Vocus and Vodafone: fibre unbundling

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#2181412 17-Feb-2019 07:40

BarTender:

As soon as Telecom indicated the cabinetisation project then the whole business model of UCLL was toast, none of the other providers had the pockets to install DSLAMs like for like in every cabinet and they would cherry pick the cabinets that make financial sense. I don't think any RSPs ever took up the option to install gear into cabinets and only focused on Exchange UCLL customers to the significant detriment of cabinetised customers.

The numbers I saw for cabintised unbundling were such that once you were paying for the space plus backhaul to the cabinet you could barely break even if you 100% filled your DSLAM with customers. The numbers just did not work, that's why no one unbundled the cabinets.

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#2181417 17-Feb-2019 08:08

noroad: The numbers I saw for cabintised unbundling were such that once you were paying for the space plus backhaul to the cabinet you could barely break even if you 100% filled your DSLAM with customers. The numbers just did not work, that's why no one unbundled the cabinets.

So you mean to say that over-building existing infrastructure for a small sparsely populated society doesn't make financial sense......... Interesting.

It is almost like that is the entire basis of my argument on why unbundling UFB is a stupid idea.

sbiddle

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#2181418 17-Feb-2019 08:13

decibel:

sbiddle:

decibel:

and how many ISPs can you choose from if you are connected to Vodafone's HFC system?

I'm not sure what that really has to do with this topic.

While there is only Vodafone now, for much of the life of the HFC network (up until the DOCSIS3 deployment) there were up to around half a dozen providers who offered service over the HFC network.

The topic is unbundling and while Vodafone has always seemed keen on getting better and better access to other peoples copper or fibre, when I lived in Lower Hutt, there was only one choice of ISP on the HFC system.

It's really not possible to unbundle a HFC network like a copper or UFB network. Being RF based makes the architecture very different.

Having said that the cable modem network is now (from memory - I got it when I was one of the first group of 6 testers on the network which was 1997? from memory) 22 years old, and over that time for probably 16 or those years services have been available from multiple providers at a wholesale level. Wholesale access was only scrapped when DOCSIS3 was deployed and they moved to Huawei which was about 3 years ago.

Most people would not have been aware that there were multiple RSPs who offered services because it wasn't big residential players who offered it, and even when Snap! did it was only in Christchurch.

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#2181419 17-Feb-2019 08:17

quickymart:

I know Xtra and ihug used to resell cable connections, but not anymore. In fact I think TCL stopped that while they were still in existence. But this doesn't really have any relevance to fibre unbundling - they were reselling the cable service, not installing their own equipment anywhere.

Telecom/Spark never resold cable, and I can't recall ihug ever offering this either unless it was for a short period of time in the early 2000s before Vodafone purchased them.

Telecom did offer their own HFC connections for a few years over it's First Media HFC network which it deployed in Silverstream, Lower Hutt CBD and Waterloo, Wadestown, Mt Victoria and Whitby along with a few suburbs in Auckland before the network was scrapped. While they had to remove the overhead network all of the underground network and pillars still exist in Whitby and Lower Hutt.

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#2181423 17-Feb-2019 08:40

sbiddle: It's really not possible to unbundle a HFC network like a copper or UFB network. Being RF based makes the architecture very different.

Having said that the cable modem network is now (from memory - I got it when I was one of the first group of 6 testers on the network which was 1997? from memory) 22 years old, and over that time for probably 16 or those years services have been available from multiple providers at a wholesale level. Wholesale access was only scrapped when DOCSIS3 was deployed and they moved to Huawei which was about 3 years ago.

Most people would not have been aware that there were multiple RSPs who offered services because it wasn't big residential players who offered it, and even when Snap! did it was only in Christchurch.

HFC could "easily" be wholesaled at Layer 2 exactly like UFB where ISPs purchase a handover interconnect with a 802.1ad QinQ supporting PPPoE and DHCP with RemoteID/CircuitID subscriber creds and install their own router behind the DOCSIS router logically the same as an ONT. Then Vodafone would support the physical network like the other LFCs do and the RSPs would support their routers.

If Vodafone offered HFC at exactly the same input costs and products as UFB was offered as if they were a "LFC" then I would believe they were not being disingenuous about offering fair internet services to New Zealanders. But they don't and never have and I doubt ever will.

