UFB - Should I bother

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#777894 11-Mar-2013 11:43

You haven't said anything about your ISP, connection type or your methodology used for testing.

Assuming it's TCP testing with with PPPoE your connection is basically 100% perfect and you're getting exactly what you're supposed to.

Zeon

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#777897 11-Mar-2013 11:49

gustov: Steve, I found your reply very useful.

I had one of the first UFB residential installs in Grey Lynn, Auckland, last July 2012 after being approached by my ISP to switch from ADSL to UFB. I signed up for the 30/10 package but for the first few months enjoyed 64/32. My ISP said this was because Chorus was not throttling speeds at that early stage, so I should not to expect it to last.

It has been apparent for the last four months that I am now well and truly on the 30/10 plan I am charged for, excepting that I never get more than 27/8. (plus or minus 1Mbps)

Can I ask for your technical advice please about how I might go about encouraging my ISP to give me the full 30/10 I am paying for? Is there something they should be doing, that they aren't doing?

I know those readers hanging out for UFB might say I am being picky, but this speed difference is 10-20% slower than what my ISP advertises, and charges me for. What concerns me is that at such an early stage of the UFB rollout across the country that already speed is being throttled below that advertised to encourage new sign-ups, and if ISP's are doing this now, then it does not bode well for the future either.

When I first raised this speed shortfall with my ISP they showed little interest and even said that Chorus only guarantee a UFB speed of 2.5Mbps anyway! (in other words: I should be happy with anything faster than 2.5Mbps). They also tried to shift the responsibility to Chorus.

Steve, I would appreciate your thoughts on this issue. Is there anything I can raise with my ISP that will "encourage" them to deliver 30/10? Why do you think they are not delivering the full 30/10?

I am certain that if I said I wanted to stump up with another $30 a month for the full 100/50 plan that my speeds would increase overnight! But right now all I want is the 30/10 I am being charged for and know from my first few months experience, is deliverable.

You are almost certainly getting a true 30/10mbps service at that speed as I presume you are testing with Speedtest (or something to that degree) which uses TCp and only a few connections. The packet overhead and other TCP overheads are the difference you see. If you tried a straight UDP stream I could almost guarantee you would get 30/10.

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wired

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#777906 11-Mar-2013 12:01

gustov:
It has been apparent for the last four months that I am now well and truly on the 30/10 plan I am charged for, excepting that I never get more than 27/8. (plus or minus 1Mbps)

Can I ask for your technical advice please about how I might go about encouraging my ISP to give me the full 30/10 I am paying for? Is there something they should be doing, that they aren't doing?

I know those readers hanging out for UFB might say I am being picky, but this speed difference is 10-20% slower than what my ISP advertises, and charges me for. What concerns me is that at such an early stage of the UFB rollout across the country that already speed is being throttled below that advertised to encourage new sign-ups, and if ISP's are doing this now, then it does not bode well for the future either.

When I first raised this speed shortfall with my ISP they showed little interest and even said that Chorus only guarantee a UFB speed of 2.5Mbps anyway! (in other words: I should be happy with anything faster than 2.5Mbps). They also tried to shift the responsibility to Chorus.

Steve, I would appreciate your thoughts on this issue. Is there anything I can raise with my ISP that will "encourage" them to deliver 30/10? Why do you think they are not delivering the full 30/10?

I am certain that if I said I wanted to stump up with another $30 a month for the full 100/50 plan that my speeds would increase overnight! But right now all I want is the 30/10 I am being charged for and know from my first few months experience, is deliverable.

I'd be interested to know how you are testing the speed. The 30/10 refers to the layer 2 performance provided by Chorus or the LFC. So the layer 3 header packets etc. count as part of your bandwidth and the size of the packets that you use (Mtu of 66 bytes versus 1500) will affect the speed. Many testing programs only measure the volume of the payload within the layer 3 packet and does not include the IP header etc in the calcs.

The takeway from this is that you won't get 30/10 unless you have a sophisticated testing tools to measure it and FYI I don't have any way to do this from my home, so the 27/8 is looking pretty good. You might be able to squeeze a litle more from it if you optimise you setup.

gustov

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#777923 11-Mar-2013 12:31

Thanks to everyone for the prompt replies - you all tell me that my speed is in fact OK and I am getting what I should. That's the reassurance I wish my ISP had given me.

Yes I was using "Speedtest" and also my own ISP's online speed test programme to measure my speed.

Once again I've learnt something from this group.

Incidentally, in this morning's "NZ Herald" there is a very interesting lengthy article on the uptake of UFB in New Zealand. I found this sentence interesting as I though uptake might have been higher:

"But, from the start of this year, 3806 users of 134,912 able to connect under the UFB scheme had fibre."

Full article here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10870413

MikeAqua

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#778382 12-Mar-2013 10:09

Thanks for the useful info guys. I live in Nelson and currently use Telecom as my ISP. I'm confident telecom are the choke point, because broadband speed is so variable at our place, and that variability corresponds to what you might describe as a peak off peak cycle. am Sunday morning is fantastic but 7:30pm on a weeknight its hopeless - even on simple text based web pages.

I'm a little confused by the 'won't use copper' comment. As I understand it the UFB cabling is in for our neighborhood, but none was installed in our street, only down the adjacent main road.

Mike

Zeon

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#778388 12-Mar-2013 10:31

MikeAqua: Thanks for the useful info guys. I live in Nelson and currently use Telecom as my ISP. I'm confident telecom are the choke point, because broadband speed is so variable at our place, and that variability corresponds to what you might describe as a peak off peak cycle. am Sunday morning is fantastic but 7:30pm on a weeknight its hopeless - even on simple text based web pages.

