6 January 2015

TransACT VDSL2 "Phone & Broadband" bundle

| alexx_c
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Hi,

I would like to hear your experiences with the above mentioned product, on a 2 years plan 50GB peak and 50GB off peak on the at $80 per month.

Specifically the quality and consistency of the VDSL2 downloads, what upload speeds are you getting? How is customer service when things don’t go as planned or advertised? Long install times? Currently have Telstra copper into premises but have deactivated to use naked DSL.

Slightly more technical … which of these modems are likely to work better with TransACT?

DrayTek Vigor 130 or the Zyxel P-872H?

Thanks in advance.

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csdaly said :

Well I made the switch on Tuesday last week. Changed from Telstra to Transact. The phone works. The Grapevine Internet connection doesn’t. They don’t know why. Perhaps it’s the Huawui modem they supply or something else. Takes over an hour to get a hold of anyone in Transact or Grapevine. Very frustrating. Will go back to ADSL2+ if this doesn’t work. At least we have the Optus wireless card for emergencies (and to think I grew up without the Net).

Just an update on this – now have access. It was a simple as they got my name spelt wrong, so the username I was using was wrong. Tranasct / iiNet should provide online forms to avoid this.

Tested the speed –
on ADSL2+ was getting on average download 0.2 MB/s, upload 0.08 MB/s, latency 42ms
on VDSL2+ now download 6.8 MB/s, upload 2.2 MB/s, latency 28ms.
Used the same time of day and host (UberGlobal) for all tests.
I’m happy with the improvement.

I had a 50/50 plan with transact and was very comfortably inside this usage at around 20ish GB per month until iiNet took over. All of sudden I’m pushing to my 50GB limit per month and got downgraded from 8mbps to 256kbps last week, all based on the peak usage. The off-peak is near irrelevant.

rubaiyat said :

Speed is usually fast, topping out at about 4-5 mbps but there are times when Grapevine gets slower for no discernable reason. But ADSL+ is much the same.

You mean 4-5 megaBYTES per second, I hope (ie 40-50mBITps). Otherwise there’s something very wrong with your VDSL2 setup. It should be well in excess of of ADSL speeds.

I have been with VDSL, ADSL2+ and back to VDSL2.

VDSL2 is distinctly faster. I had problems when I switched but I had problems when I switched to ADSL2+ as well.

I have a Bundle Deal with TransACT and Grapevine and get my discount on the Electricity, so the total price is about the same for the faster VDSL2 as it was for ADSL2+.

Speed is usually fast, topping out at about 4-5 mbps but there are times when Grapevine gets slower for no discernable reason. But ADSL+ is much the same.

Use the modem provided by TransACT, there is no real reason to use another unless you want a longer reach for wireless connections. And yes we have up to 8 devices connected, 1 is really unusual in my experience. Most households I know have several mobile devices and at least a couple of computers. We also have a playstation that found the wireless network with no trouble and some new TVs also use it.

Grapevine’s service is variable, iiNET was much better but they share support staff which means you can always call as they answer anywhere between South Africa and New Zealand. The worst aspect is the crazy buck passing that sometimes goes on between departments suposedly all owned by the same entity, iiNET. What is going to happen now iiNET is being bought by TPG I don’t know.

The only thing I miss from my ADSL2+ is the free telephone calls within Australia.

csdaly said :

Well I made the switch on Tuesday last week. Changed from Telstra to Transact. The phone works. The Grapevine Internet connection doesn’t. They don’t know why. Perhaps it’s the Huawui modem they supply or something else. Takes over an hour to get a hold of anyone in Transact or Grapevine. Very frustrating. Will go back to ADSL2+ if this doesn’t work. At least we have the Optus wireless card for emergencies (and to think I grew up without the Net).

You should have gone with TPG; they are brilliant.
Anyhow, with TPG set to take over iinet which owns Transact you will probably end up with them, anyhow.

Well I made the switch on Tuesday last week. Changed from Telstra to Transact. The phone works. The Grapevine Internet connection doesn’t. They don’t know why. Perhaps it’s the Huawui modem they supply or something else. Takes over an hour to get a hold of anyone in Transact or Grapevine. Very frustrating. Will go back to ADSL2+ if this doesn’t work. At least we have the Optus wireless card for emergencies (and to think I grew up without the Net).

No, the 50/50Gb is your ISP quota – in this case TransACT connection ($50) bundled with Grapevine (or iiNet) ISP ($30.)

