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iPod NZ Users - iTMS Working?

Nermal

Nermal

Moderator
Original poster
Staff member
Dec 7, 2002
21,431
5,309
New Zealand
I'm a bit bored, so let's do a survey :cool:

As some of you know, NZers could purchase from the Australian iTunes Music Store on the day it opened. Some people can still make purchases, but others have now been blocked. I'm trying to figure out the logic between who can and who can't purchase. To try to narrow it down, I have three questions for each user:

1. Can you make purchases?
2. What type of card are you using?
3. Which bank are you using?

Maybe we can find a pattern :)

I can still make purchases, and I'm using a MasterCard from Westpac.
 
Nermal said:
I'm a bit bored, so let's do a survey :cool:

As some of you know, NZers could purchase from the Australian iTunes Music Store on the day it opened. Some people can still make purchases, but others have now been blocked. I'm trying to figure out the logic between who can and who can't purchase. To try to narrow it down, I have three questions for each user:

1. Can you make purchases?
2. What type of card are you using?
3. Which bank are you using?

Maybe we can find a pattern :)

I can still make purchases, and I'm using a MasterCard from Westpac.
Click to expand...


I havent attempted to sign up with the Aussie iTMS, waiting till next year when broadband is offered at a decent price with a better or not cap to it(fat chance:rolleyes: ) till then I buy my music on CD.
 
I like to call what we have now as 'Thinband'

Down with Telecom!
 
I have a suspicion that I'm the only person in the country that's actually happy with their Internet connection :eek:

Then again, I'm on a custom Telstra connection with no data cap :D
 
Theorectically I believe I don't have a data cap.
iHug released bliink broadband orginally with a max 20GB Onpeak/20GB Offpeak limit. When I signed up, iHug had changed their page to No Caps since then they had gone back to a 20/20 allowance. Thats on a 256kbps connection.

But surely you have some small desire for a fast connection? What are you on at the moment 256kbps or 2mbps?

Hmmm, checking my usage its telling me that this month I have used 19358mb
 
pknz said:
Theorectically I believe I don't have a data cap.
iHug released bliink broadband orginally with a max 20GB Onpeak/20GB Offpeak limit. When I signed up, iHug had changed their page to No Caps since then they had gone back to a 20/20 allowance. Thats on a 256kbps connection.

But surely you have some small desire for a fast connection? What are you on at the moment 256kbps or 2mbps?

Hmmm, checking my usage its telling me that this month I have used 19358mb
Click to expand...
After reading some of the feed back in the Herald a few weeks back from ex-pat Kiwis living in Hong Kong, Canada, US etc and seeing what they were paying for 3 Mbps with no data caps (as a minimum speed!:eek: ) with Hong Kong getting 100 Mbps to your Hard Drive for about $50 a month with no limits and then seeing some "interesting" remarks from Telecom regarding Telstras actions in limiting AAPL (Telecom's offshoot in Australia) where Telecom was bitching about Telstra being "anticompetitive" and how Telecom was working with the NZ government to increase broadband speeds in this country:rolleyes: hmmmm Ya! Right! In response to the comments the Telsra spokesman called labelled Telecoms actions hipocritical:D :cool:

All I can say is Telecom can take it up the a** as far as Im concerned:mad: Im also with Telstra but on dial up @ home and I am not considering moving to broadband untill we get decent speeds with no cap and a reasonable price per month which if Telecom has anything to say will probably be never:rolleyes:
 
pknz said:
What are you on at the moment 256kbps or 2mbps?
Click to expand...

2 meg :D

[standards-compliancy nazi]It's "Mb/s", not "mbps". "mbps" is "milli bit pico seconds" :p[/standards-compliancy nazi]
 
Dam your standards-compliancy nazi-ness. My rebelious Polish uprising will uh...will o forget it.

ll I can say is Telecom can take it up the a** as far as Im concerned
Click to expand...

Right on! I find it funny how Telecom are taking the Commerce Commission to court over this.

Some Helengrad associate before the election was looking for 'highspeed' internet connections at around a dollar a day. Knowing this government, they will give us that, then charge GST on top, add in some other user charge, and limit the cap to say 10Mb a day.
 
steve_hill4 said:
If you want to be even more precise, it is now Mbs<sup>-1</sup>

;)
Click to expand...

