Pacific Fibre ceases operations

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Pacific Fibre ceases operations

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

4792 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#666518 2-Aug-2012 20:24

DonGould:
[TinFoilHat][snip]

If there's one thing I really don't get it's why so many people seem to believe that SCC haven't been investing in the cable regularly while also consistently dropping the price year on year by an average of over 20%.

Because that's what they have been doing, for MUCH longer than Pacific Fibre has been around, or even thought of.

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.

gzt

17104 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#666524 2-Aug-2012 20:26

Just because you have a competitor does not mean you cannot compete. PF believed it had a strong business case as a worthy competitor.

networkn

Networkn
32349 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#666526 2-Aug-2012 20:32

I think those who have conspiracy theories should consider what it would have cost to even put a business case together. I am not sure of the actual amounts but I have read that it cost into the tens of millions to this point. Those people have lost their money.

Talkiet

4792 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#666530 2-Aug-2012 20:39

networkn: I think those who have conspiracy theories should consider what it would have cost to even put a business case together. I am not sure of the actual amounts but I have read that it cost into the tens of millions to this point. Those people have lost their money.

Yep, I think it was an admirable attempt - and I suspect that the economics and investment profile was so complex that the only way to see if it would really work was to spend the money and go as far as they did...

It's a shame it didn't happen. Although SCC have a history of capacity expansion and dropping prices, 2 is better than one for the consumer ultimately - even if just through more diversity options.

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.

networkn

Networkn
32349 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#666539 2-Aug-2012 20:49

Talkiet:
networkn: I think those who have conspiracy theories should consider what it would have cost to even put a business case together. I am not sure of the actual amounts but I have read that it cost into the tens of millions to this point. Those people have lost their money.

Yep, I think it was an admirable attempt - and I suspect that the economics and investment profile was so complex that the only way to see if it would really work was to spend the money and go as far as they did...

It's a shame it didn't happen. Although SCC have a history of capacity expansion and dropping prices, 2 is better than one for the consumer ultimately - even if just through more diversity options.

Cheers - N

Not to mention redundancy. I don't think it will be the end forever, I think there will be another attempt, but later in the piece. I think even without the technical, actually putting the cable down would have been quite a challenge.

DonGould

3892 posts

Uber Geek

#666544 2-Aug-2012 21:08

Talkiet:
DonGould:
[TinFoilHat][snip]

If there's one thing I really don't get it's why so many people seem to believe that SCC haven't been investing in the cable regularly while also consistently dropping the price year on year by an average of over 20%.

Because that's what they have been doing, for MUCH longer than Pacific Fibre has been around, or even thought of.

ya, that's just another point that adds weight to my point - I really have no idea what's going on.

You're right that Sam and Co held up that there was a business case, but I don't know what it was.

But I think I've made it more than clear on any number of lists that I do think there should be a business case for a .au cable, landing in the South Island, but I don't understand the business case for one that goes to .us.

But those guys have build massive companies and I haven't. So that leaves me just wondering what I'm missing.

D

Promote New Zealand - Get yourself a .kiwi.nz domain name!!!

Check out mine - i.am.a.can.do.kiwi.nz - don@i.am.a.can.do.kiwi.nz

wsnz

649 posts

Ultimate Geek

#666714 3-Aug-2012 09:03

I see Rod's tweets have suddenly become very negative towards the UFB project, and he is now pointing out how poor the uptake has been and how it is unlikely to succeed with the demise of Pacific Fibre. Prior to this, he was very upbeat about the whole deal.

Whether he is correct or not, this wreaks of sour grapes. What a pity.

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

Ragnor

8218 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#666755 3-Aug-2012 10:16

wsnz: I see Rod's tweets have suddenly become very negative towards the UFB project, and he is now pointing out how poor the uptake has been and how it is unlikely to succeed with the demise of Pacific Fibre. Prior to this, he was very upbeat about the whole deal.

Whether he is correct or not, this wreaks of sour grapes. What a pity.

It's a once in a generation infrastructure upgrade and it's not even available to most people yet so....

daverobb

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

Trusted

TelstraClear

#666760 3-Aug-2012 10:19

DonGould:

My very limited observation is that we should be focused on a .au <> .nz link. It would give us access to global capacity without touching SCCN which in turn introduces competition.

