Big Time plan removal

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#332890 21-May-2010 12:34

sbiddle:

Australia's NBN has has recent price announcements in recent days with a 300GB plan (comprised of 80GB peak and 220GB offpeak) priced at A$139. Converted to $NZ that's over $170 and represents extremely good value for money but probably nowhere near as low as many people think they want to pay for such a product.

FTTH isn't going to fix the data cap issue or the simple fact we have to bring in so much content from other parts of the world.

Exetel's utility style pricing plans for the AU NBN (FFTH) in Tasmania are (in $AUD) interesting:

25Mbit: $0 + $1 per GB / month
50Mbit: $15 + $1 per GB / month
100Mbit: $25 + $1 per GB / month

It's also worth noting that in AU almost no ISP's (apart from Telstra I think) include upload data in usage which is pretty signigicant imo.

crazed

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#332895 21-May-2010 12:38

thats quite cheap actually and comparable to other countries

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Lias

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#332896 21-May-2010 12:39

Talkiet:

I completely agree with you (with the exception of the providers milking the situation). The sooner the public understand the headline speeds of FTTH won't fix this underlying prpblem of geography the sooner perhaps people will recognise that there are challenges other than the access network that will have a bigger impact on the end user experience.

Cheers - N

The public probably never will understand, but if they do all they will do is demand that it be "fixed". Pretty much everyone I know of a non technical bent expects things like data caps to be history with FTTH. They are expecting 3 people in a house to each be streaming a diffrent 1080p video whilst anothe surfs and yet another one games with no performance issues. Vector's high profile campaign is somewhat to blame for this IMHO. When the hype/marketing/outright BS doesnt live up to their expectations I expect we will see Telco's and politicians facing huge pressue to "just fix it".

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#332913 21-May-2010 13:12

Flashcards:
crazed:
drewpoh:
Flashcards:
crazed: Personally a Connection & 80GB cap for around the $90 would be nice, but know that's never going to happen.

I'd pay for that type of connection! Sticking to the $1/GB figure quoted earlier, why not make up a plan that has NO flat fee but is all you can eat at $1/GB. So, if I use 90GB in a month, I pay $90.00 - simple.

cause then everyone will be on it and they won't make money, imagine the people that only use 5GB a month and they just pay $5, thats cheaper than dial up.

It would be nice but it'd never happen.

I suspect you would still have the cost of the connection itself, say around $29.95 pm

And that right there is the problem and why our Internet fees in NZ are so high...

ISP's will always have to pay for the port costs (that price is set by the Government btw) because maintaining them and building them costs not insubstantial money.

The main reason I can see why Data caps are such an issue in NZ is the demand for International content and the fact that during the dot.com boom NZ wasn't subject to the same massive overinvestment in transit that was seen in the US and Europe.

I'm sure there must also be an impact on international costs from NZ being a content "sink", meaning we take in far more data than we send out.

crazed

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#332919 21-May-2010 13:20

Cymro:
Flashcards:
crazed:
drewpoh:
Flashcards:
crazed: Personally a Connection & 80GB cap for around the $90 would be nice, but know that's never going to happen.

I'd pay for that type of connection! Sticking to the $1/GB figure quoted earlier, why not make up a plan that has NO flat fee but is all you can eat at $1/GB. So, if I use 90GB in a month, I pay $90.00 - simple.

cause then everyone will be on it and they won't make money, imagine the people that only use 5GB a month and they just pay $5, thats cheaper than dial up.

It would be nice but it'd never happen.

I suspect you would still have the cost of the connection itself, say around $29.95 pm

And that right there is the problem and why our Internet fees in NZ are so high...

ISP's will always have to pay for the port costs (that price is set by the Government btw) because maintaining them and building them costs not insubstantial money.

The main reason I can see why Data caps are such an issue in NZ is the demand for International content and the fact that during the dot.com boom NZ wasn't subject to the same massive overinvestment in transit that was seen in the US and Europe.

I'm sure there must also be an impact on international costs from NZ being a content "sink", meaning we take in far more data than we send out.

Thats possibly true but still doesn't explain the restrictive nature of content hosting in NZ by providers. Its cheaper to host NZ content in Aussie than it is to host it in NZ.

I've tried to host NZ content in NZ, but the costs alone make it far to expensive and restrictive.

Prime example: our 2 VPS's in Aussie would cost $70 a month, in NZ its $140 a month for slightly less specs.

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Talkiet

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#332923 21-May-2010 13:25

Lias:
Talkiet:

I completely agree with you (with the exception of the providers milking the situation). The sooner the public understand the headline speeds of FTTH won't fix this underlying prpblem of geography the sooner perhaps people will recognise that there are challenges other than the access network that will have a bigger impact on the end user experience.

Cheers - N

The public probably never will understand, but if they do all they will do is demand that it be "fixed". Pretty much everyone I know of a non technical bent expects things like data caps to be history with FTTH. They are expecting 3 people in a house to each be streaming a diffrent 1080p video whilst anothe surfs and yet another one games with no performance issues. Vector's high profile campaign is somewhat to blame for this IMHO. When the hype/marketing/outright BS doesnt live up to their expectations I expect we will see Telco's and politicians facing huge pressue to "just fix it".

