Why is there a better connection from Wellington to the US then from Singapore 100Mbps connection?

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Why is there a better connection from Wellington to the US then from Singapore 100Mbps connection?

Thronsen

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#27361 23-Oct-2008 13:01

I am staying in a hotel in the middle of Wellington. After I got over the sticker shock of metered prices at $10 gig, the first thing I noticed was that my connection speed to stream (quasi) HD video from the US was very good. Much better then my cable connection in Singapore which was advertised as being 100Mbps.

I had a few questions and comments, as Im relocating to New Zealand and moving from my hotel to a permanent residence in Wellington:

1. I gather the hotel uses something called CityLink. I read a bit about it, but couldnt really figure out what it was. What is it? Is it available in residences as well that are in Wellington City?

2. Assuming that its not, or there are cheaper options available then $10/gig, what is the recognized best ADSL ISP for international bandwidth. Im not particularly price sensistive, but do need a connection with a good ping and latency. (I appreciate there are local factors that go into that as well, but I figure those are largely ISP independent). Who has the best reputation for delivering quality, high speed international bandwidth?

3. I understand that Telstra Inhome is one of the few if any cable providers of internet in my area. Does it suffer the domestic congestion problems in peak times that cable internet providers in other countries do? How is its international bandwidth?

4. I read through alot of the posts on this board, and they are very informative. If I could add one thing to the discussion, that would be Dont always be jealous of the Headline rates you see advertised in other countries. To be sure a US connection to a US server will be fast, a Japanese connection to a Japanese server will be fast. But for the last few years I have had one of the fastest residential connections in the world (100 Mbps according to their ads) that is easily being trumped but what I have here at my Wellington hotel when connecting to the US.

Other countries with a small population and large international bandwidth requirements suffer right along with you, even if their headline broadband speeds seem huge.

knoydart

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#173037 23-Oct-2008 13:27

Thronsen:

1. I gather the hotel uses something called CityLink. I read a bit about it, but couldnt really figure out what it was. What is it? Is it available in residences as well that are in Wellington City?

Citylink is a provider of fibre connections to Central Wellington (and Auckland) who deal with businesses only, and at least with the company I work with, they are the phyical connection, but our IP services are still from Telstra and Kordia. Happy to be corrected on the business only front.

Thronsen:
2. Assuming that its not, or there are cheaper options available then $10/gig, what is the recognized best ADSL ISP for international bandwidth. Im not particularly price sensistive, but do need a connection with a good ping and latency. (I appreciate there are local factors that go into that as well, but I figure those are largely ISP independent). Who has the best reputation for delivering quality, high speed international bandwidth?

3. I understand that Telstra Inhome is one of the few if any cable providers of internet in my area. Does it suffer the domestic congestion problems in peak times that cable internet providers in other countries do? How is its international bandwidth?

I'd prob lump these 2 together and being in the area of Telstra inhome cable, its the best choice.They are the only cable provider in Wellington, Kapti and Christchurch (sound like a blooming advert!!). My Peaktime speed tests do dip but you'll get congestion no matter who your with, I would guess as ISPs will only buy so much pipe space to deal with peak time demand.

However different ISP's are unbundling local loops around the country so your local exchange may have Vodafone or Orcon or someone else offereding some nice VDSL line speeds. International bandwidth is a bit of a sore point as New Zealand has basically 1 pipe out of the country (the Southern cross) so all depends on how much $$ and demand your isp wants to deal with / stump up. You'll find on here good and bad expericnes of all the ISP's here in the forums, the more $$$ you pay, possiby a better service you'll get, well maybe.

Hope you enjoy your visit and move to Wellington

kind regards

Knoydart

ps Welcome to GZ

Thronsen

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#173210 23-Oct-2008 22:22

Hi Knoydart-

Thanks for all your help. I really appreciate it.

I tested the Citylink line I am on now with speedtest. Here are the results at around 10pm.