That is exactly what Unison Fibre did in the Taupo/Napier/Hastings area whey they are not a UFB provider but have installed and support ~~Alcatel Lucent~~ Nokia ISAMs and offer the exact same products and specifications that Chorus do. So for any RSP to consume Unison fibre is exactly the same as consuming Chorus UFB. Vodafone could have chosen to do that with HFC but they haven't.

sbiddle:

Telecom/Spark never resold cable, and I can't recall ihug ever offering this either unless it was for a short period of time in the early 2000s before Vodafone purchased them.

Telecom did offer their own HFC connections for a few years over it's First Media HFC network which it deployed in Silverstream, Lower Hutt CBD and Waterloo, Wadestown, Mt Victoria and Whitby along with a few suburbs in Auckland before the network was scrapped. While they had to remove the overhead network all of the underground network and pillars still exist in Whitby and Lower Hutt.

I think the only ISPs in Wellington who ever re-sold TCL Cable were Actrix and I think maxnet(?). I think the offerings were only for Business broadband customers as they were worth more. I would have loved to see those numbers but in the grand scheme of things I think the connections would have been a rounding error.

noroad

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#2181427 17-Feb-2019 08:56

sbiddle:

Telecom/Spark never resold cable, and I can't recall ihug ever offering this either unless it was for a short period of time in the early 2000s before Vodafone purchased them.

Telecom did offer their own HFC connections for a few years over it's First Media HFC network which it deployed in Silverstream, Lower Hutt CBD and Waterloo, Wadestown, Mt Victoria and Whitby along with a few suburbs in Auckland before the network was scrapped. While they had to remove the overhead network all of the underground network and pillars still exist in Whitby and Lower Hutt.

TelstraClear did a lip service job of reselling HFC on purpose, the wholesale rate was generally more expensive than the retail price they were offering. Funny I did mention this to the Commerce Commission once but they were only interested in going after Telecom.

In fact, I've managed to find the ratecard from 2004 for those interested in this little part of history - https://1drv.ms/w/s!AnjhPSnTnzyyjr8pRpLWhEtA6Sk__Q

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#2181428 17-Feb-2019 09:39

sbiddle:
Telecom did offer their own HFC connections for a few years over it's First Media HFC network which it deployed in Silverstream, Lower Hutt CBD and Waterloo, Wadestown, Mt Victoria and Whitby along with a few suburbs in Auckland before the network was scrapped. While they had to remove the overhead network all of the underground network and pillars still exist in Whitby and Lower Hutt.

Still there in Auckland too. Used to live in an area with it...

Cabinets don't have hardware in them. Just the cables

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#2181429 17-Feb-2019 09:48

noroad:

sbiddle:

Telecom/Spark never resold cable, and I can't recall ihug ever offering this either unless it was for a short period of time in the early 2000s before Vodafone purchased them.

Telecom did offer their own HFC connections for a few years over it's First Media HFC network which it deployed in Silverstream, Lower Hutt CBD and Waterloo, Wadestown, Mt Victoria and Whitby along with a few suburbs in Auckland before the network was scrapped. While they had to remove the overhead network all of the underground network and pillars still exist in Whitby and Lower Hutt.

TelstraClear did a lip service job of reselling HFC on purpose, the wholesale rate was generally more expensive than the retail price they were offering. Funny I did mention this to the Commerce Commission once but they were only interested in going after Telecom.

In fact, I've managed to find the ratecard from 2004 for those interested in this little part of history - https://1drv.ms/w/s!AnjhPSnTnzyyjr8pRpLWhEtA6Sk__Q

That is what I expected however I hadn't seen the rate card before. Didn't see the wholesale product description and "how" TCL were offering HFC.

Yes the Telecom of years ago did some predatory work but around 2002/3 with the cabinetisation project this drastically changed within the company. The Spark / Chorus of today is a complete different beast.

Vodafone on the other hand doesn't seem to have changed much at all. Wanting cheaper wholesale rates or to over-build the network to save some nominal amount.

Goosey

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#2181437 17-Feb-2019 10:29

Unbundled or not, all ISPs and infrastructure operators seriously need to streamline or get better at communication and service between themselves and with the consumers.

Without that, then nothing else matters in the quest to gain market share and profit.

