Telecom NZ to be unbundled!

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425 posts

Ultimate Geek

#34756 4-May-2006 10:12

I think we need to be careful with terminology here - what you describe above is not LLU, but rather the Unconstrained UBS with the upstream speed limit removed and the prohibition on supporting real time services taken off.

With LLU, then ISPs can set their own upstream limits, can they not? At the moment they take what Telecom gives them. If the ISPs can't change the upstream speeds, I don't quite see the point of LLU.

juha

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#34757 4-May-2006 10:21

JonC:
With LLU, then ISPs can set their own upstream limits, can they not? At the moment they take what Telecom gives them. If the ISPs can't change the upstream speeds, I don't quite see the point of LLU.

LLU means that providers can install their own equipment in Telecom's exchanges and roadside cabinets, with data backhaul to their networks. This means they will set the DSL parameters like up and downstream speed, and not Telecom. Furthermore, the Commerce Commission will dimension the backhaul and not Telecom.

However, LLU is a more expensive option than wholesaled Telecom DSL; the government has now taken away the constraints placed on the regulated service, so we'll see if Telecom will let that flow through to its commercial offering. If not, I suspect that any applications for a regulated service determination will be very quickly approved indeed.

Juha

JonC

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Ultimate Geek

#34758 4-May-2006 10:40

juha:
LLU means that providers can install their own equipment in Telecom's exchanges and roadside cabinets, with data backhaul to their networks. This means they will set the DSL parameters like up and downstream speed, and not Telecom. Furthermore, the Commerce Commission will dimension the backhaul and not Telecom.

However, LLU is a more expensive option than wholesaled Telecom DSL; the government has now taken away the constraints placed on the regulated service, so we'll see if Telecom will let that flow through to its commercial offering. If not, I suspect that any applications for a regulated service determination will be very quickly approved indeed.

Sounds good then - will be interesting to see which companies will be willing to make the investment. IIRC in the UK it took a couple of years after LLU to get ADSL2, so they've only just recently got a 24Mbps ADSL service - https://www.bethere.co.uk/ - but their pricing is competitive 24 pounds ($NZ 70) per month for UNLIMITED 24Mbps down, 1.3Mbps up. Obviously you have to be close to an exchange to get 24Mbps, but it's certainly better than anything in NZ right now. Something's gotta be wrong if broadband is cheaper and better in the UK. I guess only time will tell if the same thing happens here.

Another thing that's interesting about ADSL in the UK is that you still need a BT (equivalent to Telecom) phoneline - mind you, they only charge about $25 per month for line rental. I guess the ISPs over there still can't lease the last mile of copper, so customers still have to pay BT for that.

freitasm

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#34762 4-May-2006 11:25

Jama: Usenet - old school but much better for content and no sharing. I pay USD50 for 70GB which lasts me about 6 months. Great speeds and awesome feeds.

Usenet (NNTP) used to be essential to Internet Services. What are other users going to do now that Xtra cut their usenet server access?

Sorry, going OT, will create a thread for this...

nzbnw

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Spark NZ

#34764 4-May-2006 11:27

lchiu7: In my view there are two main issus with our internet service in New Zealand. One is speed (especially upstream speed) and the second is the crazy data limits we have on our plans. I am not sure what other countries impose data limits but there can't be many (I think Oz does in some plans0.

LLU solves the speed problem for some. I was never sure why local DSL customers could not get more than 128K upstream which is really poor considering what broadband can offer - video conferencing etc. I have never used DSL myself and am on a 2MBs/2MBs plan from TCL with 20G limit. That serves me pretty well most of the time. I have tried full screen video conferencing with folks in the US and it's pretty good, something I could not say when my TCL plan was only 128K upstream.

I am not sure why we have data caps on our plans - perhaps to do with the cost of international traffic or just repacious ISP's? And LLU won't solve that. After all TCL can provide high speed connections to Wellington and ChCh customers and still has data limits but to be fair, they are fairly generous (there is a 40G plan available with $5.95 per month per gig over that). So unless the ISP's can afford to invest both in DSLAMs and highspeed backhaul circuits as well as get cheaper international pricing, we might see faster speeds locally, but we are going to have to pay for them. Will that help broadband penetration? Only time will tell.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but dont ISP's current have a choice as to if they buy ADSL plans from Telecom with or without data caps, and inturn they impose their own data caps?? At least that is the impression I get from the Telecom Wholesale website??

lchiu7

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#34765 4-May-2006 11:29

juha:
lchiu7: LLU solves the speed problem for some. I was never sure why local DSL customers could not get more than 128K upstream which is really poor considering what broadband can offer - video conferencing etc. I have never used DSL myself and am on a 2MBs/2MBs plan from TCL with 20G limit. That serves me pretty well most of the time. I have tried full screen video conferencing with folks in the US and it's pretty good, something I could not say when my TCL plan was only 128K upstream.

