UFB Connection Handover to ISP's BNG

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › UFB Connection Handover to ISP's BNG - who to ask?

thelonepinetree

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#302087 27-Oct-2022 17:47

I have a residential UFB connection in Ohakune (roughly half way between Auckland and Wellington) in a holiday home. I've been with Stuff Fibre in the past, but moved in May to Spark as had a deal with work. I've noticed a bit more lag with the Spark connection to what we used to have with Stuff Fibre (before they became Slingshot), so I did some investigations. It appears that now (with Spark), all my traffic is routed to Palmerston North and then to Wellington. I get ping for Wellington based servers like TradeMe or NZHerald at 6ms, which is great. For all other traffic - Auckland or international, my traffic is still routed via Wellington - so for sites in Auckland I get 17ms, and for all international traffic I get 10-11ms more lag on Spark than with old Stuff Fibre. This is obviously very subtle, but with months using it, I have noticed enough to do some inquiries.

I asked Voyager - if I switched to them, would my traffic still go via Wellington - they confirmed that yes, it would still be routed via Wellington due to their current Chorus setup. I asked Spark - they confirmed that there's no other option and no further explanation. Also asked Vodafone - couldn't get through the 1st level support - they assured me that the connection will be "very fast" (lol, fail).

Question: is there any way to find out the closest UFB handover point to Ohakune, and which ISP have BNG there, and would they send international traffic north to Auckland from there or south to Wellington first? Or perhaps this could be something I could get lower lag with different UFB plans or Hyperfibre?

danfaulknor

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Prodigi

#2988881 27-Oct-2022 17:52

We tail extend everything to Auckland and just handover from Chorus in Auckland, and I would hope Chorus would send that direct to Auckland, but I'm not sure without asking Chorus.

Looking at the Chorus fibre maps, there is fibre going north from Ohakune to Auckland (via Hamilton etc), as well as one going South to Wellington via Palmerston North.

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skewt

750 posts

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#2988889 27-Oct-2022 18:49

If you were happy with stuff fibre when they used the devoli network, you could try find another ISP that uses it

I think contact energy do, unsure of others

nztim

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TEAMnetwork

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#2988926 27-Oct-2022 20:10

Take your pick, some RSPs only have a point of presence in Auckland others have a Point of presence in Auckland/Wellington/Christchurch and peer with the local IX there (it doesn't take a genius to see how many people peer on the Auckland IX vs the Wellington or CHCH IX

so, if you want fast international go with one that is layer2 to Auckland and then leaves their point of presence from there.

However, if you have a site-to-site VPN between two UFBs in say Wellington and Christchurch you are better off with an RSP that goes from the local BNG and then routes the traffic directly VS both connections been layer2 to Auckland which would be a 35ms round trip

The saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too :)

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myfullflavour

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#2988928 27-Oct-2022 20:21

The nearest location to Ohakune that Chorus will hand the traffic over to (without it potentially going on a tikky tour) is Palmerston North.

I would suggest signing up with local Manawatu ISP Inspire Net, almost guarantee they will have a Chorus handover there.

BarTender

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#2988930 27-Oct-2022 20:36

Also there is no way to get moved to another handover with your ISP. All handovers between Chorus and the ISP get terminated to the same regional location. Spark have BNGs close to Chorus handover points, often in the same exchange as the Chrous to ISP connection is not diverse or redundant so if there is a fibre cut on the handover then everyone is toast. Whereas the BNG has two diverse connections into the MPLS core so if one gets cut everything keeps on working. Or that was how it was setup when I worked there and I doubt it would have changed.

yitz

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#2988933 27-Oct-2022 20:56

Chorus Tail Extension Service is newish too so even if you switch back you may find arrangements different to those 3-5 years ago where third party backhaul was required into regions.

Also is revealed that Chorus are undertaking upgrades to their national/domestic network causing traffic to take different routes.

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=190&topicid=299185&page_no=1#2964209

May be a sign of the future, tromboning traffic down and back up the country is cheap with 100+ Gbps.

myfullflavour

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#2988937 27-Oct-2022 21:14

BarTender: Also there is no way to get moved to another handover with your ISP. All handovers between Chorus and the ISP get terminated to the same regional location.

Not quite true. If an ISP uses Chorus tail extensions, the ISP can choose to terminate the individual subscriber on any handover they like.

yitz:
Chorus Tail Extension Service is newish too so even if you switch back you may find arrangements different to those 3-5 years ago where third-party backhaul was required into regions.

I wonder how widespread tail extensions are, as they only make sense for really remote areas or for small ISPs that don't have enough subscribers in a region to justify presence at the local POP.

In the OP example, handover to Palmerston North = free, and handover to Wellington or anywhere else incurs the ISP additional cost.

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callumb

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Devoli

#2988942 27-Oct-2022 21:45

We (Devoli) can sort this no dramas. Happy to have a chat.