[TelstraClear] 100Mbps service from TelstraClear

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698 posts

Ultimate Geek

#381409 17-Sep-2010 19:37

TelstraClear: Ultra-Fast Broadband has been much talked about with it being seen as a creator of jobs, as driver of business efficiencies and delivering entertainment into our homes.

It is for these reasons that the Government has been such a high profile supporter of ultra-fast broadband though its UFB initiative.

Now as the ultra-fast speeds begin to become a reality there are some interesting questions being raised like:

'What does having ultra-fast broadband mean?'

'What to do with faster Broadband?'

'What will I be prepared to pay for it?' and 'What does a home of the future look like in an ultra-fast broadband world?'

Check out our site Warpspeed.co.nz

What are your thoughts?

Tim - TelstraClear

Like ajw said, 10Mbps up with 100Mbps down is laughable. The download:upload ratio for TelstraClear cable plans has consistently become worse and worse over the years. It used to be 2:1 with the old 256k/128k plans! DOCSIS 3.0 can handle way more than 10Mbps upstream, so there's no good reason not to (my guess is that TelstraClear will offer plans with higher upload speeds only to businesses, so that they can create such a separate market in order to charge "business prices"). People (average people, not just businesses) upload more content than ever before. The ratio should be getting better, not worse.

I'm also concerned about data caps. Given TelstraClear's record on this, I feel my concerns are valid... 100Mbps would be pretty pointless unless the data cap is large enough (250GB bare minimum, IMO. Anything less can be adequately serviced by lower speeds).

And lastly, price. These plans will be quite expensive.

I'm going to partake in a little wild speculation, just for fun, but hopefully somewhat accurate (actually, I hope it's NOT accurate! Prove me wrong TelstraClear! (hasn't happened yet)). These 100Mbps plans will not replace the existing plans - they will be in addition to them, like the 25Mbps plan. Subsequently, they will cost more (caution: wild speculation from this point onwards) - I'm guessing they will start at around $200. Maybe this will include some limited IPTV, with the option to pay for more channels. Data caps will start at 150GB. IPTV will of course not count towards the cap. We will not hear anything about when these plans will be released until February, at which point TelstraClear will offer a vague suggestion that the plans are "coming soon" and to "watch this space". The plans will not be available before April 2011. The existing 25Mbps plan will be reduced in price to around $170 when these plans are launched, and the LightSpeed 90G plan will reduce slightly also. Overage on the 100Mbps plans will be 4GB for $4.99. /wildunfoundedspeculation

techo

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Geek

#381540 18-Sep-2010 09:06

Screeb:
DOCSIS 3.0 can handle way more than 10Mbps upstream, so there's no good reason not to (my guess is that TelstraClear will offer plans with higher upload speeds only to businesses, so that they can create such a separate market in order to charge "business prices"). People (average people, not just businesses) upload more content than ever before. The ratio should be getting better, not worse.

Could you please explain what types of consumers (not business) would appreciate upstream speeds in excess of 10Mbps and why (what purposes), and would this be very popular (apply to most consumers) or apply to only to a small minority of consumers?

Zeon

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#381576 18-Sep-2010 10:59

techo:
Screeb:
DOCSIS 3.0 can handle way more than 10Mbps upstream, so there's no good reason not to (my guess is that TelstraClear will offer plans with higher upload speeds only to businesses, so that they can create such a separate market in order to charge "business prices"). People (average people, not just businesses) upload more content than ever before. The ratio should be getting better, not worse.

Could you please explain what types of consumers (not business) would appreciate upstream speeds in excess of 10Mbps and why (what purposes), and would this be very popular (apply to most consumers) or apply to only to a small minority of consumers?

Uploading to videos e.g. youtube, HD video conferencing with family elsewhere, distributed p2p video streaming, remote working with sending large files...

Basically all the main applications touted by the fibre UFB rollout...

Speedtest 2019-10-14

Screeb

698 posts

Ultimate Geek

#381656 18-Sep-2010 17:58

techo:
Screeb:
DOCSIS 3.0 can handle way more than 10Mbps upstream, so there's no good reason not to (my guess is that TelstraClear will offer plans with higher upload speeds only to businesses, so that they can create such a separate market in order to charge "business prices"). People (average people, not just businesses) upload more content than ever before. The ratio should be getting better, not worse.

Could you please explain what types of consumers (not business) would appreciate upstream speeds in excess of 10Mbps and why (what purposes), and would this be very popular (apply to most consumers) or apply to only to a small minority of consumers?

