Telecom Big Time plan trouble thread

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484 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#314895 5-Apr-2010 10:21

Talkiet:
crazed: Yes agree 1Mb would be more than enough. At present I can start a fully Legal Torrent file and download it no problems at nearly 290Kb/s but I'm trying to download drivers for my HP laptop, and at present its crawling along at 1.2Kb/s

Do you have any idea what 1mbit/sec actually would cost if it was a guaranteed minimum?

My estimate from the latest public figures I have seen would be probably over $250/month. Possibly well over that if parts of the access network need to be upgraded to guarantee that level of performance...

Cheers - N

Sorry I mis-read that I'm not referring to it as 1mb/s download rate, I was thinking of it in terms of 1mb download connection speed. A guaranteed download rate of 100kb/s would be more than enough.

CraZeD,
Your friendly Southern Geeky Fellow :P

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Talkiet

4689 posts

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#314901 5-Apr-2010 10:41

crazed:
Talkiet:
crazed: Yes agree 1Mb would be more than enough. At present I can start a fully Legal Torrent file and download it no problems at nearly 290Kb/s but I'm trying to download drivers for my HP laptop, and at present its crawling along at 1.2Kb/s

Do you have any idea what 1mbit/sec actually would cost if it was a guaranteed minimum?

My estimate from the latest public figures I have seen would be probably over $250/month. Possibly well over that if parts of the access network need to be upgraded to guarantee that level of performance...

Cheers - N

Sorry I mis-read that I'm not referring to it as 1mb/s download rate, I was thinking of it in terms of 1mb download connection speed. A guaranteed download rate of 100kb/s would be more than enough.

No, I think we're talking the same units... as I said, 1mbit/sec (~100 Kilobytes/sec) would probably be at least $250/month (or more as above)

If you mean 100kilobits/sec (approx 12 kilobytes/sec) however then that is within the realms of feasibility to guarantee over the current infrastructure, but I am in no way saying that it would be a good idea.

The whole reason that residential internet costs as little as it does (compared to business grade connections with guaranteed minimum performance levels) is that the service is dimensioned for aggregate usage levels. Unfortunately when a significant proportion of users want to use substantially more than the dimensioned average, this will impact other users.

If people _really_ want a _guaranteed_ minimum level of performance, you do understand that the ISP needs to reserve that amount of bandwidth at every point on the network for each user, whether they are using it or not? Certainly ISPs could use far lower contention ratios to probably achieve the same sort of thing - but the moment you adjust the contention ratio, the price that the end user pays has to change as well.

While it would be nice if the international bandwidth, handover links, fibre, cabinet investment etc was all free, it's unforunately not.

Cheers - N

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

ArranH

161 posts

Master Geek

#314913 5-Apr-2010 11:15

Talkiet:
crazed: Yes agree 1Mb would be more than enough. At present I can start a fully Legal Torrent file and download it no problems at nearly 290Kb/s but I'm trying to download drivers for my HP laptop, and at present its crawling along at 1.2Kb/s

Do you have any idea what 1mbit/sec actually would cost if it was a guaranteed minimum?

My estimate from the latest public figures I have seen would be probably over $250/month. Possibly well over that if parts of the access network need to be upgraded to guarantee that level of performance...

Cheers - N

If people were using it 100% of the time quite a lot, but considering the vast majority of people dont it would be a great deal less. And I'm not saying that Telecom should guarantee it, but it is for a service that Telecom has, over many years, compared against dialup as being far superior, yet people are currently experiencing less thatn dialup performance on some very basic and common uses of the web.

Just me speculating on what the courts might consider as reasonable service. Im guessing that slower than dialup wouldn't be.

ArranH

161 posts

Master Geek

#314914 5-Apr-2010 11:18

Talkiet:
The whole reason that residential internet costs as little as it does (compared to business grade connections with guaranteed minimum performance levels) is that the service is dimensioned for aggregate usage levels. Unfortunately when a significant proportion of users want to use substantially more than the dimensioned average, this will impact other users.

