Broadband in the US: not as good as you think, it seems...

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Broadband in the US: not as good as you think, it seems...

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#390363 11-Oct-2010 10:22

ojala: Another good example that national traffic is bound to appear if it's accessible.

http://kiwiology.co.nz/ lists 860 kiwi blogs.
http://www.blogilista.fi/ lists 38392 finnish blogs.

This is an example that correlation does not imply causation. It's a much different social landscape. People have jumped into social networking tools and microblogs a lot more than full blogs.

I just think blogs it's not the Kiwi style, but microblog tools like Twitter is.

ojala: And when there's certain freedom of data. global phenomenons like Angry Birds can come from small countries like Finland -- or New Zealand, if..

Angry Birds is not a game that requires network, is it? Is not particularly large, and design studios wouldn't have problems creating this game here. Actually there are quite a few award-winning game studions in New Zealand (Sidhe for example). Could a faster, more local Internet help? Yes, sure. Teleworking, etc would all benefit.

But I think there's too much in a single post, and not all related.

k1wi

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#390396 11-Oct-2010 11:20

A couple of points I would like to raise on the comparison issue, namely around caching data and net neutrality.

I am curious as to when broadband users in NZ can expect to see a price benefit to the increasingly widespread caching (youtube and now http) of data?

I understand you can argue that it is providing a faster service - although does a customer really notice when a page takes a tenth of a second less to load or a 5 minute youtube video takes 1 minute instead of 3?

I would expect that the reason ISPs have taken the caching route and not the "buy more international bandwidth" route, is because it is more cost effective for them to do so, thus lowering their costs per 'average user (account)' or costs per GB from their traditional model.

Similarly, but not the exactly the same thing, is the concept of Net Neutrality in New Zealand compared with the US. While there has been talk of net neutrality being eroded in the US, the advancement of 'unmetered agreements' here in New Zealand between ISPs and content providers such as TiVo and now the upcoming iSky is a concern to me.

It seems that ISPs are only willing to differentiate between different price international and national traffic where they can make a commercial agreement out of it.

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#390556 11-Oct-2010 17:00

Caching isn't free though, there are hardware costs, annual licensing costs, engineers time to configure/maintain it.. it's mostly done to improve performance and lower latency.

ojala

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#390612 11-Oct-2010 19:30

freitasm: I just think blogs it's not the Kiwi style, but microblog tools like Twitter is.

Or perhaps twitter just saves your data cap compared to a blog?

Here a typical blog is nowadays run by a teen talking about fashion, a young women talking about cooking, or a couple expecting their first baby and sharing their growth to become parents.

I know things can be and are different but I can't tell how much of it is because people are different and how much it's because the internet experience is different. We did some extensive travels (that's how we found and fell in love with NZ) and one of my discoveries was that there's a lot of good interweb things done everywhere but we're overwhelmed by the mainstream. Several kiwi interweb applications could have big potential in Europe.

Angry Birds is not a game that requires network, is it? Is not particularly large, and design studios wouldn't have problems creating this game here. Actually there are quite a few award-winning game studions in New Zealand (Sidhe for example). Could a faster, more local Internet help? Yes, sure. Teleworking, etc would all benefit.

Yes, Angry Birds was a far fetched example but it's really part of a bigger picture that commodity Internet makes possible. Habbo Hotel is perhaps better example -- 10 years old. 10 years ago they basicly grew together with the fixed broadband. Today they have 172 million users from 150 countries and a 100 million NZD business. What they do just wouldn't work too well without broadband access -- and uncapped, national internet access to their servers.

A skilled, talented and creative folks like kiwis could easily be much bigger player in the global ICT/Internet field. I'm not talking about building a new Apple or Microsoft but some companies could become global, some less so. Those 50-500 million NZD companies would add a lot to the NZ economy. Fast and cheaper internet access would enable the young talent to experiment with their ideas, and if people wouldn't need to care about their data caps with local services they could also use the new ideas a lot more. If you give them the tools, they'll make it happen.

WRT the broadband in the US; maybe that farmer in Ohio won't get FIOS this year. or that friend in the UK is upgrading his 6 Mbit/s ADSL to a super-fast BT Infinity that will run at 15 Mbit/s. While I've been personally stuck with my 15-18 Mbit/s ADSL2+ half a century now, I'm happy that the cable TV networks have upgraded to 100-200 Mbit/s eurodocsis 3 and that the telco's are slowly digging fiber to the home around me. Or that the problems or slow deployment in the US or UK aren't stopping the folks in Romania deploying their VDSL2 lines.

