Telecom 10mbps Zone?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Telecom 10mbps Zone?

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Behodar

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#300047 18-Feb-2010 10:07

I'm a bit confused here, and I'm not in an ADSL2+ area so I have no personal experience yet.

The FAQ says that the 10 Mb/s zone offers up to 10 Mb/s. A couple of people in this thread have said that it offer at least 10 Mb/s. Which is it, "up to" or "at least"? From the comments and speed tests that I've seen, it appears that "at least" is the correct term, so why does the FAQ say "up to"?

Edit: Please see my other message, a few posts below this one.

uktuatara

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#300054 18-Feb-2010 10:21

ADSL speeds are not guaranteed speeds. They can't guarantee this becuase they don't control all the elements in the chain of connection.

So even though my expectation would be if you were;
a. in a cabinetised area (which assumes you are within a km or so from the cabinet)
b. you have good cabling from your street to the house
c. you have good wiring internally with all filters etc or a splitter
d. a good modem
e. the right profile on your plan from the ISP

then you could expect 'at least' 10 mbps

But no ISP or wholesaler will guarantee it ... well if they do ... then sign up! lol

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Talkiet

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#300057 18-Feb-2010 10:23

Behodar: I'm a bit confused here, and I'm not in an ADSL2+ area so I have no personal experience yet.

The FAQ says that the 10 Mb/s zone offers up to 10 Mb/s. A couple of people in this thread have said that it offer at least 10 Mb/s. Which is it, "up to" or "at least"? From the comments and speed tests that I've seen, it appears that "at least" is the correct term, so why does the FAQ say "up to"?

There's lots of confusion about Broadband speeds, and no ISP is innocent of being at times, a little unclear.

The "10Mbps zone" means that customers in that zone _should_ be close enough to the DSLAM to achieve 10Mbps DSL speeds. However, if someone has bad home wiring, or runs a huge vandef graf generator beside their modem, then those individuals may not get 10Mbps DSL sync. So that's why it says "Up To" 10Mbps. It's not possible for ANY provider to guarantee a minimum sync speed because of issues out of their control.

What a provider CAN DO, is engineer the network so that in the absence of individual problems (which could be individual bad copper (either in house or in the ground) for example, the users in the zone should get 10Mbps.

Now that's all only about the DSL sync speeds. The Internet Performance is another issue.

If someone in the US has a web server setup with only a 1Mbit connection to the Internet, then a user in the 10Mbps zone in NZ will only get a max of (something slightly less than) 1Mbps. That only stands to reason.

Your download speeds will vary based on the latency to the site, packet loss, number of other users on the site, what plan you are on and whether it has traffic shaping, as well as speed of your own computer, number of threads used, whether the transfer is TCP or UDP, and various other settings.

Just thinking you'll get 10Mbps download speeds because you live in a 10Mbps zone is I am afraid, not realistic.

Regards
Neil G

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

uktuatara

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#300058 18-Feb-2010 10:24

Sorry and to be clear I mean your modem sync / connect speeds, you won't get that as your throughput all the time, depends on what is serving the information at the otehr end, and the size of the 'pipes' between you and the destination.

Behodar

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#300075 18-Feb-2010 11:16

Sorry, I didn't phrase my question correctly. Of course no ISP can guarantee speeds and I didn't mean to make that assertion. It just seems to me that indicating "up to 10 Mb/s" would mean that the maximum speed is actually capped at 10, which as far as I can tell is not actually true. That's the point that I was trying to make.

Would I be correct in describing the zone more like "if all goes well, then you should get a line rate of at least 10 Mb/s"? That's a rough description, of course :)

Ragnor

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#300194 18-Feb-2010 17:41

That's about right.

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uktuatara

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#300250 18-Feb-2010 22:43

Its fair to say that at least 10 Mbps would be reasonabel given you have looked at all those items mentioned.

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