Why no unlimited broadband packages in New Zealand?

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magicmonkey

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#36919 3-Jul-2009 15:35

This may be a silly question but please bear with me!

Could anyone tell me why we get changed for usage over here? I'm a pom and used to the monthly charge being the only charge so it's come as a bit of a shocker!

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#230744 3-Jul-2009 15:57

Welcome to Geekzone magicmonkey

magicmonkey: This may be a silly question but please bear with me!

Could anyone tell me why we get changed for usage over here? I'm a pom and used to the monthly charge being the only charge so it's come as a bit of a shocker!

I think its to do with our location, as we are quite a way from the USA etc.. (Compared to the UK), and that overseas bandwidth is not cheep, that’s why NZ / Australia has bandwidth / data caps, and I have heard the UK are getting data caps as well, as people are using too much bandwidth.

Back in 2006 Telecom released a plan call Go Large which offered Unlimited downloads, it went down the toilet as every one was downloading lots & it slowed right down, and Telecom had to refund all the Go Large users due to the problems they had.

If you Google Go Large or Search Geekzone or any NZ internet forum, you will find threads about people complying about Go Large and there are still people including me who are still on Go Large, One a lot of the people left Go Large, Go Large got a lot better.

In a couple of days time Telecom is going to release another Unlimited downloads plan see this thread: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=39&topicid=36644

Hope this helps

magicmonkey

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Wannabe Geek

#230749 3-Jul-2009 16:08

Thanks for that Stu :D

It's a shame I'm in a rented house with Telstra, I can't change to a decent package!

The UK has had traffic shaping pretty much since the advent of broadband AFAIK, is that what you mean by bandwidth caps or are you meaning data caps?

I'm a bit unsure as to why the international data cost so much though. I'm sure there must be a mark up, ISP's are businesses after all, but I can't quite fathom where the actual post set up costs are. Is there some subtlety of kiwi network structure I'm missing?

friedCrumpet

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#230761 3-Jul-2009 16:23

I'm a bit unsure as to why the international data cost so much though. I'm sure there must be a mark up, ISP's are businesses after all, but I can't quite fathom where the actual post set up costs are. Is there some subtlety of kiwi network structure I'm missing?

There's basically only one cable that services New Zealand, so there is limited capacity and increased costs - but mostly (in my opinion) it's monopoly pricing.

You can compare by looking at an undersea cable map the number of cables connecting the UK/Europe with the rest of the world and the measily two (actually only one split into mutiple parts) that we have.

stu28

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#230790 3-Jul-2009 17:06

magicmonkey: The UK has had traffic shaping pretty much since the advent of broadband AFAIK, is that what you mean by bandwidth caps or are you meaning data caps?

No, I was meaning data caps

Sorry

Ragnor

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#230791 3-Jul-2009 17:08

1: Poor economies of scale, due to NZ's small population ISP's aren't large enough to get better data transit pricing like huge ISP's overseas

2: Lack of competition probably around 90% of ADSL connections are via Telecom wholesale equipment, for most ISP's the only option to provide ADSL is via Telecom wholesale equipment. Only in Auckland and Wellington and recently have other ISP's been able to invest into installing gear in the exchanges. You can get Cable in Wellington and Christchurch but there's no competition to ADSL in Auckland other than wireless which is pretty much a joke.

3: The majority of the content on the internet that NZ'ers access is hosted in the US, the cost to provide 1GB of international data for an ISP is estimated to be around $0.50 per GB, most ISP's charge around $1-2 for extra GB's of data.

Things are improving slowly over time though:

More options for internet access (wireless, mobile broadband, future fibre network)
Better local caching of data, ISP's have started to realise the benefits in investing in caching data
Better caching technology for p2p
Regulation of the industry has improved in recent years (local loop unbundling, sub loop unbundling etc)
Proposed 2nd submarine cable to Australia

jpollock

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#230826 3-Jul-2009 19:13

Additionally, US backbone access providers charge $$ if the traffic is asymmetrical.

Since most of the traffic is flowing from the US to New Zealand, ISPs in New Zealand have to pay for access.

Or, at least that's what I've heard previously.

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#231059 4-Jul-2009 22:52

Well as bad as it may sound to have caps I do feel that connectivity in NZ had improved dramatically if we look back on a few years .

