Bridging the digital divide

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timmmay

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#784280 20-Mar-2013 10:20

Don, you're sounding quite hostile on this thread. Perhaps you need to tone it down a bit.

I'm not sure I'd put repeaters up the tree, I'd probably go around them perhaps via the other businesses the other way, but what do I know. Working with valley net is probably the most practical, effective way to get decent broadband. You could contact them to work out an approximate cost.

canine

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#784301 20-Mar-2013 10:47

Thanks for that info, and nicely put, no credit card needed, just some time and motivation.

DonGould

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#784302 20-Mar-2013 10:50

timmmay: Don, you're sounding quite hostile on this thread. Perhaps you need to tone it down a bit.

I'm not sure I'd put repeaters up the tree, I'd probably go around them perhaps via the other businesses the other way, but what do I know. Working with valley net is probably the most practical, effective way to get decent broadband. You could contact them to work out an approximate cost.

Yes well spotted. At least my true feelings on this issue are shining today! :)

I do feel very hostile towards people who keep bashing the big telcos and govt for not doing enough while there's a perfectly good player like Ray just down the road just itching to help as many folk as he can.

Having had a look at the valley.net.nz site this morning, they look like the same sort of good community focused crowd that we need in our rural areas.

People moan that no one's helping them but when we do help, they just ignore us and rant on about how some big out of town telco isn't doing enough for their $2.

The topic here is "bridging the digital divide' and to be quite honest there's a bunch of people that just make me hostile when they could be putting their considerable resource behind closing these gaps.

You just wouldn't believe the post I read last month made by one guy who's working on doing just this. The road blocks that people 'who normally whinge' out in front of him, to deliver some nets to their community, where just stupid. Personally I'd have just gone fishing!

In my view we need to shake the trees a lot harder until some sense drops on peoples heads.

D

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DonGould

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#784307 20-Mar-2013 10:55

canine: Thanks for that info, and nicely put, no credit card needed, just some time and motivation.

You're welcome.

As is suggested, my tone is aggressive on this issue, but hopefully aggressive enough to motivate you and not just drive you under a rock.

Money is a big problem in this space.

I wasn't meaning to seem insulting with the credit card comment, but did want to highlight the issue.

People have expectations based on the marketing they see in the city space and it is very hard for network builders to get traction.

Look on the Gowifi site (linked from Valley.net.nz) and you'll see that this gear isn't that expensive, but it's also not as cheap as a Tstick.

People in rural communities need to work with each other and work this stuff.

I've seen enough million dollar tractors in rural area and two million dollar trucks to know that rural folk can find money, it just seems they have trouble investing in telecommunications even though it has a massive benefit for social and economic reasons.

If I can help in any way then please feel free to contact me on or off line.

Don Gould
CEO - YourNet.co.nz - WISP in the making!

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Skolink

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#784311 20-Mar-2013 11:02

DonGould: What would you like to see being done to address the digital divide?

If I could throw one million dollars on the table in the morning, where would you start to spend it and why?

Give/lend it to the small players that are already providing better rural service than the big boys, so they can expand their networks!

jonb

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#784318 20-Mar-2013 11:14

Skolink:
DonGould: What would you like to see being done to address the digital divide?

If I could throw one million dollars on the table in the morning, where would you start to spend it and why?

Give/lend
it to the small players that are already providing better rural service than the big boys, so they can expand their networks!

This is the OPs original point, and which I agree with in the absence of being proved otherwise. The vodafone RBI solution, for all it's government money, doesn't seem to offer anything better than the existing cellular infrastructure and data deals: with very poor data caps, expensive, and lots of gaps planned total coverage.

Would it not have been a better investment to give support to the small players, in conjunction with the increased backhaul from the fibre being laid to the schools?

DonGould

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#784325 20-Mar-2013 11:25

Skolink:
DonGould: What would you like to see being done to address the digital divide?

If I could throw one million dollars on the table in the morning, where would you start to spend it and why?

Give/lend it to the small players that are already providing better rural service than the big boys, so they can expand their networks!

Nice, that is happening more and more (thank God!) but needs to happen much more.

I agree with the 'lend' thing personally, but it needs to be on sensible terms.

I did an exercise recently looking at $2m dollars of funding and backed away from it because the money people simply wanted so much gold that it would sink the project before it got started if there were any delays in deployment and customer uptake.