In addition to what Zeon said, another is noncommercial web (or other internet service) hosting, and a big one is cloud storage/backup. But the main point is "why not?". Or perhaps "why should the people who do need or would like >10Mbps up be forced onto a (very expensive) business plan (when the increase in price is not reflected in the cost)?". Clearly the Government agrees with me on this, given the national FTTH plan calls for a 2:1 ratio (well, 100/50 minimum). Why does TelstraClear disagree? Of course, as I said, they don't, they just like money ;). My point really is that the technology is not the limiting factor in this extremely arbitrary upload speed cap - it's purely a business decision, and it's at odds with the Government's goals (despite TelstraClear claiming that their network is just as good as the proposed national one).

P.S. In the interests of full disclosure, when you are discussing matters to do with TelstraClear, I think you should note that you work for them.

Also, I just noticed something on the warpspeed site that's a bit misleading: "We are proud to say that our upgraded cable network in Wellington and Christchurch is already capable of running at speeds classed as ultra-fast (i.e. providing downlink speeds of up to 100mbps)." - The Government defines "ultra-fast broadband" as uncontested 100/50, not just 100 down. So 100/10 would not be classed as "ultra-fast" in this sense.

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#381672 18-Sep-2010 19:15

I think the whole thing is going a bit off topic. We don't have any information on plans, costs yet.

Let's talk about the use cases and the experience first. I am told this Monday a technician will contact me to arrange the modem swap. Will post more later.

Screeb

698 posts

Ultimate Geek

#381676 18-Sep-2010 19:24

Have they told you whether or not you're going to have a data cap for this testing period? If you don't have a cap, then that would be pretty interesting, as it would imply they haven't decided what the final caps will be (ie they might base it on what the testers use). On the other hand, it would alter your behaviour, compared to if you had a cap, which would make the testing a lot less useful. I look forward to Monday, but not as much as you are, I'm sure.

sbiddle

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#381772 19-Sep-2010 09:10

Screeb:
Also, I just noticed something on the warpspeed site that's a bit misleading: "We are proud to say that our upgraded cable network in Wellington and Christchurch is already capable of running at speeds classed as ultra-fast (i.e. providing downlink speeds of up to 100mbps)." - The Government defines "ultra-fast broadband" as uncontested 100/50, not just 100 down. So 100/10 would not be classed as "ultra-fast" in this sense.

DOCSIS3 is perfectly capable of delivering 100Mbps symmetrical speeds. It simply comes down to the number of DOCSIS channels that are allocated and bonded for upstream bandwidth. Most carriers see no point in offering such high upstream speeds so simply don't allocate as many DOCSIS channels for upstream.

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Screeb

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Ultimate Geek

#382025 19-Sep-2010 21:45

sbiddle:
Screeb:
Also, I just noticed something on the warpspeed site that's a bit misleading: "We are proud to say that our upgraded cable network in Wellington and Christchurch is already capable of running at speeds classed as ultra-fast (i.e. providing downlink speeds of up to 100mbps)." - The Government defines "ultra-fast broadband" as uncontested 100/50, not just 100 down. So 100/10 would not be classed as "ultra-fast" in this sense.

DOCSIS3 is perfectly capable of delivering 100Mbps symmetrical speeds. It simply comes down to the number of DOCSIS channels that are allocated and bonded for upstream bandwidth. Most carriers see no point in offering such high upstream speeds so simply don't allocate as many DOCSIS channels for upstream.

Yes, I know... the point is that their definition of "ultra-fast" is not the same definition as the Government's, and yet they were just comparing their network to the planned national one. They most assuredly are not going to offer (residential) plans that fit the government's "ultra-fast" definition, regardless of whether or not the network can handle it (and even then, "ultra-fast" must be uncontested at those speeds, which would be prohibitively expensive to achieve on DOCSIS 3.0 AFAIK).

freitasm:
As discussed here plans updates are being rolled out from October, with new plans for the DOCSIS3 service being rolled out later in the year.

Did they tell you this? I just saw ads in town that say the plans are coming next year.

Nety

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#382097 20-Sep-2010 06:27

Screeb:

freitasm:
As discussed here plans updates are being rolled out from October, with new plans for the DOCSIS3 service being rolled out later in the year.

Did they tell you this? I just saw ads in town that say the plans are coming next year.

TC cable users with internet have been sent letters over the last few weeks explaining the change so yes they told us. It is also on the web site if you follow the link in the first post.