+1

It's my _PERSONAL_ opinion that the Vector FTTH campaign is doing more to harm the situation than help it. It's generating such unrealistic expectatinos that any conceivable outcome is going to be so far short of it that the scheme will be considered a failure ni the eyes of the public.

Unfortunately (as I am sure you, and a few others are aware) the "just fix it" attitude won't help as 'just fixing it" will cost a lot of money.

Either the consumers stump up LOTS of money, or the government decides that it's a good use of taxpayer money and stumps up lots of money.

The fact is someone has to stump up lots of money to scale the rest of the infrastructure to fully utilise a FTTH deployment for the uses you describe, and private companies will only do that when there's a profit to be made.

Spread the word.

Cheers - N

note that these are my personal opinions based on info in the public domain.

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.

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Flashcards

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#332925 21-May-2010 13:36

Talkiet:
Lias:
Talkiet:

I completely agree with you (with the exception of the providers milking the situation). The sooner the public understand the headline speeds of FTTH won't fix this underlying prpblem of geography the sooner perhaps people will recognise that there are challenges other than the access network that will have a bigger impact on the end user experience.

Cheers - N

The public probably never will understand, but if they do all they will do is demand that it be "fixed". Pretty much everyone I know of a non technical bent expects things like data caps to be history with FTTH. They are expecting 3 people in a house to each be streaming a diffrent 1080p video whilst anothe surfs and yet another one games with no performance issues. Vector's high profile campaign is somewhat to blame for this IMHO. When the hype/marketing/outright BS doesnt live up to their expectations I expect we will see Telco's and politicians facing huge pressue to "just fix it".

+1

It's my _PERSONAL_ opinion that the Vector FTTH campaign is doing more to harm the situation than help it. It's generating such unrealistic expectatinos that any conceivable outcome is going to be so far short of it that the scheme will be considered a failure ni the eyes of the public.

Unfortunately (as I am sure you, and a few others are aware) the "just fix it" attitude won't help as 'just fixing it" will cost a lot of money.

Either the consumers stump up LOTS of money, or the government decides that it's a good use of taxpayer money and stumps up lots of money.

The fact is someone has to stump up lots of money to scale the rest of the infrastructure to fully utilise a FTTH deployment for the uses you describe, and private companies will only do that when there's a profit to be made.

Spread the word.

Cheers - N

note that these are my personal opinions based on info in the public domain.

I am in a main centre - Auckland. The BULK of NZ Internet customers are in main centres. The infrastructure is there already! We need decent caps at better than current prices.

What PI$$ES people off IMHO is the quaterly profit statements by Telecom whilst we suffer with pathetic broadband options in this country. The current Telecom monopoly was gifted to them by the taxpayer and now this same taxpayer is being hurt by the very same company. I mean, with anything other than a total monopoly (I don't care what it's called by the government or media, it IS a monopoly) how could a company with such disastrous tech rollouts (on a regular basis) survive? Simple answer is, it wouldn't in an openly competitive environment where one company had not been given a huge head start by the taxpayer.

We can whinge and moan all we like but I think it is just going to take time for us to get the options many in NZ seem to want.

Cymro

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#332939 21-May-2010 13:54

crazed:
Cymro:
ISP's will always have to pay for the port costs (that price is set by the Government btw) because maintaining them and building them costs not insubstantial money.

The main reason I can see why Data caps are such an issue in NZ is the demand for International content and the fact that during the dot.com boom NZ wasn't subject to the same massive overinvestment in transit that was seen in the US and Europe.

I'm sure there must also be an impact on international costs from NZ being a content "sink", meaning we take in far more data than we send out.

Thats possibly true but still doesn't explain the restrictive nature of content hosting in NZ by providers. Its cheaper to host NZ content in Aussie than it is to host it in NZ.

I've tried to host NZ content in NZ, but the costs alone make it far to expensive and restrictive.

Prime example: our 2 VPS's in Aussie would cost $70 a month, in NZ its $140 a month for slightly less specs.

Be interesting to know where and how the costs break down differently, if it's a question of scale or access/transit etc.

I've always maintained that the $1.5bn being touted for FTTH in 10 years would be better spent on the new Pacific cable and Government sponsored high-tech business parks to boost the IT industry and services.

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#332943 21-May-2010 14:02

Flashcards:

I am in a main centre - Auckland. The BULK of NZ Internet customers are in main centres. The infrastructure is there already! We need decent caps at better than current prices.

I agree while the infrastructure is "here" the international traffic options aren't really. I think realistically NZ needs a few more options other than the PPC-2(to be completed soon), the Southern Cross upgrade to max capacity and the third cable which I can't remember the name of that is apparently coming?