I've got plenty of examples what faster broadband has actually done here but this is getting a big long already, doesn't fit in a tweet and could fill the data caps ;-)

ockel

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#390729 12-Oct-2010 07:46

ojala:
freitasm: I just think blogs it's not the Kiwi style, but microblog tools like Twitter is.

Or perhaps twitter just saves your data cap compared to a blog? Here a typical blog is nowadays run by a teen talking about fashion, a young women talking about cooking, or a couple expecting their first baby and sharing their growth to become parents.

I know things can be and are different but I can't tell how much of it is because people are different and how much it's because the internet experience is different. We did some extensive travels (that's how we found and fell in love with NZ) and one of my discoveries was that there's a lot of good interweb things done everywhere but we're overwhelmed by the mainstream. Several kiwi interweb applications could have big potential in Europe.

Thats the same argument that ComCom had about NZ's propensity to use text messages. Volume of text is greater than voice therefore cost of calling is too high. With the volume of text messages in the US now exceeding voice despite the bucket plans (and "low pricing") then one has to find a new excuse for consumer behaviour.

Perhaps there is greater convienence in twitter vs blog? Perhaps the microblog is all that people have to say? Perhaps the ability to respond rapidly and retweet is more appealing.

Or maybe its the data caps.

Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination"

ojala

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#390738 12-Oct-2010 08:13

ockel:

Perhaps there is greater convienence in twitter vs blog? Perhaps the microblog is all that people have to say? Perhaps the ability to respond rapidly and retweet is more appealing.

My opinion is that twitter vs. blog is like Kindle vs. iPad. Yes, they both have tablet form factor, you can read e-books on both, and you can even surf with both. But they are the best tool for different things.

Or twitter is more like yellow press and blogs can be a real newspaper. Everyone can tweet but one has to put more effort for a good blog.

freitasm

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#390739 12-Oct-2010 08:16

ojala: Or twitter is more like yellow press and blogs can be a real newspaper. Everyone can tweet but one has to put more effort for a good blog.

And then it's a personal thing, something that is not inluenced that much by the state of broadband. Because blogs are log bandwidth things. They are usually hosted somewhere else, not at home. You only need enough bandwidth to post your thoughts.

Sorry, but state of broadband does not have a causation effect on number of blogs. It's more of a attituted thing.

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dman

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#390890 12-Oct-2010 12:50

freitasm:
ojala: Another good example that national traffic is bound to appear if it's accessible.

http://kiwiology.co.nz/ lists 860 kiwi blogs.
http://www.blogilista.fi/ lists 38392 finnish blogs.

This is an example that correlation does not imply causation. It's a much different social landscape. People have jumped into social networking tools and microblogs a lot more than full blogs.

I just think blogs it's not the Kiwi style, but microblog tools like Twitter is.

As I retweeted yesterday:

In all seriousness, now's a great time to start a blog if you're fixated on a topic. Everybody else is distracted by tweeting & bullsh*t.

https://www.youtube.com/c/SoundSpeeding

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#391002 12-Oct-2010 16:10

k1wi:
I understand you can argue that it is providing a faster service - although does a customer really notice when a page takes a tenth of a second less to load or a 5 minute youtube video takes 1 minute instead of 3?

There are 53 items on this page (or were when I just looked at it).

That is, 53 files to be fetched in order to load the page: the base HTML, assorted scripts, CSS, and lots of GIFs.

The TCP 3-way handshake imposes a minimum time to fetch a URL, even with infinite bandwidth. Let's assume infinite bandwidth.

If you don't have a cache, then you incur a round-trip time of about 150ms to the West coast of the US.
The RTT within NZ should be less than 25ms.

Assuming infinite bandwidth and no cache, the minimum time to load this page if it were hosted in the US would be 12 seconds.

With a cache it's 2 seconds.

That's with infinite bandwidth.

freitasm

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#391003 12-Oct-2010 16:12

michaeln:
k1wi:
I understand you can argue that it is providing a faster service - although does a customer really notice when a page takes a tenth of a second less to load or a 5 minute youtube video takes 1 minute instead of 3?

There are 53 items on this page (or were when I just looked at it).

