Spark launches new wireless broadband service

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark launches new wireless broadband service

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#1526174 5-Apr-2016 08:55

sbiddle:

ajw:

Both companies will have to spend millions rolling out new transmission sites for this service to cover urban areas throughout the country.

For most sites it'll be very cost effective enabling 2300, with the major work being additional panels required on some sites. Single RAN makes life very easy.

You still need the capacity and coverage and higher usage caps and competitive pricing to attract the punters. Would I be correct in saying that the single Ran infrastructure was added to spark transmission sites when sites were upgraded to 4G using Huawei networking equipment.

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#1526177 5-Apr-2016 09:11

These 4G services are interesting for my grandparents and the like as they stay within the 60/80GBs. But for any real household they are too restrictive. Do a 500GB/mnth for $80-100 and you'd see better uptake. Who knows you might just topple UFB.

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#1526183 5-Apr-2016 09:22

olivernz:

These 4G services are interesting for my grandparents and the like as they stay within the 60/80GBs. But for any real household they are too restrictive. Do a 500GB/mnth for $80-100 and you'd see better uptake. Who knows you might just topple UFB.

I'd be surprised if 500GB/month was representative of a 'real household'. I consider myself a heavy user and I still only go through ~250GB/month.

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#1526184 5-Apr-2016 09:23

I use about 150GIG per month.

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#1526186 5-Apr-2016 09:24

olivernz:

These 4G services are interesting for my grandparents and the like as they stay within the 60/80GBs. But for any real household they are too restrictive. Do a 500GB/mnth for $80-100 and you'd see better uptake. Who knows you might just topple UFB.

That sort of cap is simply not possible for a mass market offering with high uptake unless the laws of physics are changed.

That's also representative of a 1% user - the target is still the vast majority of NZ Internet users who are sub 50GB per month.

Fixed wireless is not and never will be large scale replacement for UFB or high use users.

ajw

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#1526187 5-Apr-2016 09:28

sbiddle:

olivernz:

These 4G services are interesting for my grandparents and the like as they stay within the 60/80GBs. But for any real household they are too restrictive. Do a 500GB/mnth for $80-100 and you'd see better uptake. Who knows you might just topple UFB.

That sort of cap is simply not possible for a mass market offering with high uptake unless the laws of physics are changed.

That's also representative of a 1% user - the target is still the vast majority of NZ Internet users who are sub 50GB per month.

The 80GIG cap offered by spark wireless would last me about a fortnight. Most of my friends have unlimited connections.

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#1526188 5-Apr-2016 09:30

ajw:

sbiddle:

olivernz:

These 4G services are interesting for my grandparents and the like as they stay within the 60/80GBs. But for any real household they are too restrictive. Do a 500GB/mnth for $80-100 and you'd see better uptake. Who knows you might just topple UFB.

That sort of cap is simply not possible for a mass market offering with high uptake unless the laws of physics are changed.

That's also representative of a 1% user - the target is still the vast majority of NZ Internet users who are sub 50GB per month.

The 80GIG cap offered by spark wireless would last me about a fortnight. Most of my friends have unlimited connections.

That doesn't mean it's representative of all NZ users. The vast majority of NZ internet users would still use well under 50GB per month.

ajw

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#1526191 5-Apr-2016 09:34

sbiddle:

ajw:

sbiddle:

olivernz:

These 4G services are interesting for my grandparents and the like as they stay within the 60/80GBs. But for any real household they are too restrictive. Do a 500GB/mnth for $80-100 and you'd see better uptake. Who knows you might just topple UFB.

That sort of cap is simply not possible for a mass market offering with high uptake unless the laws of physics are changed.

That's also representative of a 1% user - the target is still the vast majority of NZ Internet users who are sub 50GB per month.

The 80GIG cap offered by spark wireless would last me about a fortnight. Most of my friends have unlimited connections.

That doesn't mean it's representative of all NZ users. The vast majority of NZ internet users would still use well under 50GB per month.

Have a read.

http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/information_technology_and_communications/ISPSurvey_HOTP2015/Commentary.aspx

olivernz

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#1526202 5-Apr-2016 09:45

Thanks 4 the link! Interesting reading. Yeah i am probably 1-2% in internet usage. And no, I don't use 500GB.I am between 150-350 per month. Adding two kids to the mix that love YouTube/Prime/... also adds heaps of data. I'm probably just dreaming of a fast wireless connection so that all the cabling issues I have to my property go away.

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#1526206 5-Apr-2016 09:48

ajw:

sbiddle:

ajw:

sbiddle:

olivernz:

These 4G services are interesting for my grandparents and the like as they stay within the 60/80GBs. But for any real household they are too restrictive. Do a 500GB/mnth for $80-100 and you'd see better uptake. Who knows you might just topple UFB.

That sort of cap is simply not possible for a mass market offering with high uptake unless the laws of physics are changed.

That's also representative of a 1% user - the target is still the vast majority of NZ Internet users who are sub 50GB per month.

The 80GIG cap offered by spark wireless would last me about a fortnight. Most of my friends have unlimited connections.