Thanks didn’t realise that.

thatsnotme – you’re right, 5 days for the CSG for a new install.

csdaly said :

So you pay Transact $80pm for a 50GB/50Gb VDSL2* broadband/phone plan. But then you also have to pay an ISP to access the web. Is that right?

No, the 50/50Gb is your ISP quota – in this case TransACT connection ($50) bundled with Grapevine (or iiNet) ISP ($30.)

If you don’t want Grapevine/iiNet as your ISP you can choose from Netspeed (aka Velocity, or Apex) or Infinite Networks. Those are about the only other choices for ISP.

A good theme. Can I ask a question? So you pay Transact $80pm for a 50GB/50Gb VDSL2* broadband/phone plan. But then you also have to pay an ISP to access the web. Is that right? Using Netspeed as a example, that means an extra $30pm for 25GB/25GB or $45pm for 100GB/100GB. So that’s $110pm-125pm, compared to my current ADSL2* for $60pm with Telstra phone $20pm (total $80pm). Though the kids are starting to use up broadband space, so I guess have to consider it soon.

Grrrr said :

As the service comes with a phone they’re supposed to meet CSG which means getting you installed within a fortnight or owing you hefty credits.

It’s way less than a fortnight. The CSG mandates connection within a matter of days. I’m on a 2 year contract with TransACT, and my first 22 months or so are completely free, due to my CSG credits. It took them more than 6 weeks to get me connected, and my credit was over $1,300 by the time I was up and running. Not complaining now though!

Kalliste said :

Maya123 said :

goggles13 said :

liability said :

For the average used ADSL is plenty fast enough. I get just under 20mb on my ADSL connection. For all practical purposes the average user won’t notice a difference between a 10mb and a 50mb connection.

this is true if the average user only has one device connected to their internet connection.

I suspect that these days, the average user has many more than one device connected (laptop, tablet, smart tv, smartphone etc, etc, etc).

That does not sound like the average user. It sounds like what you have.

Sounds pretty standard for the people I know. We have all the things goggles13 mentioned and multiple of them. I’d say right now we have 7 devices connected.

we have around 19 devices connected to our home network, but not all of them at the same time!!

Maya123 said :

goggles13 said :

liability said :

For the average used ADSL is plenty fast enough. I get just under 20mb on my ADSL connection. For all practical purposes the average user won’t notice a difference between a 10mb and a 50mb connection.

this is true if the average user only has one device connected to their internet connection.

I suspect that these days, the average user has many more than one device connected (laptop, tablet, smart tv, smartphone etc, etc, etc).

That does not sound like the average user. It sounds like what you have.

Sounds pretty standard for the people I know. We have all the things goggles13 mentioned and multiple of them. I’d say right now we have 7 devices connected.

liability said :

For the average used ADSL is plenty fast enough. I get just under 20mb on my ADSL connection. For all practical purposes the average user won’t notice a difference between a 10mb and a 50mb connection.

You mean “for me, ADSL is fast enough.”

Just because you can’t tell the difference between, say, a 300MB update downloading in 5 minutes on ADSL vs 60 seconds on VDSL2, doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t notice. I’ll tell you what’s even more noticable – having over 10mbit upload vs a max of 1mbit upload on ADSL.

alexx_c – TransACT VDSL2 is fine. Support might be good or bad, I wouldn’t know. TransACT supply a modem which can either be bridged or work as a router. You won’t get faster sync speeds from your own modem, and you can use one just fine – but you will probably get slower sync if your modem doesn’t have Broadcom DSL chipset.

As the service comes with a phone they’re supposed to meet CSG which means getting you installed within a fortnight or owing you hefty credits.

Maya123 said :

goggles13 said :

liability said :

For the average used ADSL is plenty fast enough. I get just under 20mb on my ADSL connection. For all practical purposes the average user won’t notice a difference between a 10mb and a 50mb connection.

this is true if the average user only has one device connected to their internet connection.

I suspect that these days, the average user has many more than one device connected (laptop, tablet, smart tv, smartphone etc, etc, etc).

That does not sound like the average user.

really?

goggles13 said :

liability said :

For the average used ADSL is plenty fast enough. I get just under 20mb on my ADSL connection. For all practical purposes the average user won’t notice a difference between a 10mb and a 50mb connection.

this is true if the average user only has one device connected to their internet connection.

