1 September 2008

New grapevine plans on TransACT

| ogrex
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So I got a call from a telemarketer asking me about bundling with ActewAGL… yada yada yada. My argument against it up until now has been the modified home broadband plans that Grapevine started offering ~1+ years ago which specified an “acceptable download limit” for their unlimited off-peak times. That was a no-go for me.

But over the weekend I had a look at their current range of plans, and I’m considering it. What has me puzzled is the change definition of “off-peak times”. The new plans allow for 12 hours of *truly* unlimited downlaod from 6AM to 6PM. The middle of the day? What’s up with that?

Current home broadband plans can be viewed here.

The 12AM-7AM off-peak times have been fine for me up to this point, as I just queue everything up ahead of time and it starts automatically at midnight. Normally I’m one that says “if it ain’t broke…” However, the new plans are actually cheaper than what I’m paying now, offer a larger block of time for downloads, and allow me to bundle (thereby saving another ~$25/month with the discount).

Being a suspicious person by nature, I’m wondering… what’s the catch? Are download speeds in the middle of the day going to be cripplingly low? I’m sure they’ve done this because 1) they figure most people are gone in the middle of the day and therefore won’t be downloading much, and 2) the “heavy-users” have found ways to download very efficiently overnight, perhaps spiking the overall usage during that time period (peak time in the US and overseas).

So, does anyone have any more info or thoughts on this?

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I recently got a call from a very unprofessional telemarketer from TransACT who tried to sell me the bundle deal. To back up his sales pitch he told me exactly how much I would save off my last electricity bill and he admitted he had got this info from ActewAGL. Several phone calls to ActewAGL complaining about an apparent breach of privacy got nowhere.
The sooner TransACT is sold and the losses of ratepayers money made public the better. The ACT Legislative Assembly needs to ensure that ratepayers’ money can no longer be invested into crazy enthusiasts’ schemes like TransACT, Rhodium, TotalCare, Glassworks and the National Aboretum.

The new online version is also very antiquated when dealing with spam – you can easily classify an email in the inbox as spam with a button at the top of the screen but if you want to classify an email in the spam folder as OK you have to copy the address, click to a totally separate area, paste the address in then save, then return to the spam folder – now if you can drag and drop the message you can move it to your inbox – but this isn’t consistent, I can do this at work but not at home for some reason. When I asked tech support the answer gave me the impression they didn’t give a rats about how inconvinient this was and they weren’t planning on changing it.

Yes I think the plans fit my families requirements. The Grapevine service is punctuated with issues. Particualrly where they have made changes. A great example is the new webmail via grapevine. Advertised now for many months before as a Gmail solution.

We what we got was;

1. A interface where you cannot read all emails. There is missing information that becomes viewable in Microsoft Outlook Client. Logged no response for over 4 weeks.

2. You cannot send to more that 10 recipients at a time. This is to prevent spam. When I found out about this restriction pointing out that Google, Hotmail or Yahoo etc. technical support advised me that the Grapevine solution was superior to those systems and that maybe Google and Yahoo could do themselves a favour and look at waht Grapevine were doing. Astounding!

3. As the online instructions advised that users could seek permission to “bulk email” I enquired to Technical Support and was advised that no such provision existed. After the techician read the advice I was advised “Well it does advise that but there is no indication of who to ask”. There was no indication that this would be followed up. Three weeks later no word. I bet they use the tapes of these conversation for laughs at Christmas time.

4. A friend came around today and advised that I sent her three balnk emails last night. THis has happened before. Webmail has eaten my email! Logged previously. No response.

5. The web client does not allow you to cut and past email addresses in the address bars. Must be another anti-spam device.

6. I had hoped to keep a consistent email so that I can be constacted easily over the years. Looks like all that is coming to an end.

7. The new ISP deals quote only 2 email addressed provided. It used to be 5 which is not enough for my family. I used to ask, and be promised more, when I first signed up. I think I stopped asking a few years ago.

8. May iinet will fix things.

when you say a wireless router, is it the std adsl connection from wall to router and then wireless to the computer?

how many devices share the router?

yes, and two.

thanks for the advice all… will see what i can do.

Aurelius said :

astrojax,
From the ISP side, they can see whether the connection between the router and them is falling and re-establishing. If they can see it, the problem’s that bit. If they can’t, the problem’s your local network.
Personally, I think wireless connections are black magic and don’t trust them.

or you can’t secure them efficiently.

ogrex said :

astrojax said :

with all these geeky bods about, can anyone tell me why the grapevine wireless signal drops out every so often and i get a ‘you are not connected to the internet’ message, and have to unplug-replug the router.