UFB uptake is at 4% currently. At that rate it means that you really have to think very carefully about how you fund stuff and how long it has to be carried before it turns a profit or even pays interest.

One problem for small guys is having the resource to underwrite that kind of borrowing.

Optus/Singtel, for example, look at satellite investment over a 15+ year term iirc. SCCN was a 25 year life project with income not expected to turn to cash positive for ~5+ years.

Just because Optus/Singtel, SCCN, CFH projects are billion dollar ventures doesn't actually mean they play by a different set of rules.

Edge projects like Valley.net.nz, mine and many others around the country all have the same dynamics as the big projects but are often much harder to make happen because they don't have the same size to always get the traction that the big ones can get.

Having said that, just ask the Pacific Fibre guys how hard this stuff can be. Personally I think Sam and co put their money on the wrong boat and started building from the wrong end... but hey, what do I know?

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DonGould

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#784329 20-Mar-2013 11:37

jonb:
Would it not have been a better investment to give support to the small players, in conjunction with the increased backhaul from the fibre being laid to the schools?

A key question here is 'where did the RBI money come from'?

In this case iirc the money came from the 'tax' the big carriers pay to bridge the DD, so they basically got that money back for investment into a project they agreed with the govt.

Many of the small providers are not even 'carrier' and some even admit that's so they can avoid the tax.

Govt can actually sink small guys just by drowning us in engagement.

A problem for govt is how you invest in this stuff and that's something I don't know the answer to.

All to often small guys run off with big wads of cash and don't actually deliver much in the way of either network or return and some times even return fraud (way to often in fact).

Another problem is education. Look at Farmside (which everyone loves to hate). Polies had the wool pulled that satellite was going to fix everything. We all know that the reality is that IPStar is to far away from a latency POV, but most pollies just don't understand this stuff.

So it's a battle. We now have to reeducate them and having invested $3k a site in start up funds, people are already pissed off... so you're on the back foot again.

I don't mean to moan and complain here.... I'm simply trying to put the issues out there again.

In my view, the real answer is just to tell rural people to get off their own butts and start investing with their local guys. Take the loans, get a CC if you have to and take ownership in the networks.

You can build a CAN that reaches 300 homes for less than $15,000... I know, I have.

But the trick is how you can carry that investment for 5 years while you put customers on it and how you get 300mbit of data into it... and those bits are not so simple.

D

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Ragnor

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#784636 20-Mar-2013 18:01

1080p: You're right. Providing fast, cheap communication infrastructure immediately to every rural location should have been done yesterday.

Everyone thinks that... right up until they realise what the cost of connecting the last 10% vs the rest...

The graph below is for the Aussie NBN, imagine the the NZ would look pretty much the same:

DonGould

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#784663 20-Mar-2013 18:54

Ragnor:
The graph below is for the Aussie NBN, imagine the the NZ would look pretty much the same:

While I take the point, the level of misleading with that graph is a bit OTT. The last 3% had to be hit with 2 new satellites. They have people scattered all over Australia in random places. We just don't have that same level of scatter with people being in much closer range of trunk links.

We should be able to wifi in most people who are outside of the normal foot print without having to spend a fraction of the dollars they're spending.

They're also building a wholesale layer 2 network. We shouldn't be aiming to do that for the last 3%. We should be aiming for retail layer 3.

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pjamieson

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#785855 23-Mar-2013 12:43

Without taking away from the Wireless debate, can you give your approximate address (or PM it) as there are a number of RBI Cabinets being switched on in the next month or two around Takaka so you may be able to get BB very soon.

Sounds like you are half way along Takaka Valley Hwy. Everything around that area except 1km North & 400m South of Craigleburn Rd is covered.

http://chorus.co.nz/fibre-rollout-map

alexx

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#785889 23-Mar-2013 14:16

DonGould:

We should be able to wifi in most people who are outside of the normal foot print without having to spend a fraction of the dollars they're spending.

That would be fine if everyone lived on hilltops or in flat areas with very few trees. However we have many rural people living in very hilly terrain and choosing to build their houses in the valleys and not on the mountain tops.

In these situations, even transmissions in the low UHF bands will have difficulty reaching the farmhouse in the next valley, let alone using 2.4 GHz. In the end, there is always going to be a certain percentage of end users/homes that can only be economically reached by satellite (unless you want to build multiple hilltop repeaters).

That percentage is going to be higher for a mountainous country like New Zealand.

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