Can we please get free downloads Telecom? OS updates are getting HUGE.

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Can we please get free downloads Telecom? OS updates are getting HUGE.

1 | 2

PenultimateHop

637 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 2

Trusted

#456000 6-Apr-2011 15:52

corksta:
ahmad: Is it more efficient for an ISP to increase caps or have a NZ server for downloads though?

Seeing as there's so many iPhone users are the iOS updates cached or does each download from each user come from Apple? I genuinely have no idea or how Telecom/other ISPs decide what is cached and for how long.

Apple is Akamai's biggest customer for a reason...

snnet

1413 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 556

#456044 6-Apr-2011 17:59

There's still the matter of those downloading the patches when they aren't yet cached. I don't think it's reasonable for Telecom to zero rate all updates no matter where they come from. Someone's going to lose. Get a bigger cap maybe? I think they've done well with their newer plans.

ahmad

1937 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 53
Inactive user

#456056 6-Apr-2011 18:41

timmmay: These updates must be cached on a server somewhere, or there may be a dedicated update server inside Telecom to serve windows updates, so there shouldn't be much of a cost in it. Zero rating it sounds like a nice thing to do. Treating it like any other traffic is also reasonable.

My download cap (on TC) is big enough this doesn't matter.

So is it actually low cost for an ISP to serve updates to their own customers from a local site? I mean compared to the cost of providing international bandwidth which we get charged for, for obvious reasons.

scorpiworld

192 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 3

#456064 6-Apr-2011 19:01

From a customer point of view, yes I agree with you, a great nice to have feature, I would take it further ask for a larger cap and high speeds for less! ;)

Neutral would say take your issue up with Apple and complain their patches are too large for the size data cap you have.

Businessman would say as long as Apple agree to paying TNZ to zero rate their traffic for every customer you have a deal.

Devils advocate would say it is your choice what you choose to use your data cap on, some download torrents, some watch YouTube, other play FB games all day. If you choose to use your downloading security patches, each to their own!

wreck90

780 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#456065 6-Apr-2011 19:08

We just need dual caps - national data which can be very high, and international which can be lower.

It makes sense to price national / international at different rates.

But, didn't something to do with 'peering' make some problems for such an approach? Something to do with inter-provider traffic needing to go outside NZ? I'm not sure, just an amateur.

Telecom used to provide some national data free via their jetstream sign-on. That was great.

At the very least, telecom could provide free OS updates and use that to attract more subscribers.

Ragnor

8279 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 585

Trusted

#456129 6-Apr-2011 21:52

Orcon have their Ozone, but they haven't added much useful stuff to it just a few websites.

Telstraclear zero rate data to their gaming servers and that online tv thing no one uses

Xnet make a distinction between international, national and local traffic in their accounting, they in fact don't count local traffic (ie: servers they are hosting). If your data comes from their akamai cache (apple and microsoft updates are quite often delivered akamai CDN) it won't count towards your usage.

Telecom zero rate Tivo data

Dyson

Shop now for Dyson appliances (affiliate link).

quickymart

14940 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 13954

ID Verified

#456137 6-Apr-2011 22:02

Ragnor: Telstraclear zero rate data to their gaming servers and that online tv thing no one uses

Ziln? Apparently (according to another thread somewhere on here) lots of people use it and they're adding stuff to it all the time.

steve98

1400 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 252

Trusted

#456622 8-Apr-2011 07:46

wreck90: We just need dual caps - national data which can be very high, and international which can be lower.

The trouble with that is how will the user know whether the site they are on is national or international? For example, some sites with .co.nz domains can actually be hosted overseas and would count towards international data. There would need to be a way to tell and I can't see how that would be possible.

1 | 2