Southern Cross, lots of capacity, so what caused all the Telecom 'Go Large' problems?

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Southern Cross, lots of capacity, so what caused all the Telecom 'Go Large' problems?

amiga500

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#106934 3-Aug-2012 00:05

In recent years Telecom had two unlimited plans one of which was called 'Go Large'. People on these plans found them really terrible especially in regard to international speeds.

So, what I would like to know is why Telecom could not have allocated more bandwidth to these plans as Telecom is the major player in the Southern Cross cable operation? Or were the problems with the unlimited plan caused by back haul bottlenecks? Maybe it was just too complicated to do without the Commerce Commission becoming involved if the small ISPs saw Telecom Xtra getting an unfair advantage.

farcus

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#666652 3-Aug-2012 00:28

Telecom (retail) has to buy capacity from Southern Cross just like every other ISP - as I understand it.

edit: Oh, and I got pretty good international speeds on their last foray into AYCE a couple of years back now.

sbiddle

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#666748 3-Aug-2012 10:08

Telecom buy capacity of SCC the same as every other ISP.

There problem was that the plan wasn't financially viable - large numbers of people consukming 500GB + per mon th downloading the entire internet meant the bandwidth requirements required to provide a quality service didn't stack up. For the ver same reasons now you won't get the same performance on a unlimited Slingshot connection as you will with many other ISP's.

Ragnor

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#666768 3-Aug-2012 10:30

1: Priced too attractively (Slingshot are having the same problem now having to increase AYCE by $10)
2: Naive traffic management (whitelist by http referrer was lol)
3: Lack of a overall traffic management plan and poor management of expectations - something like http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/abnormal_load.shtml or http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/traffic_management.shtml should have been set out up front
4: The Bluecoat transparent proxy implementation was late and lots of had issues
5: The increase in utilisation started causing choke points domestically which started affecting other services/plans.
6: Separation requirements meant Telecom retail had to start using the same wholesale services as other ISP's so handover dimensioning was a problem on BUBA/UBS with ATM backhaul/handover.

Detruire

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#666801 3-Aug-2012 11:19

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doozy

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#666826 3-Aug-2012 11:47

The people selling the bandwidth were the same ones talking up the traffic management they could do .... upon reflection, probably was not the wisest move to listen to them

ajobbins

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#666833 3-Aug-2012 11:57

Telecom (retail) owns the 50% share in SCC.

There was a remark made in the days since PacFibre folded that the SCC share should have gone to Chorus not retained by retail. But it was.

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mercutio

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#666859 3-Aug-2012 12:10

They still have to buy bandwidth in the US.

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DonGould

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#666865 3-Aug-2012 12:15

mercutio: They still have to buy bandwidth in the US.

Yes, and with 50% of the BB market, their buying power must be well ahead of others.

They buy a 10Gb NNI with 10Gb on it?

This is why I suggested some time back that we need to see the market flatten out to 6 providers with 20% of the current market size each, by 2020.

D

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mercutio

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#666871 3-Aug-2012 12:17

DonGould:
mercutio: They still have to buy bandwidth in the US.

Yes, and with 50% of the BB market, their buying power must be well ahead of others.

They buy a 10Gb NNI with 10Gb on it?

This is why I suggested some time back that we need to see the market flatten out to 6 providers with 20% of the current market size each, by 2020.

D

Arbitrary numbers like that don't really help.

Bandwidth costs in the US have come down significantly even since go-large. But there's a cost overhead with maintaining overseas networks as well as local.

And if you're buying through someone else who maintains the overseas endpoint you're going to pay extra for that privilege.

Ragnor

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#666987 3-Aug-2012 14:00

SXC basically only sell transit from landing point(s) to landing points(s), ISP's still have to get their traffic to SXC and off SXC to the rest of the Internet.

Most NZ ISP's aren't large enough to manage this themselves they buy from resellers like PacNet/Asianetcom, Verizon, Global Gateway (Telecom), Vocus, Reach (Telsra) or Odyssey Networks (Kordia/Orcon) who provide end to end transit/interconnection.

This ISP map gives you an idea (note: it's not 100% accurate and doesn't show all arrangements)
http://www.ispmap.co.nz/

Ragnor

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#666989 3-Aug-2012 14:02

DonGould:

This is why I suggested some time back that we need to see the market flatten out to 6 providers with 20% of the current market size each, by 2020.

The average joe/jane just sticks with their current provider so it won't be happening any time soon.

DonGould

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#667178 3-Aug-2012 18:37

Ragnor:
DonGould:

This is why I suggested some time back that we need to see the market flatten out to 6 providers with 20% of the current market size each, by 2020.

The average joe/jane just sticks with their current provider so it won't be happening any time soon.

Totally agree.

My observation is that the average Joe/Jane is now very happy with their broadband. They can get cheap data on their mobiles, which also do wifi, and their DSL is fairly snappy.

I think the jump from dialup to BB was a big leap, but I wonder more about the leap from DSL to UFB.

But from an industry point of view I think it's something we're all going to need to get more energised about.

We want people moving about because it continues to drive more opportunities for all of us.

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amiga500

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#667279 3-Aug-2012 22:54

Thanks for all the replies to my question, it's appreciated. I've got a far better idea of what was going on now.

raytaylor

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#667490 4-Aug-2012 15:25

Another issue that i see everyone overlooking is interpair crosstalk.

One of the issues was that people further away from the exchange or cabinet lost alot of their speed.

This was because their line ran in the same trunk cable as other people along their street and closer to the exchange.

When a bunch of dsl lines run inside the same cable, the lines will cause interference with each other over a distance.

As you get further out, your line will come into close contact with more lines and your modem will compensate for the interference by slowing down.

Those on the edges of DSL service that were only able to attain a 128-256k sync with the exchange would have simply lost all service from the extra interference that golarge was causing with people closer to the exchange surfing and downloading more.

Ray Taylor

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