Economics of the UFB CIR

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#502095 4-Aug-2011 18:54

Ragnor:
raytaylor: sorry i should clarify what i ment
tv via fibreoptic cable, or cable. Telstra's network is HFC which is a blend of the two - hybrid fibreoptic coaxial

but a company could create an all-fibre cable tv network in NZ using the UFB and deliver tv services using radio over fibre transmission and renting dark fibre, or if they rented layer 2 fibre, they could use multicast tcp/ip

The question is why.

I think broadcast TV where you have a large number of people watching the same show at the same time is in slow decline. Live sport and maybe news are two exceptions, everything else is better on demand (see the popularity of tv episode and movie downloads/torrents).

Sky already has their satellite infrastructure, freeview has satellite and uhf, Telstraclear cable - it would only make sense to move to UFB for Telstraclear out of those three in the medium term. There's no really space for another broadcast network, what content would they possibly be able to run?

Personally I think the future in on demand for everything over the internet.

Exactly. A large ISP / Content provider can have large web caches and tv programming caches at each major exchange

Sky will want to be on board for any ufb tv system that could be created, as they are with telstra clear otherwise they may loose out on subscribers to another international company that decides they want a cheap way to expand into NZ.

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PenultimateHop

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#502116 4-Aug-2011 19:30

Beccara: Sorry you are right it is GPON, old habbit if GE die hard it seems. Its also in placed, not proposed
I think the model if 'central' pops are gone, its simply not cost effective to haul that much data away from the region when a decent chunk of it can be handled in region at IX's or with CDN's. Any ISP that simply backhauls it to AKL/WGTN/CHCH is going to be slower or make less money than an ISP that's smart about it

That's iffy and depends on the subscriber density. Considering a modern BNG can handle 256,000 subscribers (and cost a million dollars), and that most ISPs in NZ won't be hitting that level of density I'd be very surprised if you saw many ISPs distributing the edge to every NNI unless they had in excess of 10K subscribers at those NNIs; unless the service rates and average bandwidth consumption both increase dramatically.

Only driver I can think of is regional resiliency, particularly for telephony in a VoIP world, but then it's most likely the telephony core would be located in in a single, central, POP.

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#502264 5-Aug-2011 09:05

Ragnor: I think broadcast TV where you have a large number of people watching the same show at the same time is in slow decline. Live sport and maybe news are two exceptions, everything else is better on demand (see the popularity of tv episode and movie downloads/torrents).

Sky already has their satellite infrastructure, freeview has satellite and uhf, Telstraclear cable - it would only make sense to move to UFB for Telstraclear out of those three in the medium term. There's no really space for another broadcast network, what content would they possibly be able to run?

Personally I think the future in on demand for everything over the internet.

Agree with the decline and what may be advantageous to broadcast but there have been moves from the likes of the old North Shore Council to restrict aerials of roofs. That is, the change to using fibre as the broadcast medium may be driven by policitcal motives rather than technological.

Additionally, as the Terrestrial freeview is not available everywhere (e.g. I understand that the valleys around Whangarei can't get it) there may be customer demand to have it delivered over the fibre.

I also wonder about how many HD channels Sky can support in NZ.

Am not rulling out broadcast TV over fibre yet.

Zeon

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#502295 5-Aug-2011 09:36

Beccara: Sorry you are right it is GPON, old habbit if GE die hard it seems. Its also in placed, not proposed
I think the model if 'central' pops are gone, its simply not cost effective to haul that much data away from the region when a decent chunk of it can be handled in region at IX's or with CDN's. Any ISP that simply backhauls it to AKL/WGTN/CHCH is going to be slower or make less money than an ISP that's smart about it

For a lot of content providers, having gear at every regional IX is not always a possibility, especially if they are not just an NZ based content supplier e.g. Google etc.

I think regional backhaul has been neglected a bit by the UFB. How can this be bettered? Is it a possibility for example to buy dark fibre from FX/Telstra/Telecom and run your own?