We just don't have the bandwidth that we require and FTTH isn't going to fix it, it's going to be worse. More people expecting higher speeds while getting most of their data from the US or Europe. With most websites increasing in size and using more Flash/HTML5 we are going to struggle in the years ahead unless another couple of cables are laid or something is done to manage the traffic flow properly.

I think Telecom could do with a few more data banks/caching servers. Their Youtube one is fine for me, but I'd like to see places like Cnet and maybe the Akamai servers(like Xnet do). Also giving free National data for access to TVNZ on Demand, TV3 would be a step in the right direction(although TVNZ on D goes through Telstra? so not sure if they'd co-operate?)

I have moved across the ditch. Now residing in Melbourne as a VOIP/Video Technical Trainer/Engineer.

SauronJones

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#332946 21-May-2010 14:04

sbiddle:
NZCrusader: Would prefer the Govt buy out telecom and fix the s**t up, rather than spend 1.5b on infrastructure alone.

Would save us from the pain.

Would prefer stable environment & low ADSL / ADSL2+ speeds, over having 100mbps and 10-20gb caps..
( obviously the 40-100 gb ISP plans are too costy for the average home environment .. )

The problem is you still aren't going to get caps anywhere near where many people think is "reasonable" - ie well under $100.

Australia's NBN has has recent price announcements in recent days with a 300GB plan (comprised of 80GB peak and 220GB offpeak) priced at A$139. Converted to $NZ that's over $170 and represents extremely good value for money but probably nowhere near as low as many people think they want to pay for such a product.

FTTH isn't going to fix the data cap issue or the simple fact we have to bring in so much content from other parts of the world.

I'd pay $170 for 80GB peak and 220GB off-peak.

SauronJones

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#332950 21-May-2010 14:13

Talkiet:
Either the consumers stump up LOTS of money, or the government decides that it's a good use of taxpayer money and stumps up lots of money.

Improving the international bandwidth would be a far better use of tax payers money than giving Auckland fibre so they can blow their 20GB cap in 30 minutes.

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PassiveFever81

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#332953 21-May-2010 14:15

Exactly, upgrading intl lines would be much better than getting fibre that will make us blow a 20gb cap in a couple hours, The speed around NZ is getting much better, i get around 6.5-7mbit on ADSL, if they invest in a better cable we could have no data caps and good consistant speed.

Ragnor

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#332958 21-May-2010 14:21

Talkiet:

It's my _PERSONAL_ opinion that the Vector FTTH campaign is doing more to harm the situation than help it. It's generating such unrealistic expectatinos that any conceivable outcome is going to be so far short of it that the scheme will be considered a failure ni the eyes of the public.

Unfortunately (as I am sure you, and a few others are aware) the "just fix it" attitude won't help as 'just fixing it" will cost a lot of money.

Either the consumers stump up LOTS of money, or the government decides that it's a good use of taxpayer money and stumps up lots of money.

The fact is someone has to stump up lots of money to scale the rest of the infrastructure to fully utilise a FTTH deployment for the uses you describe, and private companies will only do that when there's a profit to be made.

What makes you think that the winning public/private partnership proposals for each regoin won't deliver a better core network with much higher CIR per subscriber than Telecom's current core network?

crazed

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#332959 21-May-2010 14:21

brandonruscoe: Exactly, upgrading intl lines would be much better than getting fibre that will make us blow a 20gb cap in a couple hours, The speed around NZ is getting much better, i get around 6.5-7mbit on ADSL, if they invest in a better cable we could have no data caps and good consistant speed.

I can't see data caps being removed at all, not within 10 yrs even with new international cables.

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exportgoldman

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#332961 21-May-2010 14:25

doozy:
exportgoldman:
I have two issues with this

1. Telecom need to grow some balls, police this plan and kick off the stupidly high users, so they can keep the plan alive like they said they would.

2. Things like online backups (e.g. ShadowProtect v4) are now back on the drawing board because NZ doesn't offer split local/international traffic and have no unlimited plans.

I honestly expected more from Telecom, it's not like they didn't know what they were 'unleashing' as they had all the Go Large data and previous experience, and a sister company in Australia offering unlimited plans.

Oh Telecom, my new XT call failures like a champ, and now your taking my broadband away - can I still dial 111 if I need to?

We didn't want to have a Fair Use Policy for this plan, Go Large had one and it didn't really work out for the best. So with that, we can't just kick people off for having high usage without stating its a possibility at the point of sign up. Which opens the debate of how much is too much.

Go Large didn't fail because of it's fair use policy, it failed because of Telecom falsly advertising the service, I'm sure if you wanted to you could have keep a Big Time type service in place but put limits in place as other ISP's and your sister company in Australia have done.

Our work used Big Time for the caches for Windows Updates and YouTube with not that much international usage.

Every product I've purchased from Telecom this year has failed. I'm glad the government is going to hammer Telecom for it's inability to perform and give it's lunch to someone else as you guys seem to have no idea even with your past experience how to roll out telco services without massive failure. And this is coming from someone who thought this was the year of the Telecom comeback.

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