In the not so distant past ie 2004 the fastet connections ADSL were 2mb/s with rather low data options.[yeah I know there were full speed DSL plans avaliable in 2004 with pathetic what 600MB caps so that doesnt really count]

While monthly net conectivity costs have not exactly decreased, speeds and overall reliability have improved so its looking better each year.

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#231112 5-Jul-2009 08:36

The OP notes they are with TelstraClear. While TCL offer great service in most respects, perhaps because of their weird peering arrangements (or lack thereof) all traffic is charged for, local or international. That's really annoying since it means I can't really go and watch TVNZ online or even TV3 online since it eats into my 40GB allowance. Yet if there were peering at the WIX say, that would incur no international traffic costs for TCL.

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.

freitasm

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#231114 5-Jul-2009 08:45

lchiu7: The OP notes they are with TelstraClear. While TCL offer great service in most respects, perhaps because of their weird peering arrangements (or lack thereof) all traffic is charged for, local or international. That's really annoying since it means I can't really go and watch TVNZ online or even TV3 online since it eats into my 40GB allowance. Yet if there were peering at the WIX say, that would incur no international traffic costs for TCL.

Regardless of "international traffic costs", all ISPs count local and international traffic anyway, so this is not something unique to TelstraClear.

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lchiu7

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#231117 5-Jul-2009 09:14

Perhaps but I am about to provision a business line and there is unlimited domestic traffic on the account. So it can't be costing them too much to do that. Plus the cost of the line isn't that high for 25Mbs symmetric

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.

kingjj

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#231119 5-Jul-2009 09:33

Other than Telecom's New Plan there has been a true unlimited plan available for a while through Actrix's "Broadband Elite", for a meager $596 (currently on special for $496) a month you get true unlimited data through an ADSL connection http://actrix.co.nz/page.php?id=194.

Chump change really?

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freitasm

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#231120 5-Jul-2009 09:34

lchiu7: Perhaps but I am about to provision a business line and there is unlimited domestic traffic on the account. So it can't be costing them too much to do that. Plus the cost of the line isn't that high for 25Mbs symmetric

Business Line... It's a different thing. Consumers don't get that.

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freitasm

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#231121 5-Jul-2009 09:37

kingjj: Other than Telecom's New Plan there has been a true unlimited plan available for a while through Actrix's "Broadband Elite", for a meager $596 (currently on special for $496) a month you get true unlimited data through an ADSL connection http://actrix.co.nz/page.php?id=194.

Chump change really?

I pay about $149 a month for my cable modem connection with 80GB. Even downloading movies through iTunes and working from home 100% of the time (plus we have five PCs in the network here) we still get through quite well. Some months we do go over - the most we used was 130GB in a month.

I wonder if people using "unlimited" connections would even have spare time enough to enjoy the "content" they can absorb with all that traffic...

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muppet

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#231134 5-Jul-2009 11:09

I'm in the UK at the moment, soon to be returning to NZ.

I am going to miss the UK's fast speeds and unlimited plans, if only because you don't have to be constantly checking a usage metre! I will soon feel your pain, magicmonkey.
Even so, here in the UK I'm with Virgin Media and they will throttle you if you download too much during the day (I think it's about 3G at the moment gets you rate-shaped for ~6 hours)

Ragnor is spot on though. The biggest reason is his #3, the cost of International Data in NZ is still very expensive. It's a small island with only so many ways out. The guys that own those few ways out can charge a lot of money for it.

Until there is more competition in the undersea cable market, pricing will never be structured the same in NZ as it is in the UK.

@freitasm: You forget that people like to do the right thing and seed their torrents (legit or not - not my point) I use my home service here as a backup MX for my primary one. It gets a lot of spam etc and for that reason it's just nice to have an unlimited connection. It doesn't mean you're "seeing"/making-use-of all those bits at the end of the day.

Audiophiles are such twits! They buy such pointless stuff: Gold plated cables, $2000 power cords. Idiots.

OOOHHHH HYPERFIBRE!

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#231135 5-Jul-2009 11:12

muppet: @freitasm: You forget that people like to do the right thing and seed their torrents (legit or not - not my point)

No, I didn't forget that. I just didn't want to touch on the subject.

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