Kim.Com promises free broadband -Pacific Fibre to rise from the ashes?

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Kim.Com promises free broadband -Pacific Fibre to rise from the ashes?

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BarTender

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#712791 6-Nov-2012 11:57

https://twitter.com/ChrisKeall/status/265581610777317378

Chris Keall ‏@ChrisKeall En route to Dotcom Mansion to give the lad (and a surprise Pacific Fibre alumni) a chance to explain why his cable plan isn't fanciful

Lets see eh?

gzt

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#716339 13-Nov-2012 13:04

And here's the result of that discussion: http://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/dotcoms-cable-fact-or-fantasy-kim-makes-his-case

KDC offering to buy $20 million cable services per year for 10 years. He also needs to buy data center services from someone else. He says no-one is going to build a massive data centre to serve offshore markets unless there is a second cable. No further detail on the promised reduced costs for residential customers or how that would be sustainable.

As for how this new mega service pays it's way:

KDC: "That's what this Mega Box business will be based on where you can basically download music for free has long as you have the Mega Key software installed on your computer which automatically replaces ads on the fly when you serve [surf?] to other websites"

I assume for instance if you installed this software and visited Geekzone you would see ads that would reward Mega rather than Geekzone. Personally I do not like this technique. It is usually the domain of software you do not want. I can't see Freitasm being too happy with that either lol.

I watched the Sunday investigates item on KDC: http://tvnz.co.nz/sunday/2012-11-video-5209245

There are two main parts. An interview with a video editor who was treated badly when he resigned, and an interview with a producer/director whose film was hosted by Mega and the effect of her DCMA requests. The first one seems like typical aggressive rich guy behavior from KDC asserting total number 1-ness, and the second (removing a link vs removing a file) is actually the key to the whole case and yet to be decided one way or the other from a legal perspective.

freitasm

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#716347 13-Nov-2012 13:13

The mega.co.nz servers are based in Luxembourgh. What's he talking about?

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mattwnz

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#716351 13-Nov-2012 13:18

gzt: And here's the result of that discussion: http://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/dotcoms-cable-fact-or-fantasy-kim-makes-his-case

KDC offering to buy $20 million cable services per year for 10 years. He also needs to buy data center services from someone else. He says no-one is going to build a massive data centre to serve offshore markets unless there is a second cable. No further detail on the promised reduced costs for residential customers or how that would be sustainable.

As for how this new mega service pays it's way:

KDC: "That's what this Mega Box business will be based on where you can basically download music for free has long as you have the Mega Key software installed on your computer which automatically replaces ads on the fly when you serve [surf?] to other websites"

I assume for instance if you installed this software and visited Geekzone you would see ads that would reward Mega rather than Geekzone. Personally I do not like this technique. It is usually the domain of software you do not want. I can't see Freitasm being too happy with that either lol.

I watched the Sunday investigates item on KDC: http://tvnz.co.nz/sunday/2012-11-video-5209245

There are two main parts. An interview with a video editor who was treated badly when he resigned, and an interview with a producer/director whose film was hosted by Mega and the effect of her DCMA requests. The first one seems like typical aggressive rich guy behavior from KDC asserting total number 1-ness, and the second (removing a link vs removing a file) is actually the key to the whole case and yet to be decided one way or the other from a legal perspective.

You can see the media turning on him with that tvnz story. I think he is going to get a lot of the media offside if he is going to serve his own adverts over the top of existing website adverts, as that is how many online companies make their money, including online newspapers. This would also affect the revenue on this site I would expect.

Talkiet

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#716355 13-Nov-2012 13:21

Am I the only person around here that's a little apprehensive that anyone would bank on someone whose business model seems to rely on enabling widespread copyright infringement for many years without getting caught?

I am not a lawyer, that's not an accusation. It's how it appears to this layperson. To me it seems literally (I know what that word means) incredible that anyone could believe that the scale of his previous megaupload or the proposed scale of what he's working on now would be justified by entirely legal content.

Anyway, back to your usual programming.

Cheers - N

ps. I'm not a lawyer - for all I know everyone was downloading public domain material and Linux ISOs from megaupload. *

* - no they weren't

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.

