'Unlimited National Traffic'

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MikeAqua

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# 204853 20-Oct-2016 12:16

I'm looking at an internet connection for a second property (an apartment). One of the options is a plan with unlimited national traffic.

Seems great but I'm wondering how this works in practicality.

I'm guessing I can't do something simple like just use the .nz domain as an indicator.

How do I tell if the services I use most often are located nationally?

Mike

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# 1655051 20-Oct-2016 12:23

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They would most likely do it by GeoIP or similar. Unless theyve done it on the cheap and just counted *.nz addresses as "local".

You wouldnt know yourself unless you looked up the IP of each site youre visiting to see if its a "NZ" based IP or not.

Just because a site has a .co.nz address dosent mean a thing, my domain was hosted in the US, so would've be classed as international traffic.

IHUG used to do the same thing back in the original Ultra days, give unlimited national, but capped international - found a way around it, by using a proxy I knew of based in NZ, so all my traffic appeared to be national.

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richms

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# 1655063 20-Oct-2016 12:42

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You cant tell, and with the low cost of international now it is a really bizzare thing to be offering when it will lead to a crapload of complaints when people are on "NZ netflix" and it counts, or whatever else they think should be in the unlimited.

With CDNs there is a good chance that you will be bumped off to an aussie one for less popular videos even tho others are on the nz ones. Just a mess.

Richard rich.ms

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# 1655067 20-Oct-2016 12:47

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Using .nz as an indicator is just stupid end of story

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gehenna

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# 1655068 20-Oct-2016 12:49

Why not just get an unlimited plan? Then both national/international is uncapped and you don't need to worry.

unsignedint

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# 1655090 20-Oct-2016 13:44

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I have done this several years ago. It works reasonably well, but its not perfect. It used a Linux box as the "gateway" and so I'll describe the processing in terms of "iptables" (the program used to manage Linux kernel firewall rules).

1. create two chains: one DOMESTIC and one for INTERNATIONAL traffic

2. add forwarding rules for all traffic that matches NZ routed traffic to the DOMESTIC chain

3. add forwarding rule for all OTHER traffic to the INTERNATIONAL chain

4. done; read back iptables to find the number of packets/bytes that have touched either of the two chains.

Now, in (2) you need to actually get a list of .nz routes, this is generally done by scraping IP block whois information etc, and you can find databases or lists around the net. I remember a few thousand different routes.

Inherently depending on the quality of the routes you've added you'll have an idea of how effective this is. But you can do better to test them, for example ping addresses within each block and, say, if its <25ms (from Auckland) you're pretty much in NZ. etc.

Just to be clear: by "route" I mean the network routes, e.g. http://bgp.he.net/AS23655#_prefixes for example "111.69.16.0/20" is used by 2degrees in Christchurch (I presume). This has NOTHING to do with domain names! (We are looking at IP addresses).

darylblake

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# 1655092 20-Oct-2016 13:53

It would more than likely operate off the AS Number. I could be wrong, I don't know how their accounting is configured,

They probably have rules for their data accounting for any AS's in a particular list. So essentially the ISP Peers with other networks, and they say all traffic that goes to that network is free, or its not. This way they could say, all traffic to a final destination on AS4771 Telecom New Zealand Ltd, AS9500: Vodafone NZ Ltd, AS9503: FX Networks Limited etc... will be accounted using queue x. Otherwise accounted using queue Y. All traffic that doesn't leave the ISP's AS# will be counted as local as well.

The path the traffic takes to get you there is more important. IP Geo-stuff is just not accurate enough, we have ISP's trading IP addresses all over the show.

But why don't you just get an unlimited plan. Then you dont need to worry.

xpd

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# 1655121 20-Oct-2016 14:41

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Capped plans, especially those that do the whole "national vs international" are legacy and a joke these days IMHO.

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MikeAqua

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# 1655260 20-Oct-2016 17:23

gehenna:

Why not just get an unlimited plan? Then both national/international is uncapped and you don't need to worry.

