Your Signatures Needed - People Against Go Large Limitations.

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Your Signatures Needed - People Against Go Large Limitations.

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Geek

#50589 1-Nov-2006 10:27

I agree the major reason many people want an unlimited plan without shaping etc is so that they can download p2p data. That said there is nothing wrong with wanting more. Why do car manufacturers sell cars that can go over 200kmh when the speed limit is nowhere near that? Do all people with fast cars break the speed limit? probably not but the potential is there.
Personally I want broadband in NZ to be as good if not better than what is on offer in Europe and the US. They get unlimited connections so why cant we? They pay for bandwidth and it costs ISPs to offer unlimited plans but they do it anyhow.
NOT to say the capacity is already in place for similar offerings in NZ but unless consumers push for more we wont get more.
Sure we can be grateful for what we have as I am since i've lived in africa for several years and broadband here is HEAPS better.

So sure insult this particular petition but the idea behind it might not be completely wrong.

Telecom can do better than they are currently doing so therefore we should keep pushing for more no matter what scraps they offer.

freitasm

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#50592 1-Nov-2006 10:40

I am being realistic here. There's no way New Zealand can afford the same kind of bandwidth as the U.S. Most of content consumed in the U.S. is hosted in the U.S. itself, so they only have national traffic.

In New Zealand on the other hand, most of the content being consumed is coming from overseas, and international traffic costs more. New Zealand national traffic could and should be better though, but this won't provide any benefit for heavy downloaders, since most of the sharing sites, servers and peers are overseas.

Blaming the costs of Internet access on the ISPs and mainly on Telecom, and leaving behind the fact that we live in what is probably one of the most isolated country in the world is just sillyness.

I agree that New Zealand traffic should be much cheaper, and charged at different rates though, like TelstraClear used to do a few years back.

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#50594 1-Nov-2006 11:00

Is 'unlimited' ever truely 'unlimited'? Most plans I have looked at around the world do have some sort of 'Fair Usage Policy' aimed at stopping bandwidth pirates.

Already mentioned here many times. A number of years ago Chello offered unlimited caps over the TCL cable network. It didn't last long as about 5% of the users absolutely nailed the bandwidth.

Read Chello Pulls Out and the bit in there about the ihug satellite service getting hammered. Scroll forward 5 years and 50 or 60 GB is not a lot so what is 'fair and resonable'? Is it fair that little Johnny Scrubber up the road sets his PC into overdrive 24x7 downloading 1TB of illegal content each month while my connection coughs and splutters?

I think not.

juha

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#50601 1-Nov-2006 11:18

It's not quite as easy as blaming it on geographic isolation though. Paying more for that is fair enough, but how much a premium would you expect? Would say twice as much be reasonable? Or three times?

How about ten times as much? Here's what the Film Council and SohoNet, which abandoned plans to set up in New Zealand because of the expensive and poor network connectivity here wrote to Minister Jim Anderton last year:

Traffic charges from Auckland to Los Angeles are ten times the cost of sending data from London to Los Angeles. Domestic charges are higher again. This means any chance the New Zealand screen industry has of collaborating and working together is almost nil; it’s cheaper to send any work offshore than to send it to another New Zealand company.

Telecom owns half of the Southern Cross Cable, which takes some 80 per cent of New Zealand's Internet traffic (the other owners are Singtel with 40 per cent and MCI/Verizon with 10 per cent).

Telstra, which puts a lot of traffic through the SCC, is now talking about laying its own trans-Pacific cable because it'll be cheaper than continuing the existing arrangement. I think that says something about the international data charges in the region.

Juha

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#50610 1-Nov-2006 11:41

And let us not forget that the Southern Cross cable is 30,500km long and was laid at a cost of US$1.3b

Felix

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#50621 1-Nov-2006 12:28

mmm

"Telstra, which puts a lot of traffic through the SCC, is now talking about laying its own trans-Pacific cable because it'll be cheaper than continuing the existing arrangement. I think that says something about the international data charges in the region. "

The old threaten to invest unless the government forces sharing of resources eh? Perhaps Telstra could team up with Econet...

Actually, don't Telstra have a rope running from Sydney to some beach on the west coast somewhere??

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JonC

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#50637 1-Nov-2006 14:04

It seems that overseas ISPs are similarly introducing traffic management when once there was none. For example a big ISP in the UK advertises an "unlimited" broadband package - Pipex, but you have to dig into their legal fine-print before they mention traffic management - here and here. Nowhere on their main pages selling you the product is anything mentioned about traffic management.