Talkiet

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#716361 13-Nov-2012 13:32

Also, a quick 'haha' on this comment from the article with Kim...

"Dotcom add that if the Bluff alumuninium smelter is closed, the Manapouri power station could be redeployed to power a massive server farm."

Well... Tiwai Point draws up to 610MW from the national grid.

a MASSIVE data centre (second largest in the world) has about 80MW total...

Metro Technology Center, Atlanta, US
The QTS Metro Data Center is a 990,000 square foot building which when complete will yield 560,000 square feet of data center space. The huge facility is supported by 80 megawatts of power capacity via an on-site Georgia Power substation, and has 19 two-megawatt diesel generators to provide backup power. The facility was built by Sears in 1954 as the company's southeast distribution center and was converted at a cost of $80 million USD by MetroNexus and CoreLocation in 2000.

Throwaway comments that are out by that much don't help anyone unless you're looking to discredit Kim.

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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gzt

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#716380 13-Nov-2012 13:49

Talkiet: Am I the only person around here that's a little apprehensive that anyone would bank on someone whose business model seems to rely on enabling widespread copyright infringement for many years without getting caught?

I kind of agree but I think it is a little unfair saying that is the business model. You could make a similar case about YouTube - it was only recently youtube enabled monetisation and a process allowing artists/content creators to claim revenue. Looks to me like KDC will be offering a similar service - but it is unclear exactly how Mega artist relationships will work. Can any artist claim or will artists need to sign up? How will Mega deal with instances where a user monetizes another artists work? There are many unanswered questions there.

Talkiet

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#716390 13-Nov-2012 13:56

Youtube didn't start out committing to a $200m investment JUST FOR BANDWIDTH! They started with $11.5M in VC...

If KDC commits to $20M/year for ten years just for bandwidth, and builds infrastructure here to support it (Say another $200M capex to start and $30M opex annually - numbers guessed from the "100 staff" throwaway) - they aren't banking on organic growth... They are banking on essentially instant uptake of a huge degree.

Kim's not an idiot and while I'm sure part of what he wants to do is based on ego, he's ultimately doing it to make a profit. Dumping that sort of money on day one doesn't give him room for organic growth.

Cheers - N
ps. I'm not an economist either.

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

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#716410 13-Nov-2012 14:20

The article says he won't be building any infrastructure himself. On non-organic growth, the Mega service should pick up exactly where the old Mega left off, but with the benefit of worldwide publicity provided by the increased media attention.

The key to sustainability and stability over the long term is the artist and content creator relationships and especially where content is uploaded by another party, and as I questioned earlier, it is not yet clear how that will be structured.

mattRSK

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#716411 13-Nov-2012 14:22

gzt: The article says he won't be building any infrastructure himself. On non-organic growth, the Mega service should pick up exactly where the old Mega left off, but with the benefit of worldwide publicity provided by the increased media attention.

The key to sustainability and stability over the long term is the artist and content creator relationships and especially where content is uploaded by another party, and as I questioned earlier, it is not yet clear how that will be structured.

Will it pick up though? There are plenty of other providers out there now. Will people migrate back to mega?

Talkiet

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#716413 13-Nov-2012 14:24

I get what you're saying... But it's hard to be optimistic when the vast VAST VAST majority of the content from "the old Mega" was material he won't have a snowballs chance of licensing... (1)

Cheers - N

(1) Source: My old bones. They ache when someone transfers vast amounts of copyrighted material without appropriate permissions from rights holders.

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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LWJCarroll

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#717433 15-Nov-2012 01:17

While having my doubts about the free broadband for all NZ claim I do think that using our power sources here in NZ for setting up data centres to export data back into the web, which would need a second fibre cable from NZ to act as a backup and provide alternate routing etc....is a good one for NZ.....

If the Aussie (??) company does pull the plug on Tiwai Point smelter, then we do have an asset available in the form of cheap power to be applied to another industry in NZ and to our benefit...data centers here for the WWW does look like a good idea to me....it wouldn't have to be based near by but spread around NZ in multiple centers etc...assuming the surplus power could be fed into the NZ wide power grid.....

Plus this may spawn other ideas and business in NZ from these...plus giving NZ a more tech base to the economy...not just in the agriculture area....

My penny's worth

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