That doesn't mean it's representative of all NZ users. The vast majority of NZ internet users would still use well under 50GB per month.

Have a read.

http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/information_technology_and_communications/ISPSurvey_HOTP2015/Commentary.aspx

Working for an ISP I'm well aware of what usage patterns are. I'm also well aware of what an AVERAGE is and how an average is calculated - it means there are users above, and users below. The figures quoted for NZ usage are estimates of average usage - they are not a mean or a median.

ajw

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#1526215 5-Apr-2016 10:26

olivernz:

Thanks 4 the link! Interesting reading. Yeah i am probably 1-2% in internet usage. And no, I don't use 500GB.I am between 150-350 per month. Adding two kids to the mix that love YouTube/Prime/... also adds heaps of data. I'm probably just dreaming of a fast wireless connection so that all the cabling issues I have to my property go away.

Another article on usage.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11469222

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#1526217 5-Apr-2016 10:35

ajw:

olivernz:

Thanks 4 the link! Interesting reading. Yeah i am probably 1-2% in internet usage. And no, I don't use 500GB.I am between 150-350 per month. Adding two kids to the mix that love YouTube/Prime/... also adds heaps of data. I'm probably just dreaming of a fast wireless connection so that all the cabling issues I have to my property go away.

Another article on usage.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11469222

And your point is?

I'm not debating that any figures are incorrect, but merely that they are an AVERAGE. To have an average there are some people that use more than this, and some people that use less than this.

As I've already explained fixed wireless services like Skinny and Spark are aimed at the large market of customers who use under 50GB per month. They are not and never will be a replacement for UFB or other fixed line services for high use users.

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#1526317 5-Apr-2016 13:13

sbiddle:

Vodafone will be planning the same with their 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz spectrum. Their problem is 3.5GHz is not ready for mass market deployments yet due to lack of CPE support.

While I applaud Spark for what they're doing the bigger picture here is the heist of the century. While many regard this to be the Dick Smith selloff, it's actually the fact Spark managed to acquire a big block of spectrum for probably a minimum of 1/10th of what it was worth had this gone to auction. This is a big loss to the taxpayer.

This really was a heist! Considering Spark paid $149 Million for 40MHz in the 700MHz spectrum auction (though, I admit, that is in the 'prime' sub 1000MHz range) it would be interesting to know what Spark paid Woosh/Craig Wireless for the 70MHz block of 2.3GHz spectrum. Bet it wouldn't have been much given there is less than a year to utilize it or they would lose it anyway.

ajw:

sbiddle:

ajw:

Both companies will have to spend millions rolling out new transmission sites for this service to cover urban areas throughout the country.

For most sites it'll be very cost effective enabling 2300, with the major work being additional panels required on some sites. Single RAN makes life very easy.

You still need the capacity and coverage and higher usage caps and competitive pricing to attract the punters. Would I be correct in saying that the single Ran infrastructure was added to spark transmission sites when sites were upgraded to 4G using Huawei networking equipment.

With their recently acquired 70MHz of 2.3GHz spectrum, (along with their two 20MHz blocks in the 2.5/2.6GHz spectrum) Spark now has 110MHz of bandwidth ideally suited for fixed wireless in a densely populated urban environment. That's more than they have in use for their entire 4G network currently (which is 90MHz made up of 40MHz @700MHz, 50MHz @ 1.8GHz plus a few sites on 2.6GHz) so they certainly now have the capacity.

And from sbiddle's comments about deployment, it doesn't seem this is going to take much in the way of $$$ or time, so there is the coverage.

Higher data caps may result from this, but fixed wireless (being a finite resource ultimately) should only ever be seen as a last resort for those unable to get a UFB connection (not as an alternative), and should be priced accordingly. What I mean by that is, so that you don't get users who can get UFB taking up the limited resource of those that can't get UFB.

Maybe pricing along the lines of:

$40/month for 30GB - Low use users

$80/month for 80GB - Average users who can't get UFB

$120/month for 150GB - Above average users who can't get UFB

$160/month for 250GB - Heavy users who can't get UFB

I would never expect to see an unlimited offering (nor do I think there should be) as that would potentially congest the network for everyone. But with reasonable data caps and pricing not too outrageous a fixed wireless service can be the perfect compliment to the UFB network. (But not a replacement!)

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#1526329 5-Apr-2016 13:34

tangerz:

This really was a heist! Considering Spark paid $149 Million for 40MHz in the 700MHz spectrum auction (though, I admit, that is in the 'prime' sub 1000MHz range) it would be interesting to know what Spark paid Woosh/Craig Wireless for the 70MHz block of 2.3GHz spectrum. Bet it wouldn't have been much given there is less than a year to utilize it or they would lose it anyway.

The figure was public last week - $9 million

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#1526333 5-Apr-2016 13:39

Yeah and Craig made a nice profit too considering it cost them $3.2mill all up.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in 3ghz land aswell, FDD is being phased out overseas and RSM have been pretty against changing the terms of spectrum mid use. Even with the old regional 3.5 blocks the TDD allowance is around 2/3 of what the FDD block was

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