Who's telling the broadband cap truth?

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Who's telling the broadband cap truth?

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Ragnor

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#212679 5-May-2009 21:19

Screeb:

Of course it's not guaranteed, but it's highly likely that they will be able to offer cheaper prices than SCC. Monopoly means monopolistic prices.

I don't want to be too pessimistic here but the investors in PPC will want decent return on investment, I don't think prices will fall that much.

I would be pleased if I was wrong though.

PenultimateHop

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#212747 6-May-2009 07:10

Interesting thread.

A couple of quick points:

- The cost of an IRU Southern Cross does NOT equal the cost of getting the bits to and from the Internet.
- Unless you're extremely large, purchasing your own Southern Cross IRUs is rarely cost competitive. I was recently discussing this with someone who has a couple of STM-16 (2.4Gbps) IRUs. Purchasing at the STM-1 and STM-4 levels doesn't work.
- The raw cost of the IRU on Southern Cross is only one component, you still need:
- Capital Expenditure (optical transport platforms, routers, datacenters, etc)
- Operational Expenditure (colocation sites, transit in the US/where-ever your IRU lands, your network engineering and operations teams, support)
- Backup connectivity
- Local NZ connectivity
- Backhaul to and from the Southern Cross POPs
- Of course, you still need to factor the costs of getting the bits to the end user. This can often be more expensive than the Trans-Pacific leg!
- On big enough quantities (>100M), it's easy enough to get NZD$200/mbps or below (although the slide in value against USD may have hurt this). Obviously local loop is on top of this.
- $200K for a DSLAM is insane. Try $20K. Even for 720 ports.
- I still think Kordia is the wrong organisation for landing a new cable into New Zealand. I'm not happy with my tax dollars (although thankfully less of those) paying for this.

jpollock

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#212762 6-May-2009 08:23

Thanks for the info on the DSLAM prices. I was only able to find information online that was a couple of years old that lead me to believe 80k for a no-name 720port DSLAM, so I doubled it for a "name brand". Good to hear it's dropped even further!

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PenultimateHop

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#212953 6-May-2009 21:30

jpollock: Thanks for the info on the DSLAM prices. I was only able to find information online that was a couple of years old that lead me to believe 80k for a no-name 720port DSLAM, so I doubled it for a "name brand". Good to hear it's dropped even further!

Maybe a couple of years (10?) ago that would have been correct.

Due to their mass produced nature, DSLAMs are pretty cheap - somewhere between NZD$10k-20k for a 'name brand' unit capable of 700 ports would be achievable, depending on quantities that are being purchased. The bigger costs are in the backhaul from the DSLAM, and the BRAS/BNG, and then the rest of your IP core. A Juniper E320 has a list price[1] close to a million dollars USD when you are looking at fully populating it with subscribers.

[1] Obviously, nobody pays list price...

jpollock

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#212980 6-May-2009 23:00

Like I said, the only price I could find was from (checking again) ~2003, which had a price per port of ~US$75 (after discount).

720*75*2 = 108k NZ (2003)

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=33971

2004 has 12 port DSLAMs at US$200/port, with a hint that 24 port DSLAMs are US$100/port.

http://telephonyonline.com/mag/telecom_dslam_vendors_thinking/

It disappears after that, I guess that meant it got cheap enough no one cared anymore.

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wired

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#213648 9-May-2009 12:30

rickcrawley: I think we should all email the southern cross cable network and ask them if they would decrease the price they charge isps for data by at least half which would mean doubling of data caps on all broadband plans:

SCC reduced prices by 44% late last year http://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/chris-keall/meet-bad-guy (end of section 1) and I only noticed Telecom making the caps bigger. Paul Clarking of World exchange said that the international data only costs $3 in a $40 monthly bill. Another 50% reduction ain't gonna give you much.

Ilmarin

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#213675 9-May-2009 15:20

$3 in a $40 monthly bill... for a 3 GB plan. The consumers who care about this issue (although everyone should care because it affects bandwidth as well as consumption) are generally the ones who use 20+ GB a month ($20 in, say a $60 or $70 bill). A vocal minority, but a minority nonetheless, albeit a growing one. Sadly, most ISPs appear to be too constrained by Telecom's wholesale pricing to differentiate themselves on the international bandwidth and consumption issue... at least that's what their complaint is.

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jpollock

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#215070 15-May-2009 15:21

Hey, DSLAM's just hit Ascent. They're NZ$95/port

http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=377791

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insane

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#215307 16-May-2009 23:24

PenultimateHop: Interesting thread.

- I still think Kordia is the wrong organisation for landing a new cable into New Zealand. I'm not happy with my tax dollars (although thankfully less of those) paying for this.

Well I'd be a bit worried too if they go and decide to initially invest in say Siemens gear that is made EOL after 6 months... oh wait, thats already been done. I rekon Seeby saw what was comming and decided to sell to the most gullible buyer around and run off with the $$.

I'm happy for there to be another tax payer paid cable, but with completly open access to all ISPs at the same price independant of the quantity of bandwidth bought. (might need to have a minimum purchase ammount of say 100mbps).

I dont see it making much difference to home Broadband prices due to aforementioned port costs etc but it will help out in the datacentre arena and hopefully mean more content can be cached locally.

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