Hi all,
I'm having a continued issue with my current Broadband provider, Belong. I moved to Australia from the UK and was shocked at the speed drop I had to endure!
I am currently hitting a peak of 7mb in the centre of Fitzroy, is this normal?!
I've contacted Belong over and over and even bought a flashy modem, but still can't get through a game of COD:WW2, or stream some spotify at times without a thoroughly ruined experience.
Any thoughts?
Check out Aussie Broadband… if you have NBN or will be getting it in the future. I get 88+mb on a regular basis. If you do choose to go with them they have a special on till the 26th of this month. 1st month free… and double data for 6 months, no contracts! https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/317059
Not if you were lucky enough to get FTTN, and you're at the very end of that tether!
Telstra are pretty good. Of course the price may not be though …
Belong technically is on the Telstra network I believe.
Belong are telstra… but on the budget end of their infrastructure, much higher congestion/contention ratio and as far as i know they dont offer a cable option its all nbn or adsl.
Your best bet is going on whirlpool and see who uses what in your area the speeds they get at peak times. If you are stuck with adsl it maybe worth complaining to your ISP over and over and getting them to change your profile to a slower one but more stable that way you can at least get consistency.
im with telstra HFC cable( non NBN) and get about 116mb down 24/7. my ping times are often around the 10ms for australian servers and about 130ms to the usa.
Yes it's a very shady little business they got going on… Belong is owned by Telstra and piggy back off the reputation of their main brand to lure in customers "powered by telstra" is a very deceiving statement for them to make. Not only are they using old infrastructure, as noted above, the capacity during peak times is severely crippled. At the end of the day, they're marketing themselves as a "budget" ISP, which for the average joe who checks emails and watches netflix occasionally would never notice an issue.. but for someone who plays online games or streams content, stay the hell away from belong. I actually play call of duty using the 4g connection on my phone because the ping during peak hours with belong is over 150ms, making the game pretty much unplayable (you've already been shot before you have time to react).
I know the feeling. I own a nice house in a pretty nice area but when it came to internet we got screwed over, my location is 5.8 km from an overloaded exchange ( at last count it was up to about 27000 homes). I was on adsl 2+ at that distance I was sitting at about 200-300k. But at least my ping was about 3-60 ms for most Australian servers and I didn’t have to many drop outs or problems.
Best solution is to find out what isp is being used in your area and how they perform.
I’m using Telstra bundle plus speed pack. (99+20$) hfc cable internet, Foxtel basic crap pack,and home phone. I’m getting 30$ off a month on the package due to some screwups during installation. In the end I’m paying a little more than I was at iiNet but the service is so much better.
So who do you guys choose then? Telstra?
Check what you can get in the area both Telstra and Optus offer cable packages, one might be available the other might not. ADSL will always be speed limited based on your distance from the exchange and by the sounds of it you maybe a good 4.5 km from the exchange. If so you will never get a fast connection using adsl. So without us knowing where you live specifically we can’t help beyond saying you need to check the offering for where you are located.
Edit* for adsl tpg Optus and Telstra have their own infistructure in place. Tpg is the cheapest of these by far I have been with them before I was able to get a stable connection but very slow. Other isps rent space on these 3 providers lines ( I maybe incorrect as it’s been a while since I’ve looked it up, there maybe more than those 3)
If thats the case you should be getting at minimum about 18mb but more likely closer to 25mb. Some thing is up with your connection and you need to talk to the isp demand it gets fixed or terminate the contract. Start running line tests on your service, traceroute and speed tests to various hosts so your isp has no fall back. Since you're so close to the exchange just find which isp's operate out of it and make a choice from that. Aussie has been suggested by others and from what i have heard they are pretty good. Internode and iinet used to be good pre tpg days but not so much any more. Hit up whirlpool and ask others what is good in your area you would be more likely to find some one from your same post code that could give you their input that way.
edit. here is a little info that might be able to help. Heatmap
@cc789: Aussie Broadband has its own backbone, is very good, they have great customer service and they use the Telstra lines.
@Sun n Moon: Yeah they were great on the phone, but the girl was really honest and said it is unlikely to be an improvement as they both (ABB and Belong) use Telstra lines, which is a shame!
You can often get on Telstra for a competitive price. Their speeds are excellent.
Their phone customer service reps lie constantly. They will promise the world and never deliver. Be prepared to spend 4 hours on the phone on minor issues.
ABB - free first month, but you'll stay….once you try them !
Not heard of them?
………AussieBroadBand……….
Did you not read and see my post earlier? damn boy…
Yeah sorry I had just didn't recognise the abbreviation
none, they all suck, cause 99.9% of the time the servers for the games are not local.
Yeah this was another shocking thing coming from the UK, never finding games!
Buzztelco
lol @ buzz! Lucky if you're connection stays up for more than a minute.
I was being sarcastic!! I thought everyone on OZB knew Buzz is shit.
Please do not go anywhere near Buzztelco - worst ISP ever
COD WW2 is a peer 2 peer game.
you're at a mercy of other players who host the game, and Australian network congestion and latency is just bad.
Belong is part of Telstra corporation, I was on it once, but it only usable until 2 pm ish, when kids start to come home, the network was always flooded and slow down.
I knew it was a cheap provider so I jump off as soon as my cable connection came online.
I suggest to play 'better' online game where there is a server to connect, and next get off belong. even TPG is better than belong.
I appreciate this feedback as someone who has been with belong, is it because they are piggybacking that makes them so bad then do you think? Who did you switch to in the end?