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Ragnor

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#502442 5-Aug-2011 14:25

They would but it'd be crazy expensive.

I think the LFC's (Local Fibre Co's) are required to wholesale point to point Layer 1 aka dark fibre and layer 2 symmetrical though which larger ISP's could afford to use.

Beccara

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#502447 5-Aug-2011 14:52

Zeon:
Beccara: Sorry you are right it is GPON, old habbit if GE die hard it seems. Its also in placed, not proposed
I think the model if 'central' pops are gone, its simply not cost effective to haul that much data away from the region when a decent chunk of it can be handled in region at IX's or with CDN's. Any ISP that simply backhauls it to AKL/WGTN/CHCH is going to be slower or make less money than an ISP that's smart about it

For a lot of content providers, having gear at every regional IX is not always a possibility, especially if they are not just an NZ based content supplier e.g. Google etc.

I think regional backhaul has been neglected a bit by the UFB. How can this be bettered? Is it a possibility for example to buy dark fibre from FX/Telstra/Telecom and run your own?

Every CDN put's gear where their is demand, If CHCH is pulling 500mbit from google at peak times then google will put in a GGC. Akamai only require 30mbit of traffic to get a node.

Even if ISP's end up having to pay for them it's still cheaper than hauling gbits/sec of data around the country

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#503414 8-Aug-2011 16:16

Beccara: Every CDN put's gear where their is demand, If CHCH is pulling 500mbit from google at peak times then google will put in a GGC. Akamai only require 30mbit of traffic to get a node.

That's not quite correct. A CDN operator might not be interested in deploying multiple nodes within the same ASN, or may not feel compelled to do it for every single provider if they could reach them all across an IXP.

Also - could you point me to the NZ deployment for Limelight Networks?

Beccara: Even if ISP's end up having to pay for them it's still cheaper than hauling gbits/sec of data around the country

Very iffy logic there.

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#503422 8-Aug-2011 16:22

PenultimateHop:

Also - could you point me to the NZ deployment for Limelight Networks?

Another example...nearest data centre for Microsoft Online Services (Azure, Office 365 etc) is Singapore.

Beccara

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#503431 8-Aug-2011 16:37

PenultimateHop:
Beccara: Every CDN put's gear where their is demand, If CHCH is pulling 500mbit from google at peak times then google will put in a GGC. Akamai only require 30mbit of traffic to get a node.

That's not quite correct. A CDN operator might not be interested in deploying multiple nodes within the same ASN, or may not feel compelled to do it for every single provider if they could reach them all across an IXP.

Also - could you point me to the NZ deployment for Limelight Networks?

Beccara: Even if ISP's end up having to pay for them it's still cheaper than hauling gbits/sec of data around the country

Very iffy logic there.

Having spoken with a number of CDN's recently you are correct, They would prefer to deploy in a local IX but all of them have stated that they go where the traffic demand is, Nobody is quite ready for the level's of traffic the UFB can bring with the model it needs to work. Things will change once everyone's settled into it.

The traditional model of hauling everything back to Auckland for International handover and only have 3 main handover points of AKL/WGTN/CHCH is dead, We're going to need regional IX's to make this viable because my 50mbit/sec stream to the guy down the road going via AKL to get there simply isn't economical.

Things have to change, The old style of doing things just wont cut it and ISP's that don't adapt to it will be replaced somewhat by ones that do local caching/CDN/IX Peering/Targeted International bandwidth buys

wjw

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#503520 8-Aug-2011 19:49

Ragnor:
PenultimateHop:

Also - could you point me to the NZ deployment for Limelight Networks?

Another example...nearest data centre for Microsoft Online Services (Azure, Office 365 etc) is Singapore.

Yea closest Limelight is Sydney. Had a long drawn out conversation with them trying to get them to come over here.... they require an aggregate of 1gbps of throughput from your AS to put a node on your network :-(

Also need a minimum of 100mbps aggregate throughput from your AS just to peer.

wjw

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#503531 8-Aug-2011 20:11

Beccara: Every CDN put's gear where their is demand, If CHCH is pulling 500mbit from google at peak times then google will put in a GGC. Akamai only require 30mbit of traffic to get a node.

