Gigatown Chorus initiative

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#900997 23-Sep-2013 09:57

michaelmurfy: In 10 years time will we see congestion issues on Fibre due to the fact the backbone (fibre too) doesn't have enough capacity to support the subscribers? Shall we place bets on when the first Geekzone post will be and what it's title will also be?

Only if companies don't invest, but hey look here...

freitasm

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#903621 27-Sep-2013 11:32

Provo, UT is getting a gigabit service by Google in October 2013. Here's one of the adverts:

linw

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#903754 27-Sep-2013 14:33

Like the ad!! Perhaps a tad of poetic licence, though.

freitasm

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#903781 27-Sep-2013 14:57

According to a blog average speeds on Google Fibre are 50 Mbps. The average Internet user in Provo gets 20 Mbps on copper, so not like a "firehose" but an improvement.

freitasm

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#922998 28-Oct-2013 12:53

Gigatown website is now live.

Ideas, comments?

Behodar

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#923009 28-Oct-2013 13:13

It appears that after three years, there may be a price hike:

"Chorus will provide the sponsored Gigatown Wholesale Service for three years from the service launch date. At the end of the Gigatown promotion period we will work with broadband providers to transition end customers to either the then market price for the 1Gbps service, or appropriate alternative plans."

mercutio

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#923017 28-Oct-2013 13:33

looks like it's only gigabit downstream, so slower than google fibre.

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chevrolux

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#923021 28-Oct-2013 13:39

mercutio: looks like it's only gigabit downstream, so slower than google fibre.

Oh damm it!! Not even worth doing then..... Might as well shut the whole thing down.

lol..... this is a seriously cool initiative. It might even stop people moaning about how rubbish the internet is here in nz

#GIGATOWNPMN

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#923023 28-Oct-2013 13:41

You misspelled #gigatownwhk :P

Edit: Gah! We've dropped one place! :(

mercutio

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#923025 28-Oct-2013 13:45

chevrolux:
mercutio: looks like it's only gigabit downstream, so slower than google fibre.

Oh damm it!! Not even worth doing then..... Might as well shut the whole thing down.

lol..... this is a seriously cool initiative. It might even stop people moaning about how rubbish the internet is here in nz

#GIGATOWNPMN

well tbh i don't think it'll make much difference. looking at the vodafone 4g uptake thing being high in new plymouth you'd think it'd be new plymouth doing the gigatown thing, but that's not a chorus city.

generally speaking, i don't think 100/50 to gigabit will really help home users much in general. steam isn't going to go at gigabit speeds all the time or anything, people will just bitch about not being able to max their lines out, or use more and more download accelerators slowing down the net for normal users.

i'd rather see 30/30 net to everyone in NZ, or at least chorus enabling annex m on cabinets, which is just a software configuration issue. that'd mean that "normal" users could get 2 megabit upload right now, which means for example, using skype for video chat won't destroy your connection as badly.

freitasm

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#923027 28-Oct-2013 13:51

mercutio: looks like it's only gigabit downstream, so slower than google fibre.

Google fibre NOMINAL speed is 1000 Mpbs, but AVERAGE speeds are 250 Mbps.

I think people put too much into the "It's from outside NZ it must be better" basket.

mercutio: generally speaking, i don't think 100/50 to gigabit will really help home users much in general. steam isn't going to go at gigabit speeds all the time or anything, people will just bitch about not being able to max their lines out, or use more and more download accelerators slowing down the net for normal users.

Now you're talking sense. People sen to forget that those speeds are not attainable really, because the Internet is not a direct pipe between a server and your PC... I have a 130Mbps connection at home and I'm lucky if I can get anything over 5Mbps when connecting to overseas.

This will change if and when we have more CDNs in New Zealand, more pipes to Australia (where new CDN POPs are coming out all the time) and more New Zealand content is consumed internally.

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#923074 28-Oct-2013 15:18

Haha! #gigatownmtn is coming second! As one of the around about 15+ people in Masterton with UFB I am happy we aren't doing as badly as I expected us to do.