At least Telecom are reasonably upfront with what they are offering - Pipex is very vague about what it defines as being heavy usage.

On the issue of international data pricing - here's hoping that someone else will find it economical to lay a cable. It's been mentioned in stuff a few times that if any competition to the Southern Cross Cable gets off the ground, it would be a blow to the current owners, who would presumably have to drop prices to remain competitive. Of course, could just be a negotiating tactic.

antigrav

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#50720 1-Nov-2006 23:29

>internationa data cost plenty for telecom.

What utter Bull.
The SCC is making money, it has already paid for it's self or so I have read.
Telecom owns half of it and obviously doesn't use half the Data so it makes them money it doesn't cost them a penny.
This is all so much bull.

Also no one except customers are charged per GB for international traffic, they are charged for every mbit of connection.
That's why Xtra and Woosh are able to offer unlimited offpeak because as long as peak still remains peak usage so they don't have to buy more BW to make the offpeak times faster so it costs them nothing, it's just making better usage of their pipes.

Also you can put 6 billion video feeds down a fibre optic cable of about 2.5cm diameter. (I forget the exact figure but it was probably smaller, it was quoted by the nz ngi website)

Also there are plenty of small countries that while not as isolated have super fast unlimited broadband.

And as for some ISP's in other countries using fair use restrictions on their accounts yes that's because there are increasing reasons why the average internet user should be using lots of data without any p2p to blame.
They are going to have to realize that their model is dying and that data really shouldn't be charged at all, the cost of data is vanishingly small to the data provider once the cable is paid for, someone bothered to work it out based of the cost of electricity and it was laughibly small.

Still I don't think you should try and force Xtra to change their plans, they have done us a big favour because they have inspired competition and Woosh took them up on it to release what seems to be an excellent plan.

Also when thinking about the P2P user remember that if Telecom is right and it's 1 person in 100 or even if it's 1 person in 10 once you average lets say 100GB over ten people that's only 10GB a piece more which isn't much really is it, so just remember that p2p or power user is helping to improve and push the boundries of the next plan released and helping expand what the internet is good for besides text. (If it wasn't for such users you'd still have a 14kbit modem or worse and be watching the few images you DL come in at a snails pace while your charged for every hour your dialed in)

Some of the posters don't just accept Telecom !#@% them up the !@# they appoligize and find excuses for Telecom which Theresa admits uses confusion as it's cheif marketing strategy.
We are New Zealand we should have the best internet in the world maybe because of our isolation!
Plus there is the SCC, there is the link Australia has to Japan which can take more than the underutilized SCC and Telstra is going to hopefully build another one, there is no shortage of connection for this part of the world.

So vote with your feet, Join Woosh (or maybe Xtra) and force them all to release an unlimited offpeak plan because there is no reason not to!

[Moderator edit (JF): Expletive Removed]

freitasm

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#50722 1-Nov-2006 23:37

Hey... Telecom owns part of the cable, but the company running the cable is a separate entity. Everyone using the cable must pay.

And where is it that the cable's paid for itself? Link please.

Small countries where? In Europe? The European reality is different, in terms of geography, and population.

antigrav: We are New Zealand we should have the best internet in the world maybe because of our isolation!

Oh, really? And where would the content come from?

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#50724 1-Nov-2006 23:44

You mean there is content other than Geekzone? OMGROFLPONIES!!!!11

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#50733 2-Nov-2006 07:59

antigrav: >internationa data cost plenty for telecom.

What utter Bull.
The SCC is making money, it has already paid for it's self or so I have read.
Telecom owns half of it and obviously doesn't use half the Data so it makes them money it doesn't cost them a penny.
This is all so much bullcrap.

So you are saying that a listed company with shareholders should not be allowed to make a profit after their initial return on investment?

So On that basis, Annette should put ADSL2+ DSLAMs all over the country, and immediately after the bills are paid/covered, drop their pants on pricing, give users free run of the equipment and access, and only make enough money to exist, not to profit, because that would be "bullcr*p" too?

I walked past a movie theatre the other day, there was about 2 people lined up to get tickets - I guess with lots of empty seats, they should be giving them away cheap or free - heck the seats are already well paid for, they shouldnt be allowed to charge full price anymore.

Some of the posters don't just accept Telecom !#@% them up the !@# they appoligize and find excuses for Telecom which Theresa admits uses confusion as it's cheif marketing strategy.