I'm a little confused by the 'won't use copper' comment. As I understand it the UFB cabling is in for our neighborhood, but none was installed in our street, only down the adjacent main road.

Telecom won't be the choke point here but rather it will be that you are on an old ATM based connection with Chorus (ADSL1) with limited backhaul. Search Conklin on this forum. Changing ISPs won't help you but UFB definitely would, no matter the ISP.

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sbiddle

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#778389 12-Mar-2013 10:31

gustov:
Incidentally, in this morning's "NZ Herald" there is a very interesting lengthy article on the uptake of UFB in New Zealand. I found this sentence interesting as I though uptake might have been higher:

"But, from the start of this year, 3806 users of 134,912 able to connect under the UFB scheme had fibre."

The figures shouldn't surprise anybody. Out of NZ's top 5 ISP's only Orcon is offering UFB services and Callplus/Singslot currently only trialling business users. Once the big 2/3 (Vodafone/TelstraClear and Telecom) start offering UFB you'll probably see things change.

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gustov

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#778435 12-Mar-2013 11:11

Once the big 2/3 (Vodafone/TelstraClear and Telecom) start offering UFB you'll probably see things change.

Why have the big ISP's be so slow to offer UFB?

sbiddle

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#778561 12-Mar-2013 14:42

gustov:
Once the big 2/3 (Vodafone/TelstraClear and Telecom) start offering UFB you'll probably see things change.

Why have the big ISP's be so slow to offer UFB?

To save spending 45 minutes writing what has been discussed in numerous other threads on here I'll answer that with one simple answer "because".

Fibre is an incredibly complex beast with a large number of unknowns. It's a massive project offering UFB connections.

pjamieson

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Chorus

#782642 16-Mar-2013 12:32

MikeAqua: Thanks for the useful info guys. I live in Nelson and currently use Telecom as my ISP. I'm confident telecom are the choke point, because broadband speed is so variable at our place, and that variability corresponds to what you might describe as a peak off peak cycle. am Sunday morning is fantastic but 7:30pm on a weeknight its hopeless - even on simple text based web pages.

I'm a little confused by the 'won't use copper' comment. As I understand it the UFB cabling is in for our neighborhood, but none was installed in our street, only down the adjacent main road.

What is your street name?

DarthKermit

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#782661 16-Mar-2013 13:29

MikeAqua: I'm a little confused by the 'won't use copper' comment. As I understand it the UFB cabling is in for our neighborhood, but none was installed in our street, only down the adjacent main road.

So they did not install any of these green pillars in your street?

Whatifthespacekeyhadneverbeeninvented?

InstallerUFB

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#782806 16-Mar-2013 23:03

MikeAqua: <snip> I'm a little confused by the 'won't use copper' comment. As I understand it the UFB cabling is in for our neighborhood, but none was installed in our street, only down the adjacent main road.

There is no copper cableing in the UFB network - it is all fibre (except for some copper in the house cables).

There dosent have to be UFB 'ducting' installed in your street for you to have acces to the UFB system.

The green (as used by chorus) microducting system is only installed down street where there isnt an existing pit & pipe ducting system - if there is an existing ducting system then a fibre cable is pulled through this to your house from a fibre terminal, installed in a special pit on these system (on average 1 terminal per 24 houses)

If you dont have the grey terminals at about every 2nd boundary but an oval shaped bit about every 4-6 houses then your likely to be connected to an exisiting pit&pipe duct system

webwat

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#783064 17-Mar-2013 18:57

sbiddle:
timmmay: I upload 5-15GB per week during summer, by FTP 3-5 connections at once, to my editor in the US. Right now I'm on 2Mbps up TC cable, and I get the full 2Mbps. If I get UFB am I likely to get the full 10Mbps up?

Also is there scope for the connections to upgrade to 1Gbps later? I can't see any real need for it right now, but limiting to 100Mbps seems a little short sighted.

You can sign up for 1Gbps now if you want a P2P connection.

The 100/50Mbps limits at present exists so there is no contention on the 24 way GPON split as GPON can only deliver 2.4Gbps down and 1.2Gbps up.

It's inevitable that the GPON spec will eventually be upgraded to support faster than 2.4Gbps.

There should be 10GPON gear available now but its early days and Chorus won't be interested for a long time because there would be no reason and no demand and not enough backhaul. Point to point Ethernet should be available on UFB now up to 10 gigabit. If 100 gigabit becomes common at some point in the future then today's UFB fibre will be totally compatible. Thats the thing about "Single Mode" fibre that is used for GPON.

Time to find a new industry!

Publius

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#783340 18-Mar-2013 11:21

@InstallerUFB,

What will happen after the UFB network is rolled out in a suburb with every 24 houses connected to a optical splitter, then someone sub-divides an existing section and a new house is built and wants a UFB hookup?

"Sorry the cabinet is full"?

Talkiet

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#783342 18-Mar-2013 11:30

Publius: @InstallerUFB,

What will happen after the UFB network is rolled out in a suburb with every 24 houses connected to a optical splitter, then someone sub-divides an existing section and a new house is built and wants a UFB hookup?

"Sorry the cabinet is full"?

Interesting question... It's worth noting that the 24 way split is a policy, not a technical, limitation. There are options to split 32 or even 64 ways I believe. I'm not sure of the level of optical rework required to change it though.

Cheers - N

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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