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mercutio

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#923080 28-Oct-2013 15:30

freitasm:
mercutio: looks like it's only gigabit downstream, so slower than google fibre.

Google fibre NOMINAL speed is 1000 Mpbs, but AVERAGE speeds are 250 Mbps.

I think people put too much into the "It's from outside NZ it must be better" basket.

Average to where? In NZ with gigabit should be able to pull 250 megabit from nz.archive.ubuntu.com pretty easily.

mercutio: generally speaking, i don't think 100/50 to gigabit will really help home users much in general. steam isn't going to go at gigabit speeds all the time or anything, people will just bitch about not being able to max their lines out, or use more and more download accelerators slowing down the net for normal users.

Now you're talking sense. People sen to forget that those speeds are not attainable really, because the Internet is not a direct pipe between a server and your PC... I have a 130Mbps connection at home and I'm lucky if I can get anything over 5Mbps when connecting to overseas.

This will change if and when we have more CDNs in New Zealand, more pipes to Australia (where new CDN POPs are coming out all the time) and more New Zealand content is consumed internally.

We have heaps of Akamai nodes in NZ. The problem isn't having enough of them, it's having ones that store enough local content for users to get most files cached. Akamai uses pull caching rather than push caching for most stuff, and so a user has to request it in advance, then it caches for the next access. But it seems that a lot of locations have more than one akamai node in use, so even if the same user pulls the file twice in a row often it'll be uncached.

If you can't get over 5 megabit international there's probably something screwy somewhere. The last time I used TelstraClear Cable I had shocking performance, way worse than ADSL.. like 2 or 3 seconds to do a command line curl just pulling the main page, compared to 200 to 300 msec on ADSL. The time I had used it before that (probably a year prior) I was curious why a download from the UK was so slow (like 200k/sec), and I tried it on ADSL later and it was way faster.

I think part of the problem is their transparent proxy caches, but there could be cable congestion too.

I think it's perfectly fine having speeds way above what users typically get. Hard-disk access times are often 10 to 15 msec, and if pulling a small file, then often the disk latency plus the network latency can have just as much effect as the bandwidth of the connection. But now SSD's are becoming more common with much faster access times, and for a lot of things like web sites it should all be in RAM anyway.

The thing is if you have a gigabit connection that only normally goes at 250 megabit/sec, but sometimes goes at 800 megabit/sec and sometimes goes at 20megabit/sec is that better than a flat 30 megabit connection? And I think the answer is probably yes, in most circumstances. (probably not if running a call centre)

Personally I often seem to get about 12 megabit internationally frequently, and 16 megabit for things like Steam, but the main thing I'd ilke to see is improved performance on web sites like Ebay, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, none of which store content in NZ. I probably experience the most frustrating "slow downs" with Ebay, but I don't really think if I had gigabit at home there'd be a big difference. And with Trademe entrenching itself in NZ, Ebay doesn't seem to have made a proper presense in NZ -- in spite of that, I still feel more comfortable using ebay and getting things internationally than NZ. Which I suppose is what the internet is all about.

I think in a way we should look at China a bit, as they're pushing lots of fast fibre now, with slow international speeds and fast national. And that could be more similar to how things will turn out in NZ..

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#923081 28-Oct-2013 15:31

naggyman: Haha! #gigatownmtn is coming second! As one of the around about 15+ people in Masterton with UFB I am happy we aren't doing as badly as I expected us to do.

I think they score higher for smaller towns. It's probably cheaper for their rollout.

freitasm

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#923103 28-Oct-2013 16:42

mercutio:
freitasm:
mercutio: looks like it's only gigabit downstream, so slower than google fibre.

Google fibre NOMINAL speed is 1000 Mpbs, but AVERAGE speeds are 250 Mbps.

I think people put too much into the "It's from outside NZ it must be better" basket.

Average to where? In NZ with gigabit should be able to pull 250 megabit from nz.archive.ubuntu.com pretty easily.

Average to speedtest. But we all know this is not really "real life". In reality every single user is different from another so the point is moot. I just think that saying "Google this" and "Google that" while dismissing local initiatives is hypocritical.

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