To San Francisco:
Down: 4300
Up: 570
Ping 435 ms

To LA:
2300
510
190 ms

To New York:
2700
400
310 ms

For some reason Telstra wont wire cable into my building. Are the above speeds in the ballpark of residential ADSL?

Thanks again.

Detruire

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#173212 23-Oct-2008 22:36

Depending on your ISP, yes and no. (Some are - generally Telstra or Telecom, maybe Maxnet. Some aren't - Slingshot, Xnet)

rm *

knoydart

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#173225 23-Oct-2008 23:57

As Detruire says, it depends on your isp, Just ran a speed test around midnight Nz time and my In home speed to San F are a little better but not by much.Its a shame you cant get Telstra to your new flat, I assume its a new ish build in the city / landlords dont want to wire it all up. Maybe check with Orcon or other telecos to see if you can get naked dsl and see if ADSL 2+ would be possible for your place.

kind regards

knoydart

Thronsen

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#173232 24-Oct-2008 00:55

What I have been told by the townhouse owner is 'Telstra are unable to cable multi-unit properties (eg most apartment buildings, townhouse complexes etc) and have deemed the address as unsuitable for cable access.'

Im going to ring up Telstra tomorrow and try to get a bit more information. I dont even mind paying them the $500 or whatever to pull the cable in from the street, if its just an economics limitation.

Im not sure I understand their reasoning though, withholding service from 'multi unit properties', even when its a bunch of houses all at street level.

Having dealt with cable companies before though, I go in with suitably lowered expectations of logic. Its a shame though, I spend 10+ hour a day on New York servers for work, and really need the BW.

Thanks again everyone for all your help.

P.S. Knoydart, the test you ran with around the same speed, was that ADSL, ADSL2 or Cable?

sbiddle

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#173249 24-Oct-2008 06:47

There are many reasons why multi unit dwellings can't have cable connected, not but least lack of capacity, issues with trenching and/or overhead cables that may cross another property and is not permitted and last but not least, the body corporate (if there is one) may have an agreement with another telco.

Just in regards to your Singapore connection remember that the DOCSIS 3.0 100Mbps speed is only rated @ 100Mbps to local content providers, when you're viewing non local content your speed depends on your account profile.

cyril7

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#173251 24-Oct-2008 07:10

Hi, just for comparison, at 7am this morning my xnet ADSL gave, LA 185mS, 3720/420. NY 283mS, 1987/335, which is pretty typical now that xnet fixed their international capacity recently.

Cyril

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Thronsen

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#173285 24-Oct-2008 09:53

sbiddle: There are many reasons why multi unit dwellings can't have cable connected, not but least lack of capacity, issues with trenching and/or overhead cables that may cross another property and is not permitted and last but not least, the body corporate (if there is one) may have an agreement with another telco.

Just in regards to your Singapore connection remember that the DOCSIS 3.0 100Mbps speed is only rated @ 100Mbps to local content providers, when you're viewing non local content your speed depends on your account profile.

For the Singapore connection, yup, I realized the constraints. I had just noted in another post on these boards people talking excitedly about the Singapore '100Mbps' connection, and having had that for years I can tell you that its not all its cracked up to be. The headline rates look good in adverts, but so far my connection to US servers (off of Citylink in New Zealand) is better then I had in Singapore 100Mbps.

On the Cable, thanks for the additional information. What the initial person I spoke to at Telstra said was 'they couldnt get consent from the developer'. That sounds like the last thing you mentioned 'agreement with another telco'. How do those agreements work exactly? A telco pays the developer X to only allow their services in the building for a year/years. Sounds pretty restictive and anti=-competitive.

The property is a townhouse right near the road, so I dont think its a physical limitation. And I did offer to pay Telstra the money to install from the street, but got no traction. In any case Im supposed to get a call back later from someone more involved with these decisions.

Thanks again.

