My ISP, iiNet, are currently offering a 3 month trial of the FetchTV service. I decided to take them up on this offer, just to see what it was like. The problems started as soon as I got my set top box. iiNet only support specific modems with their FetchTV service, before I received my box I was still using a different modem as that was more reliable. When the box came, I was going to switch over to their recommended one, set it up the same and away I would go with the new TV service.

I asked iiNet to deliver the box to my work as I didn’t expect to be home when it would be delivered, however, on this day I was. It was delivered to my work and all of a sudden at home, I was disconnected from the Internet. I had no idea why so I called iiNet. This is the only time I have ever had bad customer service with them (even with the DSL debacle they still gave me good service). If they just looked at their notes, they would know the issue, but no, they insisted it was something I did. Even though I didn’t change anything. What I didn’t know at the time, though, was that when they get confirmation of the FetchTV box delivery, they disable PPPoE on your account. Thus rendering my old, reliable, modem useless. I plugged in my BoB modem (the one they support) and my net was instantly back up, using Bridged mode instead of PPPoE. The problem with this, however, is that I can’t disable NAT and actually have a proper connection (I have another router that handles NAT, the border one routes direct). Apparently they’re still working on this, well, thanks for telling me.

After calling in to work and picking up my set top box, I got home and plugged it in. All was going well in the setup, I typed in my activation key and away it went. I looked at some of the channels, they loaded much faster than Foxtel on 360 and were much better quality. There aren’t that many channels on FetchTV, but that’s understandable considering it’s less than a third of the cost of the full Foxtel subscription. Fetch also mixes in the free-to-air channels with their own pay channels. They also advertise the features of the PVR as a compelling reason to get the service.

Now, my issues here are not with the Fetch service itself. They are with the set top box and how it works. I have had no end of issues with it. First off, there’s no 30-second skip button. Now I know this is because Fetch get their free-to-air EPG data from the Freeview service and they don’t allow PVRs with a 30-second skip button. But the Freeview EPG is horrible. We use DVB-T here in Australia, it comes with an in-band EPG. It is always more accurate than the crappy Freeview one. Shows regularly run overtime on the free networks here. The in-band EPG normally reflects any last-minute changes in scheduling. Of course, this affects any recordings you have scheduled. Because Fetch does not use the most recent information available, I am constantly forced to set it to record up to 30 minutes after the episode is scheduled to end, just to be safe.

Aside from the EPG are other terrible design decisions. The box comes with apps. These apps are made by Fetch and the ISP you get the service from. They are, to put it simply, horrible. Take the Twitter app as an example. I went to sign in to it and realised that I would have to use a T9 keypad to enter my details, even though there was an on-screen keyboard presented to me when I originally entered my activation key for the service. Now, for someone with an extremely complex password that I don’t even remember (I auto-generate and use Lastpass), this is near on impossible to accomplish. Not to mention there is no backspace button! When you don’t know a password that you’re entering, you can’t see the characters and it’s very long, you tend to make mistakes often. I had to go back and re-enter the damn thing over and over before I was sure I got it right. I pressed the login button and was told it was incorrect. So I entered it again, and again, and again. I then decided to go on Whirlpool to complain about this horrible decision to use the T9 keypad instead of a logical on-screen keyboard and found that people were told that the Twitter service didn’t even work! Well, again, thanks for telling me.

The problems don’t end there though. I have my Fetch box hooked up to my TV through HDMI and my receiver through optical TOSLINK. For some reason, that I am yet to understand. In the middle of the night I am woken by the damn box turning back on and blasting me with whatever happens to be on at the time. Even though I have set the volume on the box to be the lowest, tried muting, etc. I have had to resort to turning my receiver off just so I’m not woken up by it doing whatever the hell it wants to.

I think I can safely say that once my 3 month trial is near completion, I will be handing this box back and saying no thanks. As I have said, the service is good, the implementation is horribly bad.

Rating: 2/5★★☆☆☆ 

I was pretty excited when they announced the partnership as I had been wanting a decent IPTV service for quite a while. Well, it was finally released just a few days ago and I jumped on it. The problem is, it’s not really Foxtel.

There are a few big draw cards for using the Foxtel service. These include their “Red Button” service, which allows the viewer to interact with the stream and access things like local news services, alternative music styles on the music channels, etc. This service is just not included on the Xbox, even though shows still tell you to press the red button to access extra options. Another big thing is their sports coverage. As many people reading this would know, I am a Chelsea FC fan and I would love to be able to watch their games live without using crappy online streaming services that are just horrible quality. This is the thing that really annoyed me. Instead of including the same sports content as the people who pay for their traditional service get, they decided to create a new channel dedicated to the Xbox called FOX Sports Play. This channel doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of sport available as the traditional broadcast. It also does not show Premier League games live.

Of course, there was nowhere that said any of these things before I paid for the service for a month. While I understand that it is their first foray into IPTV and they may not get it right straight away, making people pay about the same price for a really substandard service is just wrong. This service doesn’t feel like Foxtel, it feels like one of the cheap alternatives, just not so cheap.