So this is why my speeds have been so much worse at 5am in the morning than at 9pm at night, because there are more users at 5am in the morning? Of course this all started 3 weeks ago (as the slowdowns seemed to for so many of us), before that it was the other way around, which makes more logical sense to me, being slower on-peak and when there are more people using it.

falconne

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#314926 5-Apr-2010 12:38

crazed:
Maybe its time for the likes of Virgin etc to move into NZ and show us all how easy it is to provide a internet service that actually functions and can be successfully called "Broadband" rather than the slightly upgraded dial-up that we get now.

I don't know if a foreign company can solve this issue. No matter what the ISP does, our physical infratructure simply cannot handle uncapped plans at broadband speeds because we have a limited pipe to the outside world. Granted the internal infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired and the fibre network is needed to sort that out, but unless we get extra bandwidth to the outside world, the data caps will still remain in place... we'll just hit the limit quicker.

There was that report last year of the OECD broadband stats that was quite telling. A couple of interesting blog posts about it here and here.

NZ has done well over the past few years to improve, but we are still behind the OECD average. The most depressing point being:

"The worst indicator for New Zealand is our comparative position with data caps, a problem we share with the Aussies. As this chart shows, New Zealand remains one of just 4 OECD countries where data caps are universal. After us there are 10 countries where some plans have data caps and others don't, while in the remaining 16 countries "data cap" is not part of the vocabulary."

falconne

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#314930 5-Apr-2010 13:05

falconne: our physical infratructure simply cannot handle uncapped plans at broadband speeds because we have a limited pipe to the outside world.

Actually, looking at the current capacity of the Southern Cross Cable, 295 Gbits/s, I have to second guess my own statement. That seems like plenty capacity to provide a decent uncapped plan in a country of just 4 million people. Maybe it is just shoddy internal infrastructure...

ArcticSilver

722 posts

Ultimate Geek

#314933 5-Apr-2010 13:11

falconne:
falconne: our physical infratructure simply cannot handle uncapped plans at broadband speeds because we have a limited pipe to the outside world.

Actually, looking at the current capacity of the Southern Cross Cable, 295 Gbits/s, I have to second guess my own statement. That seems like plenty capacity to provide a decent uncapped plan in a country of just 4 million people. Maybe it is just shoddy internal infrastructure...

Its quite simple really.

Yes the infistructure can take it.

But, we dont own it. Its a business. Every bit costs the ISP. You cant expect them to spend $600~ per user on a $60/month plan.

Unless of course you want to spend $600 on a "decent" uncapped plan?

ArranH

161 posts

Master Geek

#314934 5-Apr-2010 13:12

falconne:
crazed:
Maybe its time for the likes of Virgin etc to move into NZ and show us all how easy it is to provide a internet service that actually functions and can be successfully called "Broadband" rather than the slightly upgraded dial-up that we get now.

I don't know if a foreign company can solve this issue. No matter what the ISP does, our physical infratructure simply cannot handle uncapped plans at broadband speeds because we have a limited pipe to the outside world. Granted the internal infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired and the fibre network is needed to sort that out, but unless we get extra bandwidth to the outside world, the data caps will still remain in place... we'll just hit the limit quicker.

There was that report last year of the OECD broadband stats that was quite telling. A couple of interesting blog posts about it here and here.

NZ has done well over the past few years to improve, but we are still behind the OECD average. The most depressing point being:

"The worst indicator for New Zealand is our comparative position with data caps, a problem we share with the Aussies. As this chart shows, New Zealand remains one of just 4 OECD countries where data caps are universal. After us there are 10 countries where some plans have data caps and others don't, while in the remaining 16 countries "data cap" is not part of the vocabulary."

I've actually been very happy with BigTime until 3 weeks ago, its been the first time since I've experienced the kind of connection I had in London 8 years ago. Its just the last 3 weeks that things have been crazy, before then it was fantastic. I just wish I knew what changed.

crazed

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#314936 5-Apr-2010 13:22

Yea I've was happy until about 3-4 weeks ago too

CraZeD,
Your friendly Southern Geeky Fellow :P

falconne

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#314937 5-Apr-2010 13:26

ArranH:
I've actually been very happy with BigTime until 3 weeks ago, its been the first time since I've experienced the kind of connection I had in London 8 years ago. Its just the last 3 weeks that things have been crazy, before then it was fantastic. I just wish I knew what changed.