Fancy marketing could be perceived to help but the reality is that consumers simply want easy, fast service and action.

quickymart

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#2181473 17-Feb-2019 12:17

sbiddle:

quickymart:

I know Xtra and ihug used to resell cable connections, but not anymore. In fact I think TCL stopped that while they were still in existence. But this doesn't really have any relevance to fibre unbundling - they were reselling the cable service, not installing their own equipment anywhere.

Telecom/Spark never resold cable, and I can't recall ihug ever offering this either unless it was for a short period of time in the early 2000s before Vodafone purchased them.

Telecom did offer their own HFC connections for a few years over it's First Media HFC network which it deployed in Silverstream, Lower Hutt CBD and Waterloo, Wadestown, Mt Victoria and Whitby along with a few suburbs in Auckland before the network was scrapped. While they had to remove the overhead network all of the underground network and pillars still exist in Whitby and Lower Hutt.

I'm sure when I worked at TCL that I saw a note somewhere that someone had a wholesaled cable connection via ihug. I also recall my then-manager saying that you could get resold cable if you were on Xtra - but that was only based on what he told me. In any case, as bartender says, the numbers were probably miniscule out of the total number of subscribers.

raytaylor

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#2181508 17-Feb-2019 14:27

BarTender:

That is exactly what Unison Fibre did in the Taupo/Napier/Hastings area whey they are not a UFB provider but have installed and support Alcatel Lucent Nokia ISAMs and offer the exact same products and specifications that Chorus do. So for any RSP to consume Unison fibre is exactly the same as consuming Chorus UFB. Vodafone could have chosen to do that with HFC but they haven't.

Pretty sure they are alcatel lucent - the ONTs are the same as chorus.

For a while, UFB installs were getting up to a 6 month+ wait in hawkes bay so we were ordering a chorus service and a unison service, and we would wait for an installer to turn up and cancel the other order, allowing the customer to connect to whichever one could be installed first as the wholesale pricing is pretty much the same.

Many businesses in hawkes bay have a chorus and a unison ont right next to each other.

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#2181535 17-Feb-2019 15:53

raytaylor:

Many businesses in Hawkes bay have a Chorus and a Unison ONT right next to each other.

Carrier redundancy, what a resiliency bonus is that!
😀

noroad

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#2181539 17-Feb-2019 16:17

I'm sure when I worked at TCL that I saw a note somewhere that someone had a wholesaled cable connection via ihug. I also recall my then-manager saying that you could get resold cable if you were on Xtra - but that was only based on what he told me. In any case, as bartender says, the numbers were probably miniscule out of the total number of subscribers.

Xtra was never a wholesaler, there was ICONZ and a couple of others. From memory it was something like a 100 end users. It was a really basic setup, the ISP would "give" TCL a block of IP's and return traffic would be policy routed back to the ISP. It was not a proper L2TP or QinQ wholesale network, just a fudge to make the routing sort of work.

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#2181597 17-Feb-2019 18:16

raytaylor:
BarTender:

That is exactly what Unison Fibre did in the Taupo/Napier/Hastings area whey they are not a UFB provider but have installed and support Alcatel Lucent Nokia ISAMs and offer the exact same products and specifications that Chorus do. So for any RSP to consume Unison fibre is exactly the same as consuming Chorus UFB. Vodafone could have chosen to do that with HFC but they haven't.

Pretty sure they are alcatel lucent - the ONTs are the same as chorus.

For a while, UFB installs were getting up to a 6 month+ wait in hawkes bay so we were ordering a chorus service and a unison service, and we would wait for an installer to turn up and cancel the other order, allowing the customer to connect to whichever one could be installed first as the wholesale pricing is pretty much the same.

Many businesses in hawkes bay have a chorus and a unison ont right next to each other.

It's totally ALu gear but my slight sarcasm is that ALu was purchased by Nokia so it's all "Nokia" gear now.
The Unison build is exactly the same to the point that Unison engineers spent time copying the ISAM profiles from Chorus and we made sure the service performed exactly the same as the Chorus services including when Chorus moved from 30/10 to 50/10.

yitz

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#2181614 17-Feb-2019 18:39

quickymart:

I'm sure when I worked at TCL that I saw a note somewhere that someone had a wholesaled cable connection via ihug. I also recall my then-manager saying that you could get resold cable if you were on Xtra - but that was only based on what he told me.

You might be thinking of Xtreme Networks a business ISP based in Wellington.

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