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Quidam

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Ultimate Geek

#382126 20-Sep-2010 09:18

Read this on Stuff this morning: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/gadgets/4143996/TelstraClear-tests-100Mbps-in-Wellington

It seems pretty clear to me that this is all about Telstra reacting to the threat of a brand-spanking new Fibre-Optic network. When/If it happens their performance monopoly is going down the toilet, so this promise of 100Mb down/10 up is an attempt to delay the introduction of competition into Wellington/Christchurch.

I can't help but be sceptical regarding the pricing of the proposed new high performance service, meaning even if we do get it, it's not going to be commercially viable for regular consumers. ie there was no mention of pricing and if for arguments sake it was priced for the regular home consumer would they be able to cope with the uptake volume?

Furthermore, many of you might remember back to the ARP fiasco where to put it in simplistic terms, they ran their entire network as one giant VLAN. This seemed to be implicated in the fact thatonline gaming (which requires low latency response times rather than high through-put) was a massively frustrating experience, with drop after drop after drop. My customer experience at that time was just plain horrible as they completely failed to acknowledge any fault at their end of the network right up until the bitter end. To be honest, its still not that great even after they fixed the issue (on occasion I still check ping response times to their gateway and notice the same sort of behaviour, with small micro-dropouts of anything from 100 to several hundred milliseconds) but due to the fact that there was no other viable competition, I gave up trying to get telstra to address this.

Well I don't want to come across as too negative, I think I am pretty lucky to be in Wellington where we at least have the option of Cable, but bottom line is I would welcome a fire-optic network here, mainly because I think if we don't, the roles will be reversed and it will be Wellington who will be stuck with sub-performance broad-band.

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#382132 20-Sep-2010 09:51

I am told that TelstraClear has deployed the 100Mbps service at their retail store in Wellington, so if you are in town and want to have a play I suggest you check there.

JonC

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Ultimate Geek

#382137 20-Sep-2010 10:05

Quidam:
Read this on Stuff this morning: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/gadgets/4143996/TelstraClear-tests-100Mbps-in-Wellington

It seems pretty clear to me that this is all about Telstra reacting to the threat of a brand-spanking new Fibre-Optic network. When/If it happens their performance monopoly is going down the toilet, so this promise of 100Mb down/10 up is an attempt to delay the introduction of competition into Wellington/Christchurch.

That's my reading of the article, too. The very fact that a hint of competition in their marketspace has prompted them to get a 100Mbps service out the door shows me that competition is a good thing.

Much as I hate to see the waste in building a second fibre network, unless TCL sell their fibre network to an independent authority for equal use by any service provider, it's not the same thing as the UFB proposal.

I hope Mr Joyce ignores the silly billboards.

freitasm

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#382140 20-Sep-2010 10:10

JonC: The very fact that a hint of competition in their marketspace has prompted them to get a 100Mbps service out the door shows me that competition is a good thing.

While I agree there's an element of politics in there this isn't something that just happened. The DOCSIS3 upgrades have been happening for months now.

JonC: Much as I hate to see the waste in building a second fibre network, unless TCL sell their fibre network to an independent authority for equal use by any service provider, it's not the same thing as the UFB proposal.

A bit of contradiction there... On the first paragraph there are praises for competition and on the next one there is the talk about waste in building a second fibre network - which is competition in essence.

JonC

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#382145 20-Sep-2010 10:22

freitasm:
JonC: Much as I hate to see the waste in building a second fibre network, unless TCL sell their fibre network to an independent authority for equal use by any service provider, it's not the same thing as the UFB proposal.

A bit of contradiction there... On the first paragraph there are praises for competition and on the next one there is the talk about waste in building a second fibre network - which is competition in essence.

Yes, I agree. There are good and bad things about competition in this type of market. Ultimately though, I think the UFB initiative is a good one and I hope this campaign from TCL doesn't deny Wellington an independent fibre network.

The idea behind the UFB plan is to commoditise fibre broadband, which is bad for infrastructure owners like TCL and Telecom as they won't have a unique selling point or be able to control the market.

juha

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#382277 20-Sep-2010 14:57

So, how much bandwidth is allocated to each customer?

If the DOCSIS 3.0 network in question has approx a total of 300Mbit/s downstream and 120Mbit/s upstream capacity, and this is shared between all customers, it's maybe a little hard to be excited over a 100/10Mbit/s offering.

Juha

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