Speed on Fibre - Looking Ahead

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1080p

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#79357 16-Mar-2011 20:44

I was just thinking the other day. Considering the dismal overall performance of New Zealand's current ADSL network; what will our national and international speeds look like when large numbers of the population begin to subscribe to fibre plans?

I am not at all sure on what changes will take place but am assuming that all the links (handover, backhaul, international transit) ISPs need to rent will still cost roughly the same amount and considering their networks can barely sustain ADSL2+ during peak usage, how will they ever be able to provide 100Mbit/s speeds?

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#449026 16-Mar-2011 20:51

Odds are many of the same issues will exist. ADSL now in many cases is only dismal because of ISP's refusing to pay for higher dimensioned handovers and bandwidth - the actual link between the end user and ISAM is now typically delivering every NZer who's on an upgraded exchange or cabinet ~15Mbps+ to the ISAM.

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#449032 16-Mar-2011 21:16

Hi, as Steve has eluded to the biggest issue with internet in NZ is no longer the distribution in your street (local DSL performance) but how various ISPs provide handover capability.

If you want good speeds then go with Telecom as this limitation of handover capability is mitigated, but that comes at a price.

As I see it the biggest issue with NZ internet is the cost and price that ISPs need to pay to provide a premium of service. The network at a techical level is good, infact I would go to say that the DSL network that Telecom currently has deployed with cabinets etc is world class, however the level of injection to that network that various ISPs can offer at a price is what causes limitations.

Once you move back from that limitation (which is easily overcome, $$ yours that is) then the next issue is the issues of distance from us to the rest of the world. Using basic HTTP type connections means speeds to the US or Europe will never exceed 3-5Mb/s even if you had a GigE pipe to your destination, ie latency issues impact.

Therefore to improve real speed to punters in NZ, you need to either sign up with a ISP that has good connections to Telecoms Wholesale network and an ISP that deploys good CDN gear locally

Cyril

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#449047 16-Mar-2011 21:51

Nothing wrong with the speeds of the internet in New Zealand

webwat

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#449061 16-Mar-2011 22:50

I'm sure the government will be interested in broadband speeds and prices too; the CFH open access requirements are supposed to ensure competition to reduce costs of handover and national transit. If that actually happens then we will be waiting for the new international link to be built, improving international connectivity. One would expect more domestic conent hosting as well.

There should be some improvement of service to end users, opportunities will take time to develop and I hope some of us can make them happen too.

Time to find a new industry!

Talkiet

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#449062 16-Mar-2011 22:51

Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

raytaylor

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#449069 16-Mar-2011 23:33

Nothing wrong with speeds - its the caps that are the problem.
Unless you are on an unlimited plan like slingshots where you expect a slow speed.

So with fibre, what people dont realise is that unless southern cross cables lower their pricing further, pacific fibre or kordia start laying cable then the exact same issue will be present. Good speeds in general - super fast national, but crap caps on usage for international and possibly national.

In australia they are promoting their national fibre network to be an industry / new usage creator - such as tv distribution or other new ideas for local data - the same thing will happen here. You will find new ideas and ways to use the fibre for local data at high speeds. Perhaps sky or freeview may come up with some sort of service where data intensive content can be delivered at a super low cost compared to ADSL.
But your international data is still at the limitation of the southern cross cable and your isp's international bandwidth supply.

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#449102 17-Mar-2011 07:41

johnr: Nothing wrong with the speeds of the internet in New Zealand

In a perfect world; of course there is. BUT unfortunately we are not in a perfect world.

Have anyone browsed international blogs similar to Geekzone? A Google search on adsl speeds brings up problems with slow downs from Aussie, UK, US, -basically everywhere.

Even YouTube has an FAQ dedicated to "are you experiencing slow speeds?".

The problem is not with the available technology, but our modern business model - making money, something that isn't going to change in our lifetime I feel.

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1080p

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#449123 17-Mar-2011 08:45

Cheers for the answers!

When I spoke of ADSL network performance I was referring to the wholesale cabinet/exchange handovers which (iirc) were provisioned by Telecom to allow 32(48?) Kbit/s per subscriber. As far as I know this isn't something ISPs can change. Has this now changed? Can the ISP request larger bandwidth per subscriber? What limit can the ISP request up to? Is this something an ISP can request on a per subscriber basis and offer for a premium or do they need to do it for all their customers?