For what it’s worth, my TransACT/GV connection (running through set-top box, so not the ADSL flavour) is then going through a wireless router. I’ve got one machine connected by cable, and two machines connected wirelessly. I have the rare problem of having to reset the router every 2-3 months but that’s about it.

Might be worth trying to see if there are any firmware updates for the router, as they often fix intermittent connectivity problems (at last in my experience).

I have heard of occasions where a cable & wireless connection combo results in one knocking the other off – check with the manufacturer’s website, there may be an easy workaround.

astrojax,
From the ISP side, they can see whether the connection between the router and them is falling and re-establishing. If they can see it, the problem’s that bit. If they can’t, the problem’s your local network.
Personally, I think wireless connections are black magic and don’t trust them.

astrojax said :

with all these geeky bods about, can anyone tell me why the grapevine wireless signal drops out every so often and i get a ‘you are not connected to the internet’ message, and have to unplug-replug the router.

For what it’s worth, my TransACT/GV connection (running through set-top box, so not the ADSL flavour) is then going through a wireless router. I’ve got one machine connected by cable, and two machines connected wirelessly. I have the rare problem of having to reset the router every 2-3 months but that’s about it.

Might be worth trying to see if there are any firmware updates for the router, as they often fix intermittent connectivity problems (at last in my experience).

astrojax said :

with all these geeky bods about, can anyone tell me why the grapevine wireless signal drops out every so often and i get a ‘you are not connected to the internet’ message, and have to unplug-replug the router.

grrrrr, frustration – esp when i am trying to make a witty comment herein!

is it just the router? or is it grapevine? (and a geeky friend tells me the router should be fine…)

i use ‘geek’ in the most loving way, btw!

when you say a wireless router, is it the std adsl connection from wall to router and then wireless to the computer?

how many devices share the router?

with all these geeky bods about, can anyone tell me why the grapevine wireless signal drops out every so often and i get a ‘you are not connected to the internet’ message, and have to unplug-replug the router. grrrrr, frustration – esp when i am trying to make a witty comment herein!

is it just the router? or is it grapevine? (and a geeky friend tells me the router should be fine…)

i use ‘geek’ in the most loving way, btw!

To address ogrex’s original query about off-peak times though, if GV’s making daylight hours as their off-peak, it’s probably because their pipes are empty then. Probably coz their customer base is all residential users and not business customers.
That’s just speculation though.

Whatsup said :

Can say we use Velocity and its been good. Not sure on the latest plans or cost comparison however I can say that Grapevine had loads of outages and problems and they were telling us that it was our equipment at fault. Other Grapevine customers were having similar problems at the same times. We switched to Velocity and have have very few glitches in the past 18 months, they are a friendly bunch to talk to as well.

I don’t work for anyone to do with either company, just thought I would add my 2c.

and harry K actually takes an interest in the complaints, where he can help, he does. Very good operator. I remember the Dynamite BBS fondly…

Can say we use Velocity and its been good. Not sure on the latest plans or cost comparison however I can say that Grapevine had loads of outages and problems and they were telling us that it was our equipment at fault. Other Grapevine customers were having similar problems at the same times. We switched to Velocity and have have very few glitches in the past 18 months, they are a friendly bunch to talk to as well.

I don’t work for anyone to do with either company, just thought I would add my 2c.

Interesting. My resellers also like grapevine, and the other Transact isp’s. allows us to sell wireless broadband without much competition from that quarter… just have to deal with Optus & voda.

(I work for a Distie)

Peterh, One of them, yes.

Aurelius said :

caf, Interesting you’d mention GV’s retention. In the ISP I work for, we call GV our “marketing team”, because they do far more for our sales than anything we do ourselves.

so, you work for a transact isp, then?

caf, Interesting you’d mention GV’s retention. In the ISP I work for, we call GV our “marketing team”, because they do far more for our sales than anything we do ourselves.

Interestingly with Grapevine’s offpeak being inverted compared to the other ISPs – it seems to me that truly supersize downloaders would be best off getting two accounts, and switching their logon twice a day so they remain in offpeak time as much as possible.

Ogrex if we didn’t think it was a suitable topic for conversation we wouldn’t have run it.

Aurelius – I appreciate your comments and your insight. I also welcome the effort to keep this forum ‘honest’.

For me, it comes down to this: what I currently have works fine, and I’ve had no issues with it since starting it in 2005. I download heaps, all off peak, and not P2P.

The new plans are $3/month cheaper (who-hoo!), give me 5 more hours of off-peak download and give me the ability to bundle therefore saving $25+ more a month (I’ve down the whole spreadsheet to see what bundling would actually save me based on current usage).

