Originally Posted by thadocta
Have heard nothing but praise for Optus cable broadband. Have heard nothing but brickbats for their DSL product though. And since I am not in a cabled area, it would be DSL for me.
Now, do I junk my current ADSL provider -
WestNet (who I am extremely happy with) in order to get a plan which gives me the same speed for the same cost just to get 5000 points?
Nah, think I will stay where I am. Will be good for those about to get broadband or those looking to change ISP's, but not for this little black duck.
Dave
Residential ADSL services are all via Telstra infrastructure anyway. The ISP you contract sets the fees they charge, and Telstra provide a back-end pipe into that ISP's network (usually an ATM connection, but may be changing now that Telstra is moving away from the Shasta BSN5000 aggregators).
So the only difference an ISP makes is how good their back-end network peers with the other major internet providers. Poor peering means poor performance. So I can't see why Optus Broadband ADSL would have any technical disadvantage over any other ADSL provider, and their back-end should be better given that OptusNet is one of the three major corporate internet carriers in Australia (along with Telstra and Connect.Com) where peering counts.
Telstra's ADSL reliability has greatly improved in the last 6 months, so it should not be affecting any ISP's ADSL services as it has done in the past.
Really, the only reason to change an ADSL service provider is if their peering is poor, to get a more suitable plan, or to get other benefits such as FF points!
But there is a major difference in how Teltra and Optus deliver cable internet services (the technology they use). And if you plan on using cable internet service for IPSec VPN services, make dure you do your homework first. The way these two providers handle keepalives in different and that may have an impact on whether the VPN will function or not.