MyRepublic

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › MyRepublic - New Fibre-only ISP

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MyRepublic

#138959 23-Jan-2014 09:29

Hi all, I'm Jonathan from MyRepublic, a new fibre-only ISP planning to set up shop in NZ. We've had a pretty good run over at the Singapore branch, and are looking to enter the NZ internet market as we believe that the UFB network allows us to jump in and shake the market up while offering superior services at affordable prices.

With that, we're posting here to check what you guys are looking for in your ISP - be it stability, speed, price or any extra services, and implementing them when we start offering fibre broadband plans to the public. Any feedback that you guys can offer will be invaluable!

Thanks everyone!

Jonathan

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Chorusnz

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Chorus

#972701 23-Jan-2014 11:07

You can expect to get a great deal of wit/humour, frustration/pathos, a great deal of advice as well as the feedback you are seeking, from this community.

Welcome to the market!

^GL

Whinery

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#1152312 12-Oct-2014 18:08

NonprayingMantis:

I partly agree, but if myrepublic are making claims about something they claim no other ISp does, then that does become about other ISPs. In which case I think it's perfectly reasonable for other ISPs to respond to that.

For starters, we have more bandwidth contracted per subscriber than any other ISP (based on the numbers when we are full). However, proving that is hard, because no other ISP publishes their number, so we've had to rely on word of mouth and rumour to come to that conclusion. So, get The Other Guys to state how much international bandwidth they buy per customer, and I'll give our number. Ours was stated verbally in front of press, but I don't think anyone picked up that detail.

And for the moment, we've built the network for thousands of customers, and we don't have any on yet, so no other ISP would be even close.

Or are you going to tell me that most of the others have 40 Gbps capacity per 100 Mbps subscriber? Because when we turn on the first guy, that'll be about right.

That's about as much capacity as any of the large national ISPs, and we'll be expanding that long before we get to the number of customers they have.

And there are piles of improvements queued.

I'm sure there are some small ISPs that do some interesting things, but they aren't available for most. MyRepublic launched nation-wide. I'm happy to take the best from the local/regional ISPs and make it available on a national level, but the comparisons were aimed at national carriers, as they are the ones everyone knows about. We aren't trying to slight any accomplishments made by the smaller ISPs, but we (like most of NZ) don't know about them, and being unable to buy the service, wouldn't be running across them casually.

So, what are the interesting features from the smaller ISPs that you'd like to see a national ISP pick up and run with?

Regards,
Marc Whinery
Senior Product Manager, MyRepublic

Whinery

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#1152359 12-Oct-2014 20:08

MichaelNZ:
Whinery:

Would it make sense if we had the bandwidth and connection in place, and have a commercial agreement to where we are paying for only what we use day-1, but could deliver 40 Gbps day one, but our bill would be higher for it?

I said we could serve that bandwidth. You made the incorrect assumption I was paying for it.

Really? A 40Gbps capable router is a major expense.

And not just one, because you have to have redundancy. MyRepublic raised $100,000,000 of new funding last year (to expand into NZ and elsewhere). At least $10 of that went to get us two of the best $5 routers we could find. </sarcasm>

Yes, we have some startup costs to make back. We didn't start like most, with a single 100 Mbps handover on a single exchange serving a single coverage area. We built a network that could hold many thousands of customers across the country on day-1.

The chassis have 100G cards available for them (not used, because nobody else is up to that to interconnect with). I think the chassis is rated to 4Tbps, but I didn't pay attention to the theoretical details we'll need to worry about years away, I worried more about the details we need to worry about this week.

But it's not that hard. The Alcatel-Lucent/Huawei/Junipers used by Telecom, Vodafone and others, any one of those can handle 100% of the NZ Internet, and they are $10k empty, and over $1M full (though in practice not every slot is maximum cost, and numbers rounded for effect). Multiples are needed for features and geography. Separating P from PE, multiple types of PE nodes, and other reasons, but the chassis capabilities of the top-end routers well exceed the throughput needs of NZ. In just one of them.

So yes, we tried to spend money to do it right. And we have upgrades planned.

Regards,
Marc Whinery
Senior Product Manager, MyRepublic

eXDee

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#1152883 13-Oct-2014 14:32

MichaelNZ:
PhantomNVD:
I for one am keen to see new ideas and enthusiasm enter our market, glad that another international player has come to try 'shake things up' and happy to see how it pans out over time. Lets now give them their chance and SUPPORT the effort and expense they are making, as even IF it goes the way you say, they WILL be making a 'best effort' to do something different, and have their go.

So far nobody has adequately explained what this market needs that is not being met already.

If I hopped everytime some new ISP offered me a marketing line like this, I'd be changing every month.

So don't buy into it then.

The more competition the better, and even attempts to innovate and differentiate are valuable in the marketplace, whether you believe it to be or not.

Whinery

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#1153014 13-Oct-2014 16:55

ckc: I have a question. I was told in another thread that it's not financially viable for UFB providers to operate in certain areas like Kapiti, where I'm moving to next week, because there's a high initial equipment/backhaul/handover cost and an ongoing cost that wouldn't be covered by just a few customers.

So... if no other providers except Spark are operating in Kapiti because they don't think it's viable, how can you offer it there and make it viable? I checked my address and got the green light to sign up. But as someone pointed out, it's a VF cable area, a relatively small town, so there's probably VF saturation there, so no real hope of a return in the short-medium. Or long, when you consider VF also offer Sky and their total cable package comes in at $50 less than UFB + Sky.

So... I'm all for supporting competition, but how is this possible if all the other ISPs are shying away from Kapiti? Are you buying wholesale? If so, does that affect the promised service? Because I really like what you're offering and your overseas pedigree, but I'm a little reluctant to sign up without knowing what might happen.

:)

I don't know how the other guys haven't figured it out. It wasn't hard. The head of MyRepublic here is a non-technical lawyer. So he spent all his time talking money with suppliers, getting us deals that nobody else has. Maybe the other ISPs just don't know how to ask nicely.

We'll win against VF, once we get people like yourself using us and telling everyone what you think about us. We just need to get people on right now. Hence our 3 month free trial, no long term lock in.

Regards,
Marc Whinery
Senior Product Manager, MyRepublic