That is, 53 files to be fetched in order to load the page: the base HTML, assorted scripts, CSS, and lots of GIFs.

The TCP 3-way handshake imposes a minimum time to fetch a URL, even with infinite bandwidth. Let's assume infinite bandwidth.

If you don't have a cache, then you incur a round-trip time of about 150ms to the West coast of the US.
The RTT within NZ should be less than 25ms.

Assuming infinite bandwidth and no cache, the minimum time to load this page if it were hosted in the US would be 12 seconds.

With a cache it's 2 seconds.

That's with infinite bandwidth.

Good point. Also worth noting this page had only 53 items to load because we work hard in trying to minimise these elements. We use tools that automatically redefine our HTML creating image sprites, etc. Otherwise this would be at least four times more.

In essence what I am saying is that we work to create a faster Internet, a better user experience...

Talkiet

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#391006 12-Oct-2010 16:15

michaeln:
k1wi:
I understand you can argue that it is providing a faster service - although does a customer really notice when a page takes a tenth of a second less to load or a 5 minute youtube video takes 1 minute instead of 3?

There are 53 items on this page (or were when I just looked at it).

That is, 53 files to be fetched in order to load the page: the base HTML, assorted scripts, CSS, and lots of GIFs.

The TCP 3-way handshake imposes a minimum time to fetch a URL, even with infinite bandwidth. Let's assume infinite bandwidth.

If you don't have a cache, then you incur a round-trip time of about 150ms to the West coast of the US.
The RTT within NZ should be less than 25ms.

Assuming infinite bandwidth and no cache, the minimum time to load this page if it were hosted in the US would be 12 seconds.

With a cache it's 2 seconds.

That's with infinite bandwidth.

You fool! With infinite bandwidth presumably you would have already cached the entire internet locally at home overnight and therefore the load time would be based on LAN speeds and latency.

But seriously - good point, and one far too often forgotten. I recently did a bunch of optimisation on a webpage I maintain and the biggest optimisations I got were from reducing the number of elements, not the size of the elements.

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.

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#391021 12-Oct-2010 16:45

freitasm:
ojala: Or twitter is more like yellow press and blogs can be a real newspaper. Everyone can tweet but one has to put more effort for a good blog.

And then it's a personal thing, something that is not inluenced that much by the state of broadband. Because blogs are log bandwidth things. They are usually hosted somewhere else, not at home. You only need enough bandwidth to post your thoughts.

Sorry, but state of broadband does not have a causation effect on number of blogs. It's more of a attituted thing.

the other point to note is that Finland is likely to have a larger number of local blogs because they speak a different language and so US/UK etc based blogs are not so useful for them.
NZ, on the other hand, is part of the english language world and so can make use of the gajillions of english language blogs alreayd out there. No need to start a new one when plenty already exist?

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#391030 12-Oct-2010 16:59

Anyway back to US broadband...

What I think you are seeing over there is providers trying to increase profits from their broadband division (even though they are already making decent profit off it) to make up for the decline in their legacy products and divisions ie: pots/landline services and broadcast pay tv/cable.

Shareholders don't like to see total revenue/profit going down.

ojala

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#391065 12-Oct-2010 19:20

Ragnor: Anyway back to US broadband...

What I think you are seeing over there is providers trying to increase profits from their broadband division (even though they are already making decent profit off it) to make up for the decline in their legacy products and divisions ie: pots/landline services and broadcast pay tv/cable.

Shareholders don't like to see total revenue/profit going down.

Here's are some other examples how to improve the profits and revenue, and how to handle the problem of legacy.

The number of DSL lines has been going down several years now and today there are more mobile broadband than DSL subscriptions. How to make ADSL2+ attractive again? IPTV with network PVR. For the same or lower price you get DSL, you get DSL with IPTV with 5 TB of storage. I haven't used my HD PVR for 3+ years now. DSL and TV got the cable TV folks upset, and they introduced DOCSIS3 and offer 100+ Mbit/s access for the same price as DSL. This caused the traditional telco's to increase their annual spending on fiber to the home installations (building slowly but every day new homes get the option). Gigabit access for 182 nzd/mo was announced recently, the primary fiber product used to be 100/10 and 100/100. The government doesn't have "Big Plans" and the "broadband is a civil right" law that hit the news, nobody cares. And at the same we watch what is happening in other countries in envy, we call ourselves "telecommunications EUganda". We're just average.

