The Great ISP's 'Unlimited Quota' War

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sbiddle

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#48726 15-Oct-2006 17:32

TelstraClea could upgrade their network to support DOCSIS v3.0 for a pretty reasonable price which would give them 100Mbps downstream over their existing HFC network.

The problem at the end of the day is that international bandwidth in NZ costs a lot of money. It's fine saying people in the USA & Europe get unlimited plans but when the bulk of the servers you are connecting to are in those countries they are not incurring the same costs that an ISP in New Zealand is paying when the bulk of the traffic has to leave NZ and travel half way around the world.

I'd question why anybody would want more than 10GB per month unless they spend a lot of time running P2P software and downloading Vista ISO's. If you want "flat rate" internet in this part of the world you're going to have to live with the fact your connection will be throttled or you will get **** connection speeds. If you want a good connection and want to transfer 100GB per month then I'm sure you'll find a provider willing to help you for maybe $500 per month.

[Moderator edit (JF): Expletive removed]

euanandrews

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#48741 15-Oct-2006 19:55

sbiddle: I'd question why anybody would want more than 10GB per month unless they spend a lot of time running P2P software and downloading Vista ISO's.

You would question only because you obviously do not use more than 10gb per month.

Just because thats satisfys your requirements does not mean it should be the same for the rest of us.

I want to download the latest Vista ISO's and Office products etc but currently do not have enough quota...I go stupid over testing new products, but thats just me...

Putting that aside, the net is moving towards providing a full range of traditional media entertainment, such as radio, tv on demand/streaming, movies to download, online gaming...

As this becomes more mainstream, bandwidth is going to be in more demand, and todays packages are completly inadequate...

IPTV can be very bandwidth intensive, and there are sites available now that provide free to air channels as well as pay per view, but once again, your got to have the bandwidth, speed and quota...

A couple interesting IPTV sites...

http://www.beelinetv.com/ all free tv channels from around the world

http://www.jumptv.com/ an example of a subscription site, with tv channels from around the world

http://wwitv.com/portal.htm all free tv channels from around the world

sbiddle

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#48744 15-Oct-2006 21:12

I use around 40GB most months.

equotis

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#48838 17-Oct-2006 12:22

TheBartender:

Putting that aside, the net is moving towards providing a full range of traditional media entertainment, such as radio, tv on demand/streaming, movies to download, online gaming...

As this becomes more mainstream, bandwidth is going to be in more demand, and todays packages are completly inadequate...

IPTV can be very bandwidth intensive, and there are sites available now that provide free to air channels as well as pay per view, but once again, your got to have the bandwidth, speed and quota...

A couple interesting IPTV sites...

http://www.beelinetv.com/ all free tv channels from around the world

http://www.jumptv.com/ an example of a subscription site, with tv channels from around the world

http://wwitv.com/portal.htm all free tv channels from around the world

These services (maybe except gaming) arent anywhere near mainstream here in NZ so naturally, the plans arent made to accomodate them, supply and demand etc etc. What is mainstream is simple browsing and emailing...thats all the market wants and thats all the market will get.

TNZ probably could get the ball rolling for IPTV (and if the media over the past year or so is anything to go by TNZ have signalled they have every intention to do so) but id say the market isnt ready for it yet.

Now add regulation to the mix and you can kiss IPTV goodbye for a little longer...like ADSL2+

euanandrews

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#48867 17-Oct-2006 16:22

equotis:
These services (maybe except gaming) arent anywhere near mainstream here in NZ so naturally, the plans arent made to accomodate them, supply and demand etc etc. What is mainstream is simple browsing and emailing...thats all the market wants and thats all the market will get.

I never said they were mainstream...off course they are not currently.

I said they will become mainstream, and packages will change to reflect this...

The market does want these services, just not in great enough numbers yet but that will change very quickly...

That is the nature of technology and progress, always moving on to something newer and better (in theory, not always true)

I will quote myself for those who did not read my post correctly the first time.

TheBartender:

Putting that aside, the net is moving towards providing a full range of traditional media entertainment, such as radio, tv on demand/streaming, movies to download, online gaming...

As this becomes more mainstream, bandwidth is going to be in more demand, and todays packages are completly inadequate...

paradoxsm

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#48879 17-Oct-2006 18:49

Holy $#%$#....

It reminds me of the quote... "It's used confusion as it's chief marketing tool"

Good deals though. I aint even gonna look at them as it's so complicated!
and the Slngshots Wimax!!!! Wow!

Cheers for the info too :-)

Samsung

Shop now on Samsung phones, tablets, TVs and more (affiliate link).

equotis

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#48880 17-Oct-2006 18:56

Bartender: I can read and i haven't misquoted you at all because my point has nothing to do with what you've claiming i've misquoted you on.

Basically what i was getting at is that the "mainstream" market arent demanding IPTV or such service (probably because they haven't even heard of it but that's a different story) and that's why we aren't seeing plans accomodating that. However, one can only presume there was significant demand from the "mainstream" market to have unlimited plans for the more usage heavy user so unlimited plans were delivered, just with a one or two catches.

euanandrews

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#48892 17-Oct-2006 19:40

To what I read the 'unlimited' plan is not acually targeted at 'heavy users'...

The media release from telecom acually says something along the lines of that if telecom feel a user is using excessive amounts of bandwidth/quota while on the 'Go Large' plan, that they will be contacted and recommended to use another plan...

How this would help the user is beyond me as to go 'up' a plan or 2 or 3 will result in quota caps, limiting the user, contradicting the very reason for being moved to those plans...but I guess its simply just an excuse for telecom to force the customer to upgrade thier plan to one more expensive where they have better controls over data limits...

allstarnz

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#49041 19-Oct-2006 11:53

intersting indeed.

I find it funny that telecom insist on telling us what we need. How about they offer us the options and we will decide what we want. Those new super dooper fast plans are all nice, but there's no option in there for some of the ADSL ones for paying a premium for a better upload (512+)

Also i find it odd that they push streaming media in Xtraoridinaries ads, yet their plans do not have the data to do this properly. A 1 hour streaming video (at 700kb/s) for example is about 300MB.

While on the subject of streaming media, I notice a lot of streams are massively laggy and crap for the potential speed they can carry. I have a lot of diffultly running the 700k livestream from Dorna (MotoGP) on my connection despite it being 3.5MB (I think it's from Europe). This is crap, mostly probably due to the large amount of pathways it has to go through.

euanandrews

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#49219 21-Oct-2006 12:48

Woosh has now been added to the list.

What I'm finding interesting is the small differences between the 'fair use policys' of each ISP...

Woosh Wireless 'Reasonable Use Policy'
- Limited from 5pm to 12am
- If use more then 700mb during those hours:
     - speed throttled to 56kb, then returned to full speed at 12am
- No mention of targeting p2p

Xtra 'Fair Use Policy'
- Limited from 4pm to 12am
- If use more than 700mb during those hours:
     - will be put into 'fair use pool' for one whole week...
     - fair use pool involves group of high downloaders put together with set limited bandwidth quota, so are effectively throttled
- p2p will be throttled during peak hours

Maxnet 'Managed'

- Limited from 4pm to 12am
- If use more than 700mb during those hours:
- will be placed in a pool of restricted bandwidth during peak hours...
- pool of restricted bandwidth is the same as xtra 'fair use pool', so are effectively throttled
- No mention of targeting p2p

Main differences are underlined....

Of those Woosh sounds the most appealing

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