The problem with accessing global capacity via Australia is that there are already people who already complain about the RTT from NZ to the US (someone should do something about that pesky speed of light), and when traffic has at times been sent to the US and elsewhere via Australia, even more people complain!

Having a cable dedicated to NZ-AU traffic isn't going to be any different to the existing SCCN capacity; I think it very unlikely that it would be cheaper (SCCN pricing for capacity NZ-AU has, like NZ-US prices, been dropping dramatically over the last few years), you still need network at both ends (otherwise you're just getting between landing stations, and I don't see a lot of torrent peers present at those), and people will complain if you use AU as a hop in the path for NZ->US capacity.

Yes, I work for TelstraClear.

Talkiet

4792 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#666770 3-Aug-2012 10:35

daverobb: [snipped all the eminently sensible stuff said by Dave]

+1

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.

mercutio

1392 posts

Uber Geek

#666807 3-Aug-2012 11:28

daverobb:
DonGould:

My very limited observation is that we should be focused on a .au <> .nz link. It would give us access to global capacity without touching SCCN which in turn introduces competition.

The problem with accessing global capacity via Australia is that there are already people who already complain about the RTT from NZ to the US (someone should do something about that pesky speed of light), and when traffic has at times been sent to the US and elsewhere via Australia, even more people complain!

Having a cable dedicated to NZ-AU traffic isn't going to be any different to the existing SCCN capacity; I think it very unlikely that it would be cheaper (SCCN pricing for capacity NZ-AU has, like NZ-US prices, been dropping dramatically over the last few years), you still need network at both ends (otherwise you're just getting between landing stations, and I don't see a lot of torrent peers present at those), and people will complain if you use AU as a hop in the path for NZ->US capacity.

So you should hide the AU hop? Telstra endeavour is the only low latency cable in Australia, and it's still higher than NZ latency. I think really if latency went down to more like 80 msec rtt there'd be less problems... /but/ that's impossible i think?

Still the difference between 135 and 145 can be noticable. and 135 and 165 is easy noticable.

I'm not sure how it works exactly - but I think that there are certain threshholds of latency, and you go over that threshold of latency and you notice. But you have to add up ADSL, ISP network, Overseas connection, remote connection, and local and remote computer latency.

And as I understand it the difference between 10 and 20 msec adsl connections subjectively is mostly due to tcp/ip ramp up speeds.

I don't know why people hilight australia so much as the cause of traffic taking the long path - asia traffic going via the us is much more common, in either sending or receiving.

I think for things like bittorrent going via australia isn't a big deal. and for asia traffic it goes through australia normally anyway. but for interactive things less latency would be nice... but tbh right now los angeles isn't too bad for latency.. it's when you go to the east coast, UK etc that it gets pretty bad.... and partially from the east coast it can be an issue with not having the lowest latency peering, and even some packet loss on occassion causing to retransmit over the whole distance..

Curiously I'm seeing the lowest ping to www.bbc.co.uk that I ever remember seeing. :) (254 msec without adsl overhead)

daverobb

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

Trusted

TelstraClear

#666818 3-Aug-2012 11:37

mercutio:

So you should hide the AU hop? Telstra endeavour is the only low latency cable in Australia, and it's still higher than NZ latency. I think really if latency went down to more like 80 msec rtt there'd be less problems... /but/ that's impossible i think?

You can't hide that hop, you can only avoid it. A direct NZ-US path is always (ok, not always, but we'll assume no-one's putting an extra few thousand kms of fibre in for the fun of it) going to be better than NZ-AU-US.

And no, there's not currently a way around the latency that is caused by the distances involved. There's a little flash thing on the SCCN site which gives the propagation delay (one way) on each segment:
http://www.southerncrosscables.com/public/Network/default.cfm

--David

Yes, I work for TelstraClear.

mercutio

1392 posts

Uber Geek

#666821 3-Aug-2012 11:41

daverobb:
mercutio:

So you should hide the AU hop? Telstra endeavour is the only low latency cable in Australia, and it's still higher than NZ latency. I think really if latency went down to more like 80 msec rtt there'd be less problems... /but/ that's impossible i think?