I think we need to be careful with terminology here - what you describe above is not LLU, but rather the Unconstrained UBS with the upstream speed limit removed and the prohibition on supporting real time services taken off.

I am not sure why we have data caps on our plans - perhaps to do with the cost of international traffic or just repacious ISP's? And LLU won't solve that. After all TCL can provide high speed connections to Wellington and ChCh customers and still has data limits but to be fair, they are fairly generous (there is a 40G plan available with $5.95 per month per gig over that). So unless the ISP's can afford to invest both in DSLAMs and highspeed backhaul circuits as well as get cheaper international pricing, we might see faster speeds locally, but we are going to have to pay for them. Will that help broadband penetration? Only time will tell.

The new regulation should in fact help solve that. Telecom will no longer be able to decide its wholesale providers data caps, as it does currently with the CUBS.

As others have noted LLU allows other providers to set whatever upstream speed their technology can provide. And I am not sure why TCL limits their upstream to 2Mbs since with cable you can have symmetric speeds I thought. Maybe they provide just enough to be better than current Telecom offerings!

As for data caps, since TCL is not bound by the wholesale providers caps, I wonder why they impose them?

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

JonC

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Ultimate Geek

#34766 4-May-2006 11:32

nzbnw:
Please correct me if I am wrong, but dont ISP's current have a choice as to if they buy ADSL plans from Telecom with or without data caps, and inturn they impose their own data caps?? At least that is the impression I get from the Telecom Wholesale website??

There are some very expensive and slow unlimited options out there, so presumably ISPs can buy unlimited plans wholesale from Telecom. I'm guessing that their uptake isn't so good is because Telecom charges so much for them wholesale.

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Fraktul

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#34767 4-May-2006 11:32

Sort of, you have WBS or Wholesale Bitstream Service in which the customer still uses netgate (Telecom) for Internet backhaul. Than you have UBS in which the product is bought back to the ISP via a layer 2 tunnel and they provide the customers Internet and data requirements. With UBS ISP get a 10GB per customer aggregate total to work with.

nzbnw

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#34769 4-May-2006 11:35

As far as I know Telstra impose Data caps for the same reason as everyone else, the cost of getting data to this side of the world.

I am sure Telecom and Telstra are not doing this for the fun of it, it will have some implications of their business models.

JonC

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Ultimate Geek

#34770 4-May-2006 11:40

lchiu7:
As others have noted LLU allows other providers to set whatever upstream speed their technology can provide. And I am not sure why TCL limits their upstream to 2Mbs since with cable you can have symmetric speeds I thought. Maybe they provide just enough to be better than current Telecom offerings!

As for data caps, since TCL is not bound by the wholesale providers caps, I wonder why they impose them?

I think you answered your own question - TCL only provide enough data cap / upstream speed, etc to be better than their competitor and no more - what's their motivation for providing a lot better plans rather than just a little better (as is current)? It's a bit like petrol companies - they only match what their competitors are willing to offer. When you have only a handful of big players in the market, they can get away with doing this. Let's hope LLU shakes things up. I'm not 100% certain it will, but I'm hoping.

When Telecom brought in their better broadband plans, TCL responded with higher data caps (as their speeds are already as good as or better than Telecom's faster plans anyway). Just like Telecom offers cheaper phone service only where TCL operates - they only do just enough to be as good as or better than their competitors.

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#34771 4-May-2006 11:46

Well, we know that Telecoms shares are going down....

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JonC

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Ultimate Geek

#34774 4-May-2006 11:49

nzbnw:
As far as I know Telstra impose Data caps for the same reason as everyone else, the cost of getting data to this side of the world.

I am sure Telecom and Telstra are not doing this for the fun of it, it will have some implications of their business models.

It's true that it costs more for bringing data down to NZ, but that's not the whole story - businesses will always sell a product at a price that will maximise their returns. If a widget costs you 50c to make, why sell 100 widgets at $1, if you can sell 70 at $3? If you have a popular / essential product and no competition, then you can set your own price - it doesn't matter what it costs you. It's just basic business practice - usually a free market sorts these problems out as you won't sell many widgets at $3 when your competition is offering the same for $2, but in the broadband market before LLU, there was no free market.

Felix

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#34789 4-May-2006 14:26

well... this is certainly he last time I vote for Labour... in fact I only did it to help poor people last time, I would have done very well out of National's tax (read service) cuts!

Anyone else old enough to remember Rob Muldoon's controlled economy?

Helen Clark, acting CEO, Telecom New Zealand Limited