I'm looking at several options.

The provider that offer unlimited national is NZ Wireless (actually a fixed line offer) they are the 'default' provider in the apartment building. I have no idea what that means. Their offering isn't that cheap - 500GB (50Mbps/50Mbps) for $85/month. Spark unlimited (20/2) is $85/month for the same price.

The building doesn't have fibre connected and spark don't offer VDSL for it. Perhaps NZ wireless have their own dedicated connection to the building or something?

The other option is not to bother with internet at all (this is a secondary home), use mobile data for low volume activities and watch DVDs instead of streaming (our main internet activity).

Mike

deadlyllama

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# 1655312 20-Oct-2016 19:34

Wow, I think I had a friend in Wellington in an apartment building with a similar deal.

It'll be "does this traffic go over our international transit connection? meter it."

500GB 50/50 for $85/mo isn't too bad. That's less than I use total, and some of what I use would probably count as national. NZ Wireless are probably too small to be able to offer "true unlimited" at those speeds. By comparison, my ISP (Inspire Net) do "flat rate", not unlimited, and over 3TB/month is cause for a chat and a suggestion to move somewhere else (no early termination fee).

quickymart

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# 1655315 20-Oct-2016 19:44

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Paradise used to measure their traffic that way. 10GB of international = 100GB as national. It was good for lots of local downloading but it's a different situation online these days.

raytaylor

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# 1655317 20-Oct-2016 19:51

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Its simply done by metering at the ISP's international border gateway rather than at the core or on your PPP session

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chevrolux

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# 1655429 20-Oct-2016 23:05

The provider that offer unlimited national is NZ Wireless (actually a fixed line offer) they are the 'default' provider in the apartment building. I have no idea what that means. Their offering isn't that cheap - 500GB (50Mbps/50Mbps) for $85/month. Spark unlimited (20/2) is $85/month for the same price.

I would suggest that the 50/50 product from NZ Wireless is FAR superior to a DSL solution from Spark (which you would be lucky to get 20/2 unless it was VDSL. I'm assuming at those speeds NZ Wireless would be getting ethernet directly to the apartment which is going to be super stable and awesome.

Personally, I love going to a hotel and finding it has a wifi solution from NZ Wireless. They peer everywhere important and the experience is awesome.

If streaming is what you want perhaps the Skinny fixed wireless product will work. 100GB from $50-odd/month. Probably enough if you aren't there much.

chevrolux

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# 1655433 20-Oct-2016 23:29

I knew I had read it somewhere before...

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=49&topicid=133488

MikeAqua

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# 1655546 21-Oct-2016 10:29

chevrolux:

The provider that offer unlimited national is NZ Wireless (actually a fixed line offer) they are the 'default' provider in the apartment building. I have no idea what that means. Their offering isn't that cheap - 500GB (50Mbps/50Mbps) for $85/month. Spark unlimited (20/2) is $85/month for the same price.

I would suggest that the 50/50 product from NZ Wireless is FAR superior to a DSL solution from Spark (which you would be lucky to get 20/2 unless it was VDSL. I'm assuming at those speeds NZ Wireless would be getting ethernet directly to the apartment which is going to be super stable and awesome.

Personally, I love going to a hotel and finding it has a wifi solution from NZ Wireless. They peer everywhere important and the experience is awesome.

If streaming is what you want perhaps the Skinny fixed wireless product will work. 100GB from $50-odd/month. Probably enough if you aren't there much.

Yes it's wired all the way to the apartment.

I rechecked the pricing and it's: -

$85 for 100GB @ 50/50 but ... $2/GB for overage

We will be there 3 - 4 nights per week, max of a couple of hours streaming per night so maybe 30 hours per month?

I could go with 100GB and cut Netflix back to medium quality (0.7GB/hour) when we hit 85GB.

Mike

gehenna

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# 1655555 21-Oct-2016 10:49

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Sucks how some apartment buildings have exclusive providers, means you get screwed on the pricing like in this case. Building owner probably gets some kickbacks.

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