Actually the new cod: WWII is using dedicated servers and only falls back to P2P if the servers go down…. My only recommendations would be Telstra or Aussie broadband.
Welcome to Australia's internet. Where some adsl connections are as quick as nbn.
Yeah, the worst part is we very nearly took an apartment that had FTTP, oh the life I would be living now…
So for those asking I know the best I can supposedly get is ASDL 2+, NBN isn't due until 2019
That really sucks…
Just got off the phone with ABB and they said they are on Telstra just like belong so couldn't offer better than them…
On ADSL, Belong actually goes through Telco in a Box and is somewhat slower than Telstra's own ADSL ( or even ADSL from Aussie Broadband, who get it off from Telstra ). I used to have ADSL with Belong and would say they are on par with say Exetel.
Exetel are bad then?
Exetel are rubbish, also take note, even though belong is "owned" by telstra and uses the Telstra network, from my experience and from conversations with Telstra directly, belong is using different traffic routes and equipment that ultimately will deliver a poorer quality service compared to going through Telstra directly.
Telstra aren't stupid, they're not going to provide the same quality service through their budget brand for $40 cheaper. I wouldn't be surprised if it's part of their business model to lure customers to Telstra…
@randolpg: But by that same logic wouldn't that mean ABB would be lower quality than Telstra themselves?
Indeed, Exetel is shite, much like Belong. Telstra is very good and ABB comes very close, sweetened with excellent timely Australian based support.
https://www.aussiebroadband.com.au/residential/residential-i…
https://www.aussiebroadband.com.au/residential/residential-p…
exetel are scum of the earth. like dodo and myrepublic
No because Aussie Broadband have their own equipment at each POI a far as I'm aware… so they have much more control over the network.
@randolpg: I think this is all only for NBN though. ASDL they don’t seem to have much confidence in, at least from the girl I spoke to.
Well if you're on ADSL2+ you are at the mercy of your line length to the exchange or node cabinet… is your modem syncing higher than 7Mbps?
Don't bother with TPG. Works for me because I'm the netflix/surf the web kinda guy but at peak times they can barely do that. Adsl2+
concur
on TPG ADSL2+
thankfully i dont really play games as often as i used to
i would go absolutely bonkers if i had to rely on TPG
constant disconnects or slow traffic on peak
Plue one for aussie broadband have been with optus and buzz telco opyus wasnt too bad but buzz…. Aussie broadbands service has been great no downtime fast uploads and low latency im on the 50/20 plan fttn i get about 6MB download speeds tho fpr real wprl so performance is above what i pay for also had no problems during peak times in south adelaide area.
Funnily enough I recommend optus mobile broadband (not home wireless, optus home wireless is capped at 12/1 whereas mobile is not) with the netgear ac800s modem. $70 for 140gb per month plus $240 for the modem (if you want the modem for free you would have to choose the option for $70 for 100gb per month for 24 month contract, but Netflix is unmetered in sd for this option).
The ac800s has triple carrier aggregation for up to 450mbps download speed.
This first link is my speed during peak. http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/3244913894
This next link is my speed during off peak. http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/3245637437
Speeds depend on how saturated the optus 2300mhz band is in your area. Here's a link to a lucky bugger in Queensland using the same ac800s modem. http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/i/2222598889
The data limit can annoy some but I find I don't usually go over 100gb per month and we stream 1080p movies and TV shows and play games regularly.
Advantage is if you're renting, you can take it with you without having to pay another set up fee and wait for someone to connect you. Whereas with this setup, I walked into a store, signed up, plugged the sim card into the modem, turned it on and it was working straight from there. If you want a wired option, the latest Ota update for this modem adds support for the aircard smart cradle, which has a bigger antenna for stronger signals and 5x gigabit Ethernet ports.
If you are staying at your location for longer you can look into uniti wireless. They use a satellite dish on your roof and aim it at their towers (independent of nbn) and they've recently upgraded some of their towers to allow up to 100/40.
Your speeds are irrelevant. Wireless mobile internet is terrible for online gaming, which is the main concern of the OP. Gaming works off latency and ping, you don't need superfast download. Wireless is unreliable for both maintaining a decent ping and latency.
Actually it's been very reliable. Mobile broadband nowadays is nothing like it was back in the day. It's much much faster and much more reliable and consistent. My modem has been on for 60 days, no drop outs experienced. Triple carrier aggregation helps a bit since even if one connection drops somehow, there's still two more on a different band connected.
Ping is much faster than adsl, although not as good as my old nuskope connection at my last place. It's stable between 18-20ms.
https://youtu.be/22FwSuqnmWE I don't usually upload my vids but here's one of me getting a 7.2 kdr rating in destiny 2 on ps4 using this connection, so it's not too bad. Ignore my voice, was voice chatting with a friend at the time. havent upgraded my PC in ages so i dont do much pc gaming nowadays.
Ironically one of my friends works for nbnco and even he finds his home connection is unstable with frequent drop outs. He was surprised at how much more stable the connection was using the ac800s modem.
Welcome to Australia and out third world internet.
I've been using optus cable for about 6 months now, and it's pretty good for online gaming. Even with my housemates watching netflix all the time, I can play online without interruptions (I play Destiny 2 a lot, and being p2p I don't get too much latency).
ADSL/ADSL2 is simply garbage for gaming. See if you can cable, or better, NBN. If not, you're stuck unless you can move.
If you have a contract with your current provider you can go through the telecom ombudsmen to get out of it due to slow peak speeds, i have been successful getting release without break of contract fee
I’m actually not in contract with Belong which is useful in this situation!
Which modem did you buy? Netduma?