That strategy is done and gone, since then we have seen regulatory decisions, and commitments from Telecom (that have been followed through) to work with the regulators, and work with the competitors. Broadband has gone unconstrained, just like everyone asked for, and with an advertised limit for peak times, you can get otherwise unlimited internet. yes it could be worded much better but, you know what you are in for.

If you dont like it, you are dead right, vote with your feet.

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antigrav

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#50735 2-Nov-2006 08:02

>Hey... Telecom owns part of the cable, but the company running the cable is a separate entity. Everyone using the cable must pay.

Yes, but what if I own a company which uses the services of another company I own?
It obviously in reality costs me nothing other than the actual cost of running the second company.
And while Telecom owns only 50% it uses obviously less than 50% (there is no way NZ will outdo AU bandwidth)

So in reality no it doesn't cost Telecom a dime as they get more $ from SCC than they pay to it. (And Telecom is large and successful enough not to care if what it puts in and gets out isn't in identical form, no idea if SCC pays dividends but with an ex Telecom guy running it they get whatever they want)

>And where is it that the cable's paid for itself? Link please.

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?ForumId=49&TopicId=8797&page_no=2
Post by antoniosk 3/4 the way down the page:

'Now here's an interesting point: the cable is fully depreciated and abble to make money. South X wants to add a new cable.'

>Small countries where? In Europe? The European reality is different, in terms of geography, and population.

Yes, but they are still a long way away from most content, and they have uncapped 100mbit for a reasonible monthly fee or better.
Hell other places (France and HK at least) have afforible Gbit connections.

antigrav: We are New Zealand we should have the best internet in the world maybe because of our isolation!

Oh, really? And where would the content come from?

The US to a large extent which we have a nice fat pipe straight there.

juha

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#50737 2-Nov-2006 08:18

freitasm: And where is it that the cable's paid for itself? Link please.

Yeah, it is paid for - was in the Telecom annual report, from memory.

Juha

antigrav

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#50738 2-Nov-2006 08:28

>So you are saying that a listed company with shareholders should not be allowed to make a profit after their initial return on investment?

Where did I say that? No I'm saying that anything that Telecon pays SCC it gets 50% back in some form and as Telecom uses less than 50% of SCC it isn't paying a penny for BW, it's foolish to consider SCC as a really seperate entity because besides being mostly owned by Telecom it's run by an ex Telecom guy.

I'm not saying Telecom can't make money from broadband, I'm saying that data simply isn't an expense it has so there is no reason to pretend otherwise and no need to artificially constrain it except that Telecom loves nothing better than to constrain.
Don't go telling me Telecom pays an arm and a leg for data it simply isn't true.

Some of the posters don't just accept Telecom !#@% them up the !@# they appoligize and find excuses for Telecom which Theresa admits uses confusion as it's cheif marketing strategy.

>>That strategy is done and gone, since then we have seen regulatory decisions, and commitments from Telecom (that have been followed through) to work with the regulators, and work with the competitors. Broadband has gone unconstrained, just like everyone asked for, and with an advertised limit for peak times, you can get otherwise unlimited internet. yes it could be worded much better but, you know what you are in for.

I agree, it has improved greatly and I praise Telecom for the Go Large plan and more, but do I now blindly trust Telecom and assume it's a sheep not a wolf all of a sudden, that it has so immediatly and instantly changed and is now going to do whatever it can to enrich New Zealanders digital experience, No.

I might if they had said 'To heck with it we will roll out ADSL2+ and LLU and go unconstrained immediatly but they are waiting.
The latest they could offer the unconstrained ADSL was late October, and guess what we don't get it moths, weeks or even days early despite many months lead time.

It has changed, but much of the change seems moreso for apperance sake to avoid harsher treatment Government threaterned than having really 'Got it'.

I swear, I've changed, I really have, I mean it this time, it won't happen again. Yeah Right.

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#50742 2-Nov-2006 09:04

Verizon Wireless in the US advertise "unlimited" broadband (on their EV-DO network) but apparently it's anything but - and they don't even publish the data cap.

See: I, Cringely, and his link to a ConsumerAffairs article.

(Edit: I know this is mobile and not DSL but it's a case of what's being delivered being different from what is advertised.)

Slightly related, I read somewhere - and I can't remember where - a story that said data caps may have to be introduced in the US because current business cases won't be sustainable as people increasingly download video - first for occasional viewing (1 or 2 TV shows a day) then later as IPTV starts to replace broadcast TV.

ISPs just can't cope with the peering charges of GBs of data per user per day.

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