To give you an idea re Google Cache's this is what KAREN pulls off Snaps One:

http://weathermap.karen.net.nz/node.php?src=anx3-chc&dst=61-anx3-chc-snap-google

raytaylor

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#503567 8-Aug-2011 21:12

How the hell can a bunch of university researchers be pulling 400mbit off google for a few hours a day?

I bet its youtube

I can understand youtube being used for educational stuff but it cant really be that much?

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Zeon

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#503570 8-Aug-2011 21:20

Beccara:
Zeon:
Beccara: Sorry you are right it is GPON, old habbit if GE die hard it seems. Its also in placed, not proposed
I think the model if 'central' pops are gone, its simply not cost effective to haul that much data away from the region when a decent chunk of it can be handled in region at IX's or with CDN's. Any ISP that simply backhauls it to AKL/WGTN/CHCH is going to be slower or make less money than an ISP that's smart about it

For a lot of content providers, having gear at every regional IX is not always a possibility, especially if they are not just an NZ based content supplier e.g. Google etc.

I think regional backhaul has been neglected a bit by the UFB. How can this be bettered? Is it a possibility for example to buy dark fibre from FX/Telstra/Telecom and run your own?

Every CDN put's gear where their is demand, If CHCH is pulling 500mbit from google at peak times then google will put in a GGC. Akamai only require 30mbit of traffic to get a node.

Even if ISP's end up having to pay for them it's still cheaper than hauling gbits/sec of data around the country

The thing is not all content providers will use CDNs. Our content/service will not be using a CDN at all and there will be more like this with other SaaS applications. I do agree, its great for static content or video streaming etc. and if a CDN wants to put 29 nodes in the country the size of NZ they can go for it.

If the cost of backhauling 100gbps from Invercargill to Auckland cost $1000/month would you still think that way?

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nickb800

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#503574 8-Aug-2011 21:36

raytaylor: How the hell can a bunch of university researchers be pulling 400mbit off google for a few hours a day?

I bet its youtube

I can understand youtube being used for educational stuff but it cant really be that much?

I believe they have started to route general student traffic through KAREN, so that will be up to 15,000 students + staff watching youtube from Canterbury alone

Still, its a staggering amount, it will make me think next time i play a clip!

PenultimateHop

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#503634 9-Aug-2011 03:10

Beccara: The traditional model of hauling everything back to Auckland for International handover and only have 3 main handover points of AKL/WGTN/CHCH is dead, We're going to need regional IX's to make this viable because my 50mbit/sec stream to the guy down the road going via AKL to get there simply isn't economical.

Things have to change, The old style of doing things just wont cut it and ISP's that don't adapt to it will be replaced somewhat by ones that do local caching/CDN/IX Peering/Targeted International bandwidth buys

It's not anywhere near that simplistic - yes, things will change but I'm very doubtful they'll change to that extent. The aggregate subscriber counts in New Zealand and the still relatively low per-subscriber bandwidth (even post-UFB) don't lend themselves to a highly distributed edge given the number of service providers. Even today you barely see ISPs with a highly distributed service edge, so getting to every ISP having "the big three" cities would be a huge improvement.

Moving gigabits around the country is actually relatively cheap vs. the capex and opex for deploying highly regionalized POPs.

wjw: Yea closest Limelight is Sydney. Had a long drawn out conversation with them trying to get them to come over here.... they require an aggregate of 1gbps of throughput from your AS to put a node on your network :-(

Also need a minimum of 100mbps aggregate throughput from your AS just to peer.

Precisely - this is why we won't see all of the "major CDNs" in NZ for a long time to come. From many CDN's perspective they already reach NZ for free through peering in Australia or Singapore, so why would they feel compelled to wear the cost to come closer?

Very interesting statistics on the KAREN GGC consumption! Although I thought the first rule of the GGC is you don't talk about the GGC :-)

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