Tag Archives: Wireless

Fibre vs. Wireless Performance & The NBN

I’m sick & tired of people saying wireless is a better alternative to Fibre in regard to the NBN debate in Australia. I have thralled the net looking for some really world results & finally am satisfied with what I have found I’m not after marketing claims or anything like that, I’m not quoting some peace of policy, these are results recorded through the one and the same site, speedtest.net.

Below is a video recorded in the US, it compares Verison LTE vs. Sprint 4G. The results are less than impressive, Verizon LTE modem clocked in speeds of 7.40 Mbps down & 1.40 Mbps up while the Sprint 4G 1.76 Mbps down and 0.40 Mbps up.
Sprint 4G vs. Verizon LTE Speedtest in San Francisco

This next peace is the results from my own Internode ADSL2+ connection from October last year, I’m not going to retest because it’s much the same now:

Speedtest.net Result 7th October 2010
Web White Noise – Speedtest Time

Finally a speed test from a customer with iiNet connected to the NBN:

iiNet NBN Speedtest.net Results
Whirlpool – I’m on the NBN! Forum Thread

The numbers based on performance speak for themselves.

Update 19/05/2011 – New Phone

I’ve got myself a new phone & have now done a speedtest on the Telstra NextG / UMTS 850 / US3G network (what ever standard they want to call it), using the USB tethering capability. The results are unsurprising for wireless.

Update 20/01/2013 – Telstra LTE 4G (1800Mhz) in Southport

For those who keep wanting to say that 4G is better then Fibre to the Home (FTTH), I think not.

2013-01-18 14.11.37

Just Got Myself a Reciva Logik IR100 Internet Radio

Here is an interesting device for you all out there. I decided that I was sick and tired for the horrible radio reception I have at my house given that I pretty much have hills in all directions accept for the ocean to the east. My solution to the problem is however not unique, there are probably a fair few of these things out in the world these days. It’s rather uncomplicated to steam content online these days, and I must say the Reciva Logik IR100 is rather uncomplicated. (Well from my perspective anyway)

First thing I noticed was that the box is not in English, not like I care as long as the unit inside is what it’s meant to be, I did order this from here in Australia so obviously DStore who I got it through, obtained them from a source in Europe.

There is probably no sellers here in Australia at this point, not to mention it’s hard to find any Internet Radios here in Australia anyway. Dick Smith had one (SAGEM My Du@l Radio 700), the guys in the shop didn’t know much about it, and to be honest with you after reading online about it I’m happy with my Logik choice. It might cost a bit more but functionality wise it’s a breeze.

First place I’m going to point you all to is My Reciva Logik IR100 Internet Radio Resource page, now this isn’t My page, it’s some else’s, but it will give you some good ideas about Reciva Logik IR100 Internet Radio. (Not to mention a link to the manual) You will notice from my pictures that my unit is different to the one listed on the above site, that’s because I think mine is a latter generation model.

So let me just get to the point, here are my criticisms:

  • For some reason it doesn’t appear to be compatible with my Netgear WG302 Access Point
  • Wifi range from the unit is poor considering what a PCMCIA card with no visible antenna can do, good thing I have high power antennas on my Router and Access Point to saturate my house

…that’s all I can find at this point, so it’s pretty good at this point. Will update if I find any others.

Update 1

Ok did a firmware update to my router (Draytek 2700VG) and now the signal is way better so maybe the weak signal was caused by the router & not the player.

Draytek Joins 802.11n (Draft) Club

I was looking at some of Draytek‘s CPE devices today and low and behold they have a new model on the horizon. The soon to be released Draytek Vigor 2820 Series is now offering 802.11n (Draft) capability. Plus as usual the plethora of high grade features I expect from Draytek.

While I personally consider Draytek to be a little lacking in longterm firmware support, they tend not to need it based on their devices just working well from day one. Did I mention the great features. e.g 32 VPN Tunnels, Easy configuration, WAN fail over, WAN load balancing, USB port for 3G mobile broadband Internet access and printer server, QOS.

Basically if you don’t want to spend the money on a Cisco devices, which will prob ably be overkill anyway, then Draytek are pretty damn good devices. Now yes you will say I use a Billion at home and all be it they are good devices, but Draytek blows it away on ease of configuration.