This is getting REALLY offtopic.

Keith & Deby wrote:
> Im no techie...I do know how to identify a problem.
> So Joel is a techie student or something, no doing a BT. What is offered is
> not suitable for his needs. And At a Guess he is not the only student that
> may have these requirements. To go to what business s get he would need a
> 2nd student loan.

I personally would be surprised if many customers had these requirements
at all. Remember, the average subscriber to this mailing list is the
exception rather than the rule.

At my previous job (ISP, medium-large), our traffic flows were certainly
extremely assymetric from the DSL network. The average customer
uploaded very little traffic.

> Now have a look at schools, Primary and Intermediate have available, send 35
> or 40 machines from a ICT class, how to use a browser, have the Office lady
> in putting daily pupil data, and the Principle reading the NZ Herald on
> line....

Telecom offers School Zone, which is competitively priced. Wired
Country, Woosh, Telecom, ICONZ, also are all a part of PROBE which has
(or should have, for the most part) seen school broadband prices drop
and become more affordable.

SZ seems to be reasonably affordable from what I've read about it, and
lets not forget that people can contribute 'points' from their bill or
something to give the school discounts.

[I don't remember how this works - it's been some time since I went to
school, and I don't have kids..]

I'd imagine a school would actually be reasonably OK with a 2Mb/192k
service, incidentally. With the exception of large email attachments -
the start of this whole thread - the performance should be reasonably ok.

> Or go Commercial, the costs are huge.
> The home user is basically ok, small business are getting ripped off
> The education system in this country, schools and many students, neither of
> the above alternatives are suitable or apply.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Schools, or small business?

Small business have a few options, and they are increasing over time.
The amount NZ broadband/DSL has come forwards in the last 4 years is
remarkable.

> Lets not forget the directors responsibility to the shareholders, the
> shareholders are off shore, so it doesn't matter to them.

This argument gets tiring. There are a LARGE number of domestically
owned Telecom shares.

I don't see people complaining about Vodafone or TelstraClear which are
100% foreign owned. These are often held up as "amazing" companies; and
the same TNZ foreign owned line is trotted out.

And for the record, VF and TCL and their parent companies are just as
evil, if not worse. It's Big Business.

> So in the mean time...while the education sector doesn't have better
> alternatives...they make more money.
> Joel is right to be upset...and so is anyone else who has children at the
> local Jnr schools.

Debatable.

However, this debate should please be put to rest - it's going to go
nowhere. Unless someone is going to raise something technical, lets
take this to adsl-chat.

aj.

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