think there's been maybe one or two major outages where there was quite a bit of downtime, but you'll never get 100% uptime.
My second choice would be Internode.

I'll be moving house next month sometime, interested to see how the relocation of my iinet service will go...

call them daily

i'm also with TPG and have no problems with their service

i was having problems with speed/dropouts a few months so I phoned them up and went through all the annoying troubleshooting the phone monkey had on the script (which i'd already done) and they eventually agreed that it was a line fault and lodged it with telstra

a few days later the telstra tech came and found there was a problem in the pit down the road from my house, since then it has been rock solid

I've used TPG at 3 different houses and it's been dodgy at times but overall not that bad. If you just want internet connectivity and the ability to download for cheap it's the way to go. That being said, I think getting naked through them is more painful. You need a Telstra line which they then disconnect, which I think will incur a disconnection fee if it's within the first few months of a telstra contract. I think it was Internode who can do a brand new naked dsl setup, maybe if your house ever had a line.

+1 TPG 60/60 plan

their adsl 2 offering was the only service available at our exchange. we were very hesitant because we had heard so many horror stories about TPG and it really sucked when we found out that our new house was over 4 kms from the exchange. on top of this we were moving from optus cable so we were expecting a massive drop in terms of latency/bandwith.

but - they smashed all of our expectations. installation was simple and easy, their techs were helpful in the initial stages and their website is handy as it lets you see what stage of the process they are up to.

gaming pings are amazing and aren't anything like what we were expecting, they have only gone up about ~5ms on average compared to our previous cable connection. bandwith is solid and consistent, i have never seen it drop below 850KB/s on private linux iso distros.

all things considered, they are really cheap and provide what i consider a really good service for the price.

yeah going thru the iinet line fault process at the moment

for some reason they needed two different subcontractors to come out and test the line to confirm that it is crap

now it goes to telstra for them to look at the actual line but i'm not holding my breath (and i'm directly across from the exchange)

Might be worth checking out Exetel if its available, ive been with them for 12months and can't fault them. I pay $55 for 24on 60off ADSL2 Naked, includes 100 free national calls per month and the speeds are awesome. Uploads dont count aswell :)

One downside Ive heard the tech support is average but if you have half a clue should be fine.

Might be worth checking out Exetel if its available, ive been with them for 12months and can't fault them

They throttle P2P from what I understand. May be a deal-breaker for some?

Might be worth checking out Exetel if its available, ive been with them for 12months and can't fault them

They throttle P2P from what I understand. May be a deal-breaker for some?

Protocol Encryption in your favourite P2P program more or less stops this from being a big issue ( ive known 2 friends that have used exetel).

Protocol Encryption in your favourite P2P program more or less stops this from being a big issue

It may also stop some clients from being able to communicate with yours, as not all of them support encryption (less connectable clients = potentially slower speed). However, it would still be better than completely throttlage.

For sure, its by no means perfect but better than nothing.

Ive heard about this P2P throttling and am yet to experience it, popular torrents average around 1-1.4mb/s down and consistent 90k/s uploading. Although I am within a stones throw of the exchange so that helps. Speeds above have been during peak and off-peak times also.

If you care about online gaming go Internode. (You'll find everything that's legal pretty much quota free anyway, best latency to games)
If you care about downloading and nothing else go TPG (Large quota's make up for having nothing quota free)
If you care about a bit of both go iiNet. (Pretty good downloads with no slowdown during offpeak leach time, and very little downtime, completely acceptable pings).

Its a pretty simple basic rule. There are no times you should ever go Telstra or Optus. Not even if you have your mobile tv and home phone with them.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/744693543.png

I have another pro to iiNet, it seems their usage meter broke sometime at the start of the week and the 24Gb of ISOs I downloaded were put into my "Freezone" usage - woop woop.

Although I am within a stones throw of the exchange so that helps.

All that helps with mate is how high your adsl connection syncs at (aka your maximum possible download per second).

Usually the limiting factors in a torrent download isnt so much your maximum possible download per second (adsl sync) but rather the number of people sending to you and of course the speed in which those people can send to you at.

iiNet cause they made my 25/50 gig plan into 60/60 for no extra charges

Usually the limiting factors in a torrent download isnt so much your maximum possible download per second (adsl sync) but rather the number of people sending to you and of course the speed in which those people can send to you at.

i can see you are new to private tracker sites