Doesn't the typical ISP network look something like this?

Transit -- ISP Core -- Backhaul -- Exchange/Cabinet -- ISAM -- Customer

I would have assumed on everything wholesale (LLU is an exception) from the exchange to the customer would be Telecom Wholesale's department and not something ISPs could change.

Perhaps this is only my perspective, but from what I see online, hear from friends and experience myself the ADSL network still slows during the evening when the majority of the ISP's customers wish to make use of it.

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#449124 17-Mar-2011 08:47

The Key to making fiber work at a decent cost is keeping the content that users want local and I mean local to the ISP's handover point. Regional based peering exchanges with CDN nodes will help keep the pressure on national back hauling and international costs, combine this with decent caching and the average user will see 30mbit (UFB's main package) to the content they want.

Sure your torrents wont be as fast unless you get a peer connected to the IX but your youtube/akamai/itunes will go fast

Most problems are the result of previous solutions...

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cyril7

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#449130 17-Mar-2011 08:56

@1080p, Telecom Wholesale recently introduced an expanded range of products that includes handover rates to 96kb/s rather than the limit at 32kb/s. Naturally these come at a $ premium.

Cyril

SteveON

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#449153 17-Mar-2011 10:46

1080p: Considering the dismal overall performance of New Zealand's current ADSL network;

Seriously some people need to get a life - As JohnR says, there is no problem. 15Mb/s is really good! Most servers cant supply you with anywhere near this speed. What are you trying to get the backbone for a 100+ user organisation?

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#449154 17-Mar-2011 10:49

Yes and even with the 32kbit per subscriber limitations, you will find the average is always higher than this.
Eg. at 8pm:
My ISP slingshot - to speedtest.slingshot.co.nz i get 16 megabits
But to the WXC speedtest.net server i only get about 8 megabits
Then to sanfrancisco i get about 1 to 3 megabits

So the telecom backhaul is allowing me 16 megabits back to slingshots core - everything else is behind slingshot and their upstream bandwidth arrangements.

So the telecom network can deliver the speed - if the isp supplies it with the bandwidth.

As i understand, the 32kbit/s is a minimum guaranteed speed per DSL tail. Not the average speed delivered. Similar sorts of minimum speeds will be part of the norm on the fibre networks - but probably closer to 96kbits and likewise the auctual speed you get will be much higher.

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Talkiet

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#449156 17-Mar-2011 10:54

SteveON:
1080p: Considering the dismal overall performance of New Zealand's current ADSL network;

Seriously some people need to get a life - As JohnR says, there is no problem. 15Mb/s is really good! Most servers cant supply you with anywhere near this speed. What are you trying to get the backbone for a 100+ user organisation?

The problem is that most residential consumers knowingly or unknowingly expect Telcos and ISPs to run at a massive loss. The _vast_ majority of users (including most posters on GZ) simply have no idea of the cost structures behind building large, reliable networks.

Those that do understand the costs involved have learned in most cases to quietly facepalm at their comments.

However, I agree, the overall performance of the ADSL network in NZ is really good - there are of course a few problems, but many of those are now remedied by the ISPs paying a little more - I have heard all sorts of rumours that the ISPs were going to jump on this, but I'm not sure if any have put their money where their mouth is yet.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

timmmay

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#449157 17-Mar-2011 10:57

I suspect the limitations of TCP will be one of the biggest limits on our connection speeds, given the latency to get all the way from the US to NZ. It can be tweaked, but latency still matters. It's been a while since I looked at things at the protocol level though.

I have 15Mbps cable and it's plenty fast enough for me. Torrents with 10 peers saturate the connection. A good server in the US will give me 300KB/sec. I'd quite like a faster upload, as i'm a content creator, but with caps so low it'd only be of limited benefit - I could potentially outsource some work but it'd mean sending 100GB/month overseas.

I don't even know how i'd use a faster connection, maybe if high def streaming video reaches NZ then it'd be useful, if data allowances are increased to match.

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#449158 17-Mar-2011 11:02

timmmay:
I don't even know how i'd use a faster connection, maybe if high def streaming video reaches NZ then it'd be useful, if data allowances are increased to match.

I have always imagined it would be for things like video delivery from local servers. And to make that happen, the whole fibre network would need to support multicast

Ray Taylor

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