Telecom wireless

Hi

I have a question about Telecom Wireless. It turns out we live in a hole as far as broadband is concerned. No Jetstream, and Telecom no longer even let you put your name on a list to register your interest in getting the local exchange upgraded. Instead, they say "wireless is available in your area". The deal seems to be that they come out to your place and see if they can get a signal. If they can, you pay $1000 minimum for equipment, $500 for installation, and sign up for an expensive plan. THEN you get to figure out whether the connection is any good. Is this a scam? Does anybody seriously sign up for this? I want broadband, but I don't want to shell out that much money to find that there is a problem. I am suspicious that Telecom are using their wireless offering to appear to be delivering rural broadband without really believing it will be taken up. But maybe I am wrong - I would love to know.

Thanks.

xtra wireless is stupidly expensive, where abouts are you exactly?

From what I know the wireless is good, it's run through BCL using their transmission towers, but I don't know what the latency for the connection/stability of the connection is like, sorry.

I'm in Pukekawa (South Auckland)

Can you see Puke Hill? If so you can try Wired Country.
If not, are you close to Pukekawa School? If so, PROBE will probably mean you soon get options.
Neil

Oh believe me, we've been scouting out the hills. Can't see Puke, might be able to see the Bombays if we climb a tree. Will be interesting to see what options PROBE really does give.

I'm not sure what wireless BCL offer to the end-user, but we have a corporate link supplied through them which is very stable. 2mb 45-48ms ping times.

It will be interesting to see if Project Probe does any good to providing an affordable service due to Telescum getting most of the contracts.