You can't hide that hop, you can only avoid it. A direct NZ-US path is always (ok, not always, but we'll assume no-one's putting an extra few thousand kms of fibre in for the fun of it) going to be better than NZ-AU-US.

And no, there's not currently a way around the latency that is caused by the distances involved. There's a little flash thing on the SCCN site which gives the propagation delay (one way) on each segment:
http://www.southerncrosscables.com/public/Network/default.cfm

--David

What about odyssey? MPLS ...

Hiding hops is common practice.

I suppose the only way to get latency down is really more direct cables... there's meant to be a new europe/us one... which may go some way... but within the us can be hit and miss... and can vary ..

I was surprised about google fibre being in kansas.. as they seem to have pretty bad interconnecting there... then doing a few traces i notice that google seem to have their own fibre to san jose, dallas, chicago and interconnect there. i don't know if they interconnect in kansas at all. but their texas path was better than another providers.

Having pings higher by 10 to 25 msec seems pretty common in the US by taking the long way around. and sometimes even going to a remote state and then back to the same state. And then NZ wants 10 msec less :)

daverobb

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

Trusted

TelstraClear

#666824 3-Aug-2012 11:44

mercutio:
daverobb:
mercutio:

So you should hide the AU hop? Telstra endeavour is the only low latency cable in Australia, and it's still higher than NZ latency. I think really if latency went down to more like 80 msec rtt there'd be less problems... /but/ that's impossible i think?

You can't hide that hop, you can only avoid it. A direct NZ-US path is always (ok, not always, but we'll assume no-one's putting an extra few thousand kms of fibre in for the fun of it) going to be better than NZ-AU-US.

And no, there's not currently a way around the latency that is caused by the distances involved. There's a little flash thing on the SCCN site which gives the propagation delay (one way) on each segment:
http://www.southerncrosscables.com/public/Network/default.cfm

--David

What about odyssey? MPLS ...

Hiding hops is common practice.

Sorry, I guess I didn't make myself clear: yes, you're right; you can make it that the hop doesn't show up in a traceroute. But that doesn't have any effect at all on the overall latency, and the fact that the packets are still going via a longer path than the ones which go direct will be readily apparent.

--David

Yes, I work for TelstraClear.

mercutio

1392 posts

Uber Geek

#666831 3-Aug-2012 11:51

daverobb:
mercutio:
daverobb:
mercutio:

So you should hide the AU hop? Telstra endeavour is the only low latency cable in Australia, and it's still higher than NZ latency. I think really if latency went down to more like 80 msec rtt there'd be less problems... /but/ that's impossible i think?

You can't hide that hop, you can only avoid it. A direct NZ-US path is always (ok, not always, but we'll assume no-one's putting an extra few thousand kms of fibre in for the fun of it) going to be better than NZ-AU-US.

And no, there's not currently a way around the latency that is caused by the distances involved. There's a little flash thing on the SCCN site which gives the propagation delay (one way) on each segment:
http://www.southerncrosscables.com/public/Network/default.cfm

--David

What about odyssey? MPLS ...

Hiding hops is common practice.

Sorry, I guess I didn't make myself clear: yes, you're right; you can make it that the hop doesn't show up in a traceroute. But that doesn't have any effect at all on the overall latency, and the fact that the packets are still going via a longer path than the ones which go direct will be readily apparent.

--David

Well yeah - but I think there is actually a lot of hidden latency on the internet now days. Some people say that ping/traceroute is inaccurate cos icmp is depriortised. But sometimes whole tcp streams can be deprioritised (or go across higher latency path), rate-shaped(or have enough packet loss to limit transfer speeds below that of which the connection accessing). You can do a traceroute, then do an actual connection and end up on a different path.

So you may ping and get 125 msec ping, then do a tcp connection and get 135 msec.

But this kind of traffic shifting could become even more common with "bulk" traffic being pushed through Australia and interactive traffic being pushed straight. Or low-value customers being pushed through Australia.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5