The first thing that needs to be done when activating a new DSL account is setting up the new phone line, even this was a challenge. The house I moved into is a subdevelopment of an existing block. The official address is number 110B, however it seems this is not the number utilities use to supply their service. The address they use is unit 2/110. It should be the same thing, but apparently it is not.

Once the phone line was finally connected on the 10th of February (should have been the 8th), it was now time to start the DSL activation process. I called up iiNet again and they got the ball rolling. However, it seems they didn’t push said ball hard enough. I checked the online toolbox for the status of the connection and that said it should be up by the 18th of February. That day came and went without any indication at all that there was a service activated.

I called iiNet again and apparently their automated system never actually put through the provisioning request. This, however, was not the worst part of the debacle. I was told when I called that an appointment had been made with Telstra to go to the exchange and connect my line to the iiNet DSLAM on the 23rd.

When the 23rd came, I got a phone call from iiNet saying that all should be good; I should be online as soon as I got home. After finishing work and arriving home, I plugged in my router and had 8mbps ADSL1 sync. Apparently the slow speed is to be expected when you first connect and I was told that it would improve in a few hours. How wrong they were. About one hour after I first connected, the net just dropped out completely. The router wasn’t even trying to get a sync from the exchange. It was as if the cable was unplugged or the port on the DSLAM was deactivated.

Once again, it was time to call iiNet. After hours of waiting on hold and waiting for callbacks, they told me that they had no idea how I even got online in the first place and that I hadn’t even been allocated a port at the exchange. This time they said that an appointment had been booked for the 26th. By now, iiNet had enabled customers to view all of the notes the customer service representatives have placed on a task assigned to the customers. I read some of these notes and just could not believe what they were saying.

First, iiNet requested port number 5 on a rack 1 in the exchange. Telstra came back saying port number 5 on rack 10 is in use. Of course, this meant that Telstra weren’t going to do the work in the appointment. iiNet then replied with a rack and port combination that couldn’t possibly be confused, port 8 on rack 9. Telstra replied saying the work will be completed on the 4th of March.

Well, the 4th of March came along. Once again, I got a call from iiNet saying that my service had been activated. When I got home, however, there was still no line sync. It was the exact same as it had been all along, not even trying to get sync. This is where I really started to get frustrated. According to their systems, my router had full sync. Again, hours on hold, waiting for callbacks. In the end a line fault was issued.

The very next day I received a call on my voicemail (couldn’t answer the phone as I was driving) saying that according to their systems, I had sync and they were closing the fault. I was furious at this. To add insult to injury, the call queue was extremely long due to an outage in some exchanges. I did eventually get a callback from someone who understood that it is not actually working and the fault was reopened. I received an SMS saying that I would be online on the 9th of March.

Again, the day rolled by, with no internet in sight. Also again, no DSL sync, not even an attempt at sync. I called up and according to them the line was fixed and that the only reason it wouldn’t be able to connect was that it was a faulty router. I told them that I had already tried multiple routers. I even turned my router off just to prove that it didn’t actually have sync. The demeanor of the customer service rep changed completely when I did this to actually believing me. So, once again, a fault was lodged.

I was woken up this morning by a phone call from iiNet. The rep told me to take a look at my router. To my amazement, there was a line sync light! The rep then admitted that he was really embarrassed at what had happened and that it was a stupid oversight on their part. I managed to get the reason out of him. Apparently the MDF racks in the exchange each have specific names. It appears that the whole time during provisioning, they were looking at the wrong MDF rack.

So, I am finally back online. From disconnecting at my old house on the 6th of February to reconnecting finally on the 10th of March. iiNet already credited me for the entire relocation cost plus one month for the downtime, they also offered me $40 credit today. During the entire time that I didn’t have DSL, I used my phone’s internet tethered to my PC. The problem with that, however, was that I only had 1GB of bandwidth per month. Not nearly enough. So I set up a spare server as a dialup router. It was hell at those speeds, but now I can rejoice at getting the fairly decent speeds of 15mbps down and 2.5mbps up.

The biggest example of this recently would be Sony’s new PSPgo. Here in Australia it has an RRP of AU$449.95. In the US, that price is US$249. How can Sony justify this? It’s nearly half the price over the other side of the world! The good news about this, however, is that Australian customers have realised that it is way overpriced and just haven’t bought them. Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for Sony.

Another example is the new Windows 7. There is absolutely no difference with the products you can get from the US or here in Australia, yet the prices are different. In the US, the Ultimate version of the Operating System is US$229. Over here in Australia? Once again, we’re ripped off at AU$430.

I constantly find myself looking at US sites for cheaper products than just go to my local retail store. The only thing these companies are doing is hurting the local economy and sending money overseas.

There is some good news though. I really have to congratulate Dell for not following this trend. Just yesterday I was looking at their website. They have a 21.5″ multitouch monitor for AU$499. I then proceeded to check the US site to see if they would be cheaper there, the monitor was US$469, which actually works out to be AU$508. That’s right, it’s cheaper here on the Australian website than the US one.

I really hope to see more companies following the trend that Dell are setting. It’s time companies got over the “local marketplace” pricing and realised that, thanks to the Internet, it doesn’t really exist any more.