You're right, so was I. But I can't get tech support to acknowledge that anything's changed or been broken since then and that normal service would resume at some point. The only rhetoric I get is that this is what I can expect from this plan and if I want better, move to a capped plan.

falconne

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#314944 5-Apr-2010 13:45

ArcticSilver:
But, we dont own it. Its a business. Every bit costs the ISP. You cant expect them to spend $600~ per user on a $60/month plan.

Telecom owns 50% of the Southern Cross Cable Company, so it doesn't exactly cost them as much as other ISPs to use it. With that kind of external capacity under their power and the profits they made as a monopoly, they really should have maintained and upgraded the internal infrastructure to support this kind of plan.

To be honest, I don't think Telecom has the technical expertise nor the incentive to bring us in line with the rest of the OECD. Even with the unbundling, they still have control over most of our outside pipe, so they are still essentially a monopoly. Until that cable's capacity is increased and a few other companies get a good chunk of the badwidth so they too can provide uncapped plans, Telecom can happily maximise their profit without any regard to what it costs the country.

ArranH

161 posts

Master Geek

#314945 5-Apr-2010 13:49

To be fair Telecom has improved hugely since they replaced the former boss (back when I remember they offered 3 months free broadband at XLan and nobody wanted it), so they've shown definite improvement. And I'm not going to let three weeks of bad service change my view that they are reforming. But these past three weeks have shown that they do have a way to go.

Lias

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#314951 5-Apr-2010 14:19

Talkiet:

The whole reason that residential internet costs as little as it does (compared to business grade connections with guaranteed minimum performance levels) is that the service is dimensioned for aggregate usage levels. Unfortunately when a significant proportion of users want to use substantially more than the dimensioned average, this will impact other users.

Telecom declared a 713 million dollar profit on turnover of 5.7 billion for the 2008 financial year I'm pretty sure they can afford to provide us with better service at the same or lower cost. If they were making a loss I might have some sympathy, but honestly 700 million profit and crying "we cant afford to give you decent broadband" is seriously extracting the urine.

All the more reason why Telecom needs to be nationalized, and reconstitued as a not for profit dedicated to giving kiwis the best broadband in the world, not making profits.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

Flashcards

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#314957 5-Apr-2010 14:26

Lias:
Talkiet:

The whole reason that residential internet costs as little as it does (compared to business grade connections with guaranteed minimum performance levels) is that the service is dimensioned for aggregate usage levels. Unfortunately when a significant proportion of users want to use substantially more than the dimensioned average, this will impact other users.

Telecom declared a 713 million dollar profit on turnover of 5.7 billion for the 2008 financial year? I'm pretty sure they can afford to provide us with better service at the same or lower cost. If they were making a loss I might have some sympathy, but honestly 700 million profit and crying "we cant afford to give you decent broadband" is seriously extracting the urine.

All the more reason why Telecom needs to be nationalized, and reconstitued as a not for profit dedicated to giving kiwis the best broadband in the world, not making profits.

I agree with the profit/service issue. But I STRONGLY disagree with Nationalising Telecom. NOTHING run by government is efficient. I repeat - NOTHING run by government is efficient. Going down the socialist path never works long term, history tells us that.

What would make a difference however is if the benefits of Telecoms' historic government granted monopoly were removed and it was truly a level playing field (which it isn't). Then Telecom would have the fire put up them by competitors and we'd all win. Witness the dog fight between Vodafone and Telecom over the Cell Phone business. It has helped consumers no end and you can bet that without Vodafone in the game, Telecom would still be using ancient Cell Phone technology (though, arguably XT aint much beter, lol).

BigMal

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#314959 5-Apr-2010 14:35

I got this email from Telecom. Apparently the global gateway problem only effects a select number of customers (how I don't know). See below...

Thank you for your email.

The BigTime plan is not full speed. It is a managed speed plan and will show different speeds than a plan such as Adventure or Pro. There is also a global gateway issue in New Zealand at present that is affecting a handful of customers. This involves equipment that some broadband customers have their connection through. This equipment is being fixed by technicians and the speed issues will be resolved as soon as possible.

I appreciate your patience whilst this is resolved.

If you want to try switching to the Adventure or Pro plan you can. Customers are entitled to one plan change per calendar month.

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