Yeah, but that's too hard to type :rolleyes:

And thank you very much for reminding me of Physics class, it was full of ms^-2 etc :mad:
 
Nermal said:
Yeah, but that's too hard to type :rolleyes:

And thank you very much for reminding me of Physics class, it was full of ms^-2 etc :mad:
Click to expand...
Sorry. I think that most isps though like to refer to speeds as kbps or Mbps, purely for the average customer that wouldn't understand any of more accurate representations. It's like mph or mpg in cars. Not really correct, but it's what people understand.

Anyway, I am surprised to hear any can access iTMS Australia in NZ. I thought Apple were pretty tight on allowing people access to other countries stores, whether they have one of their own or not. I wouldn't want to spoil anyone's enjoyment in NZ, but I wonder if Apple actually know about this loophole. What would they say if someone dropped them a line, (which I won't so those who can access it, still will be able to for now)?
 
pknz said:
I'm pretty sure they know, there has been a bit of publicity on some sites about this.

NZMac
Click to expand...

I followed a few links on that page and found a rumour about a proper NZ store opening in January :)
 
Nermal said:
I followed a few links on that page and found a rumour about a proper NZ store opening in January :)
Click to expand...

I can't find any reference to this on NZMac because the site appears to be down at moment, but I seem to recall reading a breif comment about this on stuff.co.nz. They didn't offer any justification for this comment and, in the absense of any solid evidence, I am inclined to think that the chance of this being true is almost nil. Don't forget how many times the Australians were let down before they finally got their store up and running.

I am still of the opinion that Apple had originally planned to launch a New Zealand store at the same time that the Australian store was launched but, for some reason, they discovered that an extra cost would be involved in getting the New Zealand store up and running and they decided that it was not feasible. If my theory is true, then I would doubt that we'll get getting our own store for at least a year or two.

Anyway, back to the original topic, I am accessing the Australian store using my .Mac login, and it was still working fine at this time last week (I haven't tried it since, but there's no reason to believe that my access would have been cut off since then). I originally started using the store on the day it was launched, and the credit card that I have been using is a Bank of New Zealand Visa. I have been downloading from Wellington and Christchurch using my Woosh connection.
 
You got download caps? That's crazy. The biggest (by a large margin) ISP here tried that here, but none else did the same. A while later they dropped it, and had "No cap", in their ads, as one of those reasons you should choose them. :rolleyes:

As for iTMS... what happens if you bought a song, but is no longer able to buy from the store? Whould you have any kind of authorization problems? Problems moving songs to another computer?
 
Basically there are three networks here. One network (Telecom) covers about 98% of the country, and the others are around 5-15%. Therefore, Telecom have a huge monopoly. They can basically charge whatever they like and get away with it.

A competitor, Telstra, has argued to the Government and Commerce Commission that Telecom are being monopolistic, but nobody's really doing anything about it. Essentially, the ComCom are just saying "we don't want to tread on Telecom's toes". We've had baby steps over the past few years, but nothing major (eg. the "standard" "broadband" connection speed is now 256 kb/s, rather than 128).

Telstra got a new CEO a few months ago, and after the ComCom again refused to do anything, he essentially said "**** this, we're pulling out of the market". That seemed to scare them into regulating Telecom, but nothing's come of it yet.

Anyway, I'm getting a tad sidetracked :rolleyes:
 
Nermal said:
A competitor, Telstra, has argued to the Government and Commerce Commission that Telecom are being monopolistic, but nobody's really doing anything about it. Essentially, the ComCom are just saying "we don't want to tread on Telecom's toes". We've had baby steps over the past few years, but nothing major (eg. the "standard" "broadband" connection speed is now 256 kb/s, rather than 128).

Telstra got a new CEO a few months ago, and after the ComCom again refused to do anything, he essentially said "**** this, we're pulling out of the market". That seemed to scare them into regulating Telecom, but nothing's come of it yet.
Click to expand...

It has been reported that Telecom are not currently meeting their targets for broadband uptake, and more heavy-handed regulation has been threatened. Unfortunately, for as long as I can remember, there has been a lot of talk but not a lot of action, but it will be interesting to see what comes of it.
 
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