I suspect that these days, the average user has many more than one device connected (laptop, tablet, smart tv, smartphone etc, etc, etc).

That does not sound like the average user. It sounds like what you have.

alexx_c said :

Thanks all, I am sold.
how do I organise discount for gas and electricity also through the same company?

Just ask when you ring up to sign up. Personally, I specifically asked not to bundle anything. For the tiny discounts (you’d have 4 services, so 5%) the risk isn’t worth it. Each service you bundle has a separate $50 early contract termination fee…so if for some reason you had to cancel your services, you’d have the TransACT $200 early termination fee, plus another $50 per bundled service. The discount is only on either your TransACT bill (not including data) or your electricity bill. Unless your electricity bills are huge, it’s not worth the risk IMHO.

Thanks all, I am sold.
how do I organise discount for gas and electricity also through the same company?

liability said :

For the average used ADSL is plenty fast enough. I get just under 20mb on my ADSL connection. For all practical purposes the average user won’t notice a difference between a 10mb and a 50mb connection.

this is true if the average user only has one device connected to their internet connection.

I suspect that these days, the average user has many more than one device connected (laptop, tablet, smart tv, smartphone etc, etc, etc).

liability said :

For the average used ADSL is plenty fast enough. I get just under 20mb on my ADSL connection. For all practical purposes the average user won’t notice a difference between a 10mb and a 50mb connection.

All well and good, except 20mb/s is not the average ADSL speed around the country. So whilst good for you, not good for most, wherethe average speed is actually 4.7mb/s. Oh that speed is for all forms of internet, so will be skewed slightly higher by VDSL and NBN fibre.

50gb on peak and 50gb off peak for $80 a month? So essentially if you don’t schedule overnight downloads, you’re really getting 50gb a month, for $80. This is why I hate TransACT, plus it’s pretty much just a souped up ADSL with no speed guarantee, unlike fibre. You’ll pay less for more with both ADSL2 and NBN. Not to mention the vast majority of the Telco’s on TransACT are god awful and can’t offer any semblance of a quality connection.

For the average used ADSL is plenty fast enough. I get just under 20mb on my ADSL connection. For all practical purposes the average user won’t notice a difference between a 10mb and a 50mb connection.

Been on VDSL2 for about a year now – it’s brilliant. Was getting 5mbps down 1mbps up on ADSL2, now getting around 45 down, 5 up. Speed is very consistent. I use iiNet as my ISP.

Install was very slow when I signed up – I think things are a lot better now.

Only really needed to use customer service for a couple of non-technical things after setting up – it was fine, responsive, and issues were sorted with no dramas.

liability said :

Seems a bit expensive.

You can get unlimited downloads and free local and std calls with TPG for $69.

Yeah…but you get what you pay for. VDSL2 is, for 99.99% of people, going to be far faster than ADSL2 available to them. Paying a premium for a far faster and likely more reliable service is money well spent I think.

Seems a bit expensive.

You can get unlimited downloads and free local and std calls with TPG for $69.

You should check the Transact forum on whirlpool, it will give you your answers http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/67?g=46

Personally I’m very happy with vdsl2, 50Mbps down/15Mbps up or better, very reliable, maybe two outages since changing from vdsl (two years ago?). You’ll also need an ISP in addition to the Transact connection. A locked down Huawei modem comes with the package but if you ask nicely they’ll unlock it so you can do a lot more with it, such as using it as a wireless router.

If you use this plan you probably don’t need to buy your own modem. When we switched to this plan we were provided with a Huawei modem which didn’t work properly, and consequently was replaced with one that did work.

We have had occasional slowdowns and outages, sometimes for several says, that may have been common to other TransACT and/or Grapevine (Iinet) packages.

Our previous broadband modem offered the security option of not broadcasting our wireless network name, so that people who wanted to log on needed to know both the network name and the password. The current modem broadcasts the network name and requires only the password, which makes the network a little less secure.

Our best recorded download speeds have been around 60 Mbps (currently 21) and our best upload speeds (as at present) have been around 17 Mbps.

emperorminge10:31 am 07 Jan 15

I’ve been with Transact on the VDSL2 50/50 plan for the last 2 years – its awesome. Like you, I have copper from the pole to the house and get 18mb down/10mb up. It’s a very stable connection and I’ve never noticed any fluctuations in speed.

Transact have been fine to deal with – easy set-up, no dramas with accounts. They supply their own modem for the connection so haven’t had to worry about compatibility.

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