Life & Technology – 2GB 9th Mar, 2024

OK, Here Is How I Buy Concert Tickets (Ticketek)

I have received more email about this than I did about the most recent iPhone launch. The below is what ‘I do’, its not a blue print on how to hack a system or run a ticket buying ‘Robot’ – those things are clearly illegal (and are against buying terms & conditions!). 

There are two parts to the purchase. The waiting room and the ticket selection/purchase. But they are separate parts of the system. They need to be separate because the waiting room has the potential to slow or flood the selection/purchase area if they are made the same. 

The Ticketek waiting room, like all online waiting rooms, need to id a ‘user’ vs a robot. If they allow robots in then they stop real fans/customers vs people buying to onsell. 

They do this via a number of ways, but the IP address of the user is the main way in which they do it. 

Yes, they require each buyer to be logged in to the ticketek account, but they ALLOW multiple devices logging in at once during the waiting room process.

So, what you need to do is maximise your connections via different ip addresses. If you are trying at work, with 1000 people all connecting through the same ip address = BAD IDEA. 

If you can connect from a phone via cellular, a pc connected on home nbn and another phone also connected on cellular, that is now 3x IP addresses and you have tripled your opportunity of getting through the waiting room que. 

I used this formula for TS to create 18 different opportunities to get through the waiting room and was able to buy the tickets in the day and in the area of the stadium I wanted. It was still a nightmare and took hours. To be clear – I didn’t use a robot – if you do Ts & Cs say they can cancel your tickets. But I did have friends and family connecting their devices at their home, multiple devices connecting on cellular and I even had staff working at home during the TS ticket selling event. All logged in and sitting in the waiting room – all on a Skype live chat to alert the others if/when they got through the que. 

For other ticket selling events I used the same system but dialled back the number of devices connecting, to just devices I had on hand. I used about 5 for Cold Play and others. The result was I was through the waiting room almost instantly for each. 

Also, you need to disconnect all the other devices from the waiting room as soon as one gets through. This ensures the purchase window does not let in another device to the purchase section while the first device is buying tickets in this section already. This can confuse the system and kick you of the purchase section and you need to go back to the waiting room all over again.

Use this system and see if it works for you. We won’t have another selling event like Taylor Swift for a while, so you might not need it, and also with this process making the rounds Ticketek might work to close it off as an option, but good luck with it and I hope it helps you get the tickets you want. 

Guests and Topics on the Show
NBNco joined us to discuss how they are with NBN resellers to offer faster speeds for selected speed tiers. Sadly its not coming until late this year, but here are the details announced this week. Here is the announcement  

Australians feel the need, the need for speed: nbn reveals plan to turbo-charge high-speed tiers  NBN Co today launched a proposal to provide five times faster download speeds on its popular nbn Home Fast product, which would see wholesale download speeds accelerate from 100/20 Mbps to 500/50 Mbps1 at no extra wholesale cost to retailers.NBN Co is proposing to provide the accelerated speeds to customers connected to the nbn® network via Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) and Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) technologies. The company is also proposing to triple the wholesale download speed of its nbn Home Superfast product from 250/25 Mbps to 750/50 Mbps1 and increase the wholesale speeds of its highest residential speed tier, nbn Home Ultrafast, from 500-1000/50 Mbps to 750-1000/50-100 Mbps1, also at no extra wholesale cost to retailers. The accelerated speeds would be made available to customers who are already using one of the three highest-speed products, and to those who upgrade to one of those three higher speed tiers in the future. The proposed acceleration of the speed tiers is in response to the step-change in technology adoption and usage in Australia and globally. The move leverages the growing capabilities of fibre connectivity. The new turbo-charged speed tiers would be available across the company’s HFC and FTTP networks with customers in eligible Fibre to the Node (FTTN) and Fibre to the Curb (FTTC) locations that will be able to access the proposed speed tiers by upgrading to FTTP. As part of the proposal, NBN Co has indicated that it intends to relax the threshold2 for customers in premises served by FTTC to be eligible to upgrade to a full fibre (FTTP) connection by ordering an nbn Home Fast 100/20 Mbps product. Customers can check if their home or business is served by HFC or FTTP, or eligible to upgrade to FTTP and access faster speeds at nbn.com.au/fibreupgrade.The company is seeing strong demand for full fibre upgrades and higher speed tiers with approximately 7,000 homes and businesses per week, on average, upgrading to Fibre to the Premises (FTTP). 

So if you are on 100/20 NBN you will be able to upgrade to 500/50 at no cost. If you are 1000/50 (like me!!!) you can upgrade to 1000/100.  If you are on 50/20 you are not part of the announcement? Why? Because NBN want you to move up a speed tier to a faster service. There has been plenty of comments on the email about the announcement, but there is a lot to happene before the end of the year and these speeds being offered to customers. 

 Epson Turns 40 In Australia 
The Global President of Epson visited Australia this week and we included some exerts of our round table discussion in the program. We did receive a number of inquiries about printer product suggestions off the back of our guest joining us, here are some options (from Epson)
–  Around $150 (Inkjet multi function)  Click Here
Around $250 (Ecotank printer only) Click Here
Around $500 Ecotank – all in one) Click Here

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