Thronsen

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#173289 24-Oct-2008 09:59

cyril7: Hi, just for comparison, at 7am this morning my xnet ADSL gave, LA 185mS, 3720/420. NY 283mS, 1987/335, which is pretty typical now that xnet fixed their international capacity recently.

Cyril

Thanks for running that test Cyril. I had read posts from a few months back that Xnat was having international bandwidth problems, but it sounds like those may have been fixed. Are the speeds at 7am generally comparable to other during the day, or at least outside of the peak evening times?

sbiddle

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#173291 24-Oct-2008 10:02

Thronsen: On the Cable, thanks for the additional information. What the initial person I spoke to at Telstra said was 'they couldnt get consent from the developer'. That sounds like the last thing you mentioned 'agreement with another telco'. How do those agreements work exactly? A telco pays the developer X to only allow their services in the building for a year/years. Sounds pretty restictive and anti=-competitive.

Maybe not so much the developer paying the telco but that the developer potentially only contacted Telecom in the first place to run cable to the premises and running a new service can be very difficult.

With a normal house cable can either be trenched into the property or an overhead drop run from the street to the house because the cable will only be running over that persons property. When you have a complex things get more complex - TCL quite often can't run cable overhead as it will potentially cross another person's property. They quite often can't trench it because in many MUD's you're still going to have to run cable through somebody else's property or part of the buidling that's often not yours. Cost then has to be factored in - if they are providing service to 1 person and it'll cost them a few $k to do this it is cost effective? If more people want the service then maybe it is but is there capacity available from the TAP and JE to provide service to multiple users at the location?

There are lots of things to factor in.

knoydart

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#173293 24-Oct-2008 10:06

Thronsen:
P.S. Knoydart, the test you ran with around the same speed, was that ADSL, ADSL2 or Cable?

Telstra cable 4Meg down, 2 Meg up plan

PenultimateHop

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#173326 24-Oct-2008 11:55

sbiddle: Just in regards to your Singapore connection remember that the DOCSIS 3.0 100Mbps speed is only rated @ 100Mbps to local content providers, when you're viewing non local content your speed depends on your account profile.

StarHub's 100Mbps MaxOnline Ultimate account is advertised as full 100Mbps access to the Internet. The 12Mbps account *if* you're on a DOCSIS 3.0 modem will give you 100Mbps to selected content partners.

That said, StarHub DPIs, transparent proxies, and traffic manages the heck out of their network to the point where I have never seen beyond 40Mbps within Singapore, and very rarely more than 2-3Mbps to anywhere outside of Singapore - if I'm lucky.

Expecting anywhere near 100Mbps from their service is a bad expectation.

Also - remember, Singapore is somewhat further away from the US than NZ (by fiber route miles) so there is a noticable latency difference.. e.g. 400msec Singapore - California vs. <200msec Wellington - California.

Thronsen

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#173370 24-Oct-2008 15:15

I had never seen anything more then 2m on Starhub, and that was always at 4am. At peak times some nights it would struggle to hit 300k. Seems to me the 'slow ADSL' in New Zealand in some places is quite alot faster then that. My point in bringing it up was to caution people not to necessarily believe that the Headline Speeds they hear about in other countries is necessarily a better service.

I hadnt realized that New Zealand was so much closer to the US in fiber optic miles. For some reason I thought all the traffic went up by Singapore to Japan before crossing over. Is the Southern Cross Im hearing about a connection between Aus and NZ that then goes directly to the US?

knoydart

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#173374 24-Oct-2008 15:21

Thronsen:
I hadnt realized that New Zealand was so much closer to the US in fiber optic miles. For some reason I thought all the traffic went up by Singapore to Japan before crossing over. Is the Southern Cross Im hearing about a connection between Aus and NZ that then goes directly to the US?

Here is the wikipedia entry all about our digial umbilcal chord to the world. Going slightly off topic (I'm sorry) but if your into your fibre, have a read of this very long but very good article from wired,com. I spend some hours one night just enjoying it, wishing I did a job like that.