Other DSL attraction has been bundling fixed and mobile broadband. If 73 nzd/month gets you full-rate adsl2+, 53 nzd/month will get you a slightly slower full-rate adsl and unlimited mobile broadband, including both the adsl-wlan-router and usb-stick.

Mobile voice is already at the stage that only ARPU matters. From 1.22 nzd/mo + 0.12 nzd/min + 0.12 nzd/min to 7.20 nzd/month with 3000 minutes. There's really nothing in between. If you want to be locked in a 12-24 month contract, you can opt for 1.85 nzd/day max billing -- that's max 55.50 nzd/mo which for the carrier is still better than the ARPU. They don't shuffle any plans because they have so few, they just update the prices frequently so that plenty of people have old prices and don't realize that they should upgrade. Those old customers are the best (for revenue and profit).

It's all about paying what to use, not about caring what you use. If I had to pay for 10 gigabytes or 3000 minutes a month, I would try to be at the limit. I would be very disappointed if I used only 1 gigabyte or 300 minutes, and paid for 10x more.

Traditional voice? Ehh, hmm, that's almost like what's a cheque? Today carriers make more revenue with SMS than fixed voice. Since 2007 the number of fixed voice subscriptions has gone down 33% and the volume down 50%. The copper is for fixed broadband, not fixed voice. Fixed voice is replaced by mobile voice and today the mobile networks carry 6.5x more voice traffic. People do use Skype and other free tools, though, and VOIP is an option for corporate exchange updates but even so, some 200,000 fixed voice lines are lost annually -- in an NZ-sized country. That's a lot.

We can always find examples where things are better or worse in other countries. It's the bigger pictures that matters, the bigger trends shape the national communications landscape and make things to happen. The action, not the plans. Not every country is the same, not every step happens everywhere, but there are awfully lot of similarities. NZ isn't the same as our country, not today, not tomorrow, but I'm 100% sure NZ will see many of the same trends eventually. ICT is important for every business and the available infrastructure and services can benefit a lot of businesses one way or another. NZ, like Finland, are small enough countries where things can really happen if we want to. (*

PS. Shareholders seem to be ok with the trends there; one of the bigger telco's is +22% up in 12 months, paid 5.4% dividend, and made triple the profit with half the revenue of Telecom NZ for 2Q10.

*) I was really getting disappointed with my 15+ Mbit/s ADSL2+ being 5+ years old and nothing in sight. I still don't have cable and the fiber is 250 m away but there's hope, and the 4G LTE network is just behind corner that will most likely outperform my ADSL2+.

PPS. Just for the background, we've enjoyed NZ so much that we're in the process of moving there. As the founder of the first commercial ISP here, ICT is pretty close at my heart. I see NZ comparing itself to Aus, UK and US frequently and when ICT is concerned, there are much closer matches out there in the non-english speaking world, Finland being one pretty close in size and population, and at the corner of Europe outside the main hubs. One day I hope I'll also write better english and speak with the great kiwi accent ;-)

alliao

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#391083 12-Oct-2010 21:04

One thing though, I would like to point out is that paying for what you consume sounds like good and noble idea, but in reality for infrastructure things like internet, electricity and water it doesn't necessarily apply.

At the end of the day, service providers would "need" certain number of dollars to cover their cost. After that, it's arguable that they could care less about how much you consume. Though this zero profit model's probably too lefty :p

Take power for example, cost of electricity at night is crazy cheap, simply because no one uses them. But consumers can never obtain it, if they could then it also means their 8 o'clock power to heat up their toast would cost even more than now.

We don't have such plans most probably because even if we did then on a "average" year the average household would still be paying the same average amount while consumed the same amount of electricity, hence making such plan looking like a farce.

But, such plan COULD benefit few night owls. And then people would complain that those reaping the benefit of cheaper power at night are riding on the backs of morning consumers who are paying higher rates(precisely due to higher demand thus higher spot price).

Then the night time price will increase, as electricity companies as a whole, still would like $4000 from every household no matter what plan or what way.

At the end of the day, if most of the nz isn't going to need the internet, then they will not pay for it. If the amount they pay isn't enough for the service providers to upgrade then that's the way it'll stay.

And that's why we have hardly anything online. Bit of a chicken and egg...

One can always argue internet's overrated anyway. Libraries are good. I got out 10 books today.

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