But, suspicion is warranted. I can’t find any major loopholes in the current T&C… but perhaps others know better.

Cheers all.

Auerlius: It looks like Grapevine have now put a monthly cap on their shaped plans, so the issue of being up for hundreds in overrun charges before the shaping kicks in isn’t there anymore. I imagine they found that pricing structure had a pretty negative impact on their signup and retention rates…

However, their pricing structures are now insanely complicated, with the one plan having three different download limits, a shaping speed, a price per megabyte and two different flat prices (yes, one plan). I find it hard to believe that this is what customers were crying out for.

Thanks so much for the links Peter, much appreciated. I don’t peruse whirlpool enough, but I did come across the post you just quoted. I’ve been considering Velocity for a while now, as the $35/35 plans appealed to my sense of simplicity. 35 is fine for most of my needs, but there are rare occasions (this month for example) where I’ve exceeded 50GB of off-peak (only 3GB peak, take that!).

ogrex,
Understandable, the only way you could be better off is if your existing ISP was worse – ie, ANOTHER Grapevine plan 🙂
It’s natural to be suspicious of their new plans. In fact, it’s natural to be suspicious of anything an ISP says – I’ve worked for enough.

C+P from whirlpool:

“Grapevine’s website says unlimited offpeak on their 10,20,40 and 60 gig plans – their offpeak is inverted against velocity and netspeed of course.”

“The grapevine plans are more expensive and have overrun charges at 10c per megabyte. Plus the overrun warning comes at 110%, once you have already got a extra $100 in charges for the extra 1 gig you downloaded (based on the 10GIG plan). If you can manage this then give them a shot.”

10/mb isn’t too bad, but over run at 110% is a bit of a bugger.

perhaps speak to velocity – I cannot force myself to recommend netspeed…..

Clarification: I’m already with Grapevine, so it’s not a matter of going over to them, it’s just a matter of switching to a new plan vs. the old plan I’m on. The new plans ARE cheaper than my current one, therefore I am saving money. Ditto with the fact that I’m already paying TransACT for my connection, so there’s no change there. I’m just suspicious and was looking for opinions.

Yeah, maybe not the most appropriate forum, but posts come and go… that’s life.

Disclaimer: I work for an academic institution and therefore I’ve likely got my head up my own a*se.

10 cents a mb for excess could be a killer if you go over in a month and 24 month contracts are always a annoying for me given how fast things can change in the broadband world. And just checking you are aware that these prices do not include connection to the transact broadband network – a minimum additional $56 a month by a quick glance of this page http://www.transact.com.au/packages/default.aspx#cable

Disclaimer: I work for an ISP that I shant identify because I don’t want to be labelled a marketer.

The plans Grapevine offer are obscenely expensive. To become shaped with them, you first have to clock up hundreds of dollars in excess usage fees. And working at an ISP, I can assure you that there’s nothing customers hate more than finding the $20 a month plan they signed up for has cost them $100 because they didn’t keep a close eye on their net usage.
Plus, Grapevine lock customers in for long term contracts. And customers like that almost as much as they like excess usage fees.

I call ‘marketing’ on ogrex’s original post because he neglects to mention the above, and claims he can reduce his costs by going to them. And having worked for 3 ISPs, I’d be hard pressed finding one with pricing structures worse than Grapevine.

After re-reading my own post, I too agree that it seemed suspicious, my apologies. I can assure that I’m just a regular ol’ punter looking after my own interests.

My current concern is whether I’m going to regret this whole bundling thing 6 months from now if network performance goes to sh*t. It’s just looking sooo tempting right now.

Aurelius said :

This smells like a marketing post….

Interesting you say that, i thought the same thing, but decided i was being paranoid.

This smells like a marketing post….

The catch is that Grapevine are oversubscribed, they don’t have the external bandwidth to support their customer load.

I think the new peak/offpeak times are probably due to large chunks of TransACT’s small/medium business customers shifting to cheaper and faster ADSL2 connections, thus dropping the traffic during business hours.

as a lark, I posted on whirlpool a query of “How does TransACT work?” the responses were amazing – over 200 pm’s and maybe 12 posts.

great fun, my clients loved it too.

If you want to see the catch, check out whirlpool at http://www.whirlpool.net.au/ and enter your phone number in to find the best selections of ISP’s for canberra.

additionally, if you post this article on whirlpool, after rego’ing, you will receive untold advice from grapevine, netspeed, velocity (actual ISP reps) and users.

whilst i am not saying that the people who frequent RiotACT cannot help you, there are other sites that may provide additional info….

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