Our recipe for better broadband

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, 2talk and Vocus) › Our recipe for better broadband

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insane

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#190670 19-Jan-2009 23:58

BazNZ: I just did a speed test to these servers at work who's ISP is Telstraclear...WOW !! Is this right?

yeah we can all post our work connections or in this case VPS but thats not quite on topic...

I'm interested in what Orcon are going to do about the customising of their prioritisation. There are a few ISPs out there in the UK that provide an interface for customers to prioritise their traffic on the fly so I dont see why Orcon cant using the same DPI equipment.

Ragnor

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#190673 20-Jan-2009 00:43

UK ISP's probably have a lot more money to throw around due to the larger market and better economies of scale.

Anarkist

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#191150 21-Jan-2009 22:04

Yawn. Less talk more action.

Please note: Any posts, comments, or contributions in this forum are posted by me as an individual acting in my own right and do not necessarily reflect the views of any company I work for, clients I've consulted for or anyone else.

w2krules

444 posts

Ultimate Geek

#191190 22-Jan-2009 02:43

Just read Scott's blog. They really seem to think that they're leading the broadband revolution in NZ and doing a great job. Well, not from where I sit.

The main problem with Internet performance in NZ are the pipes to the rest of the world. Here I was yesterday downloading a file from the UK at 25 kb/s. What's the point of ADSL 2+, high speed wireless technologies or fibre to the home when this is all the bandwidth we get? (I did download it much faster than this using a download manager. But most users won't know how to do this.)

So Orcon's answer to this is another cable? When the Southern Cross cable is running at a few percent of its capacity? Sorry, but I must be missing something here.

I was a geek before the word was invented!

BazNZ

258 posts

Ultimate Geek

#191192 22-Jan-2009 06:25

So all these Latency/Packet Loss problems that are currently being caused is LACK OF INTERNATIONAL BANDWIDTH !

grant_k

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#191215 22-Jan-2009 09:19

w2krules: So Orcon's answer to this is another cable? When the Southern Cross cable is running at a few percent of its capacity? Sorry, but I must be missing something here.

The thing that you (and all of us) are missing is competition in the marketplace for International Bandwidth out of NZ. The current owners of SCC include Telecom with a 50% shareholding and others whom I can't think of right now.

They have a monopoly and are exploiting it to the full whilst they can. All of us are paying the price in terms of expensive internet plans and degraded performance at peak times because our smaller ISPs cannot afford to purchase sufficient international bandwidth for the number of customers they have. Those that can afford sufficient international bandwidth e.g. Telecom Xtra and TelstraClear charge more for their plans, so whichever way you look at it, we, the NZ Internet Consuming Public, are being exploited by the SCC shareholders.

I agree, it is a shame that we need to duplicate the existing investment in undersea cabling merely to bring down the price of international bandwidth. From a technical viewpoint this doesn't make sense but from a marketing viewpoint it would seem to be the only way forward unless the SCC shareholders come to the party. Meanwhile, we all keep waiting in hope but definitely don't hold your breath...

jermsie

302 posts

Ultimate Geek

#191232 22-Jan-2009 10:34

grant_k:
w2krules: So Orcon's answer to this is another cable? When the Southern Cross cable is running at a few percent of its capacity? Sorry, but I must be missing something here.

The thing that you (and all of us) are missing is competition in the marketplace for International Bandwidth out of NZ. The current owners of SCC include Telecom with a 50% shareholding and others whom I can't think of right now.

They have a monopoly and are exploiting it to the full whilst they can. All of us are paying the price in terms of expensive internet plans and degraded performance at peak times because our smaller ISPs cannot afford to purchase sufficient international bandwidth for the number of customers they have. Those that can afford sufficient international bandwidth e.g. Telecom Xtra and TelstraClear charge more for their plans, so whichever way you look at it, we, the NZ Internet Consuming Public, are being exploited by the SCC shareholders.

I agree, it is a shame that we need to duplicate the existing investment in undersea cabling merely to bring down the price of international bandwidth. From a technical viewpoint this doesn't make sense but from a marketing viewpoint it would seem to be the only way forward unless the SCC shareholders come to the party. Meanwhile, we all keep waiting in hope but definitely don't hold your breath...

Amen to that.

– J

Ragnor

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#191266 22-Jan-2009 12:26

Some estimates predict that a competiting cable will halve the cost of international transit for NZ and AU.

Kyanar

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#191340 22-Jan-2009 16:48

Dratsab: Perhaps you're an ingredient that's not in their recipe??

To be honest, I'm an Orcon customer and I don't feel part of that recipe at all. My connection speed is pathetic (on LLU, $120/month) I'm getting 3Mb/s download speed, and that's just the attainable line rate. Demons only know how fast my actual connection is - all I know is it's pathetic, and doesn't match up to the talk