Wireless Speed and Security in New Zealand

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mikebray

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#13078 21-Apr-2007 00:16

Hi there,

My name is Mike Bray and I am a Security Consultant from the UK. I am about to move to New Zealand and I am interested to know what the broadband capability is out there. I am looking to set up business but I have heard varying reports about the speed of broadband available.

I know several people when I have been out there who thought they had high speed broadband but actually when I looked had no more than a typical ISDN speed connection at 128k download.

Is it possible to get up to speeds of 8mb download and 512k upload anywhere ? What is the standard at the moment ?

Also, I have started a new IT Security Forum in New Zealand if anyone is interested. Maybe to discuss wireless security from this forum.

Check it out at http://www.it-security.co.nz.

Cheers
Mike

antoniosk

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#67961 21-Apr-2007 06:53

mikebray: Hi there,

My name is Mike Bray and I am a Security Consultant from the UK. I am about to move to New Zealand and I am interested to know what the broadband capability is out there. I am looking to set up business but I have heard varying reports about the speed of broadband available.

I know several people when I have been out there who thought they had high speed broadband but actually when I looked had no more than a typical ISDN speed connection at 128k download.

Is it possible to get up to speeds of 8mb download and 512k upload anywhere ? What is the standard at the moment ?

Also, I have started a new IT Security Forum in New Zealand if anyone is interested. Maybe to discuss wireless security from this forum.

Check it out at http://www.it-security.co.nz.

Cheers
Mike

Mike

If you move to Wellington or Christchurch, you'll be able to choose from Telecom or TelstraClear. TelstraClear runs a cable network in most - but not all - parts of those cities, and the speed profiles are nominally 2/2, 4/2 and 10/2 (down/up). Telecom is our BT, and they have only just started rolling out ADSL2+, with the Pakuranga suburb in Auckland going first (because of the Communications Minister happens to live there....). The critical weakness with Telecom has been their backhaul's, which have been combinations of 2mb/s circuits - which can rapidly congest up in the evenings and weekends.

On the whole DSL download speeds in the main cities aren't bad, upload is quite weak and if you read the forums here you'll see most folk can get 128k up.

Then again I'm biased towards cable since I work for the company

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#67970 21-Apr-2007 10:19

While there have been issues with backhauls - it is improving. Many DSL plans have are 'FS' downstream which basically means that there is no artificial limit on the line but other factors such as line conditions, backhaul, site issues, otherseas issues etc can all be a factor. Upsteam is usually either 128kbps or 'FS' which again is limited by the conditions stated before. Many plans will offer either 256kbps/128kbps, FS/128kbps or FS/FS. So in the end, the max speed for ADSL is around 7.6mbps down and ~1mbps up.

Rural areas can often be limited by the backhauls. However Telstraclear will not offer anything other than wholesaled DSL/landline outside of its Wellington or Christchurch area, so other options include Satellite or Rural wireless systems. Satelllite is a reasonably good option as it has near 100% coverage but is a little bit more in price and suffers from high latency. Rural wireless systems offer reasonably good performance but often have small coverage footprints.

Mobile data is a decent option too, with reasonable performance offered by the CDMA/EVDO network. EVDO is often found in most centers and with Rev A being rolled out to the major centers - it offers decent performance. Vodafone also offer similar packages however GPRS is often slower than CDMA and generally while it does have UTMS in the major centers coverage can be limiting, additionally their HSPDA network can also be limiting to only the main centers. Pricing on both providers are about the same with plans of 200mb and 1GB, which both have overflows for another 200mb/1GB for $10.

There are quite a few providers offering different options out there so shop around for a plan that suits your habits. Additionally checking for stability is quite an important thing as Telstraclear have been having issues in the past with repeated rolling outages - which can really spoil your day if they are on their cable or DSL network, and need to wait over a hour before talking to someone from their helpdesk.

Overall cable is a decent option as you can get just cable internet and avoid the landline... and then get a cheaper VOIP provider.

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inquisitor

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#68388 25-Apr-2007 02:13

Another disadvantage to mention is NZ's bad oversea connections.

From what I measured on an Xnet ADSL line you won't reach Europe in less than 350 ms (London's exchange point linx in 350 ms, an Frankfurt's decix in 400 ms). Even connections to North America are a bit delayed (New York's NYIIX in 290 ms and Los Angeles' LAIIX in 210 ms).

The reason is, NZ has too few undersea fibre cables and beyond that (logical) connections exist to the US west coast only. Of course there can't be a physical cable going directly to Europe, but a logical one. That means, that all data would be passed through transparently from hub to hub on ATM-basis without any IP-routers involved, which currently delay the data pass-through.

This lag becomes problematical when using time-critical applications, like VoIP. Anyway VoIP is still usable and so my friends in NZ are reachable on a local UK number (sipgate.co.uk) and also on a German local number (sipgate.de) through a FritzBox on their regular phone without any extra cost for them. So callers from UK and Germany only pay national calls, when calling them. Maybe this is of interest for you, too.

router: AVM Fritz!Box Fon 7390 with Huawei K3765 USB modem attached as GSM voice gateway
VoIP-providers: intervoip.com | sipgate.de (German DID) | sipgate.co.uk (British DID) | sipcall.ch (Swiss DID)
connection: 100/5 MBit/s (DOCSIS 3.0)
mobile devices: Huawei P6 | Nokia Lumia 630 Dual SIM | Huawei: E5832, E1762, K3715, K3765 | Qualcomm Gobi 2000 in Sony VAIO VPC-Z12X9E/X

raytaylor

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#68415 25-Apr-2007 12:07

You can go to www.telecom.co.nz (our BT) and be told about this new 'broadband' thingy and how they are connecting New Zealanders to this internet that offers high quality streaming video and audio (for about 2 minutes before you bust your bandwidth cap).

Auctually I suggest against going there.

High speed broadband is avaliabe, mainly through DSL, and I suspect many people you have spoken to were here in the 90's when ISDN was the new thing.

DSL is mainly offered by most ISP's at a theoratical full speed ~7.6mb down and ~1mb up, but because of the backhaul problems telecom has, and congestion, many people dont see this speed. There are also cheaper plans starting off at 256k/128k speeds up to 3.5mb/128k before they jump to full speed/full speed.
ADSL2+ is starting to be deployed but the backhauls limit its capability.

I am on a FS/FS DSL connection through Slingshot at the moment and usually get at least 512kbps (usually 700k) up but the down speed usually hangs around 2-3mbps.

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freitasm

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#68416 25-Apr-2007 12:15

I am actually connected through TelstraClear (cable modem service) on a 10 Mbps/2 Mbps connection and don't see those times you mention... Well, at least not all the time.

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#68421 25-Apr-2007 13:04

raytaylor: You can go to www.telecom.co.nz (our BT) and be told about this new 'broadband' thingy and how they are connecting New Zealanders to this internet that offers high quality streaming video and audio (for about 2 minutes before you bust your bandwidth cap).

I didn't know that videos from websites were roughly 83mb per second (based on my current plan (~10GB) ).

but because of the backhaul problems telecom has, and congestion, many people dont see this speed.

DSL speeds can often be lower than the maximum theoretical speed.... there are many factors involved, not just backhaul or congestion. Line length and quality is a massive factor for DSL technologies which is unlikely to change with upcoming LLU (remember, none of the other providers are willing to invest in their own network or cabling). International sites have congestion issues and more which is often out of the local ISP's control.

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inquisitor

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#68471 25-Apr-2007 21:54

freitasm: I am actually connected through TelstraClear (cable modem service) on a 10 Mbps/2 Mbps connection and don't see those times you mention... Well, at least not all the time.

So what times do you observe, when you ping www.linx.net, www.nxiix.net and www.laiix.net ?

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#68474 25-Apr-2007 22:04

inquisitor: So what times do you observe, when you ping www.linx.net, www.nxiix.net and www.laiix.net ?

300ms, can not resolve, 240ms.

inquisitor

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#68483 25-Apr-2007 23:04

Sorry, it should be www.nyiix.net

Regarding the posted latency you're slightly faster in London and slightly slower in Los Angeles.

I just found this page saying the "Southern Cross Cable", connecting NZ via Hawaii to LA, has a delay of 40.01 ms on segment C (NZ-Hawaii) and additional 20.68 ms on segment D (Hawaii-LA), so that should be 61ms in total.

I understand, that there's some delay on IP-basis but I can't understand why latency acutally triples, when you ping LA (from 61 ms to more than 200ms).

Btw Telstra plans its own undersea fibre cable connectiong Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii - maybe that will improve the situation down there.

ZollyMonsta

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#68492 26-Apr-2007 00:17

antoniosk:
If you move to Wellington or Christchurch, you'll be able to choose from Telecom or TelstraClear. TelstraClear runs a cable network in most - but not all - parts of those cities, and the speed profiles are nominally 2/2, 4/2 and 10/2 (down/up). Telecom is our BT, and they have only just started rolling out ADSL2+, with the Pakuranga suburb in Auckland going first (because of the Communications Minister happens to live there....). The critical weakness with Telecom has been their backhaul's, which have been combinations of 2mb/s circuits - which can rapidly congest up in the evenings and weekends.

On the whole DSL download speeds in the main cities aren't bad, upload is quite weak and if you read the forums here you'll see most folk can get 128k up.

Then again I'm biased towards cable since I work for the company

I'm a bit biased too as I also work for 'em. :)

Cable is the way to go if you want a good speed. I'm on a TelstraClear 40gb plan. Typically I get just over 8mbps down and 1.5mbps up. Upload/download speeds vary depending on traffic on the cable.

Cheers,
ZollyMonsta

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Drac

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#68557 26-Apr-2007 13:44

Hi Inquisitor

I've had as low as 157ms ping to LA, usually sit in the lower 200's. But some nights under 200 as well.

tknz

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#69001 1-May-2007 00:52

TCL/ top speed currently 10megabits persecond down stream 26 ms ping times to speed servers in auckland, from wellington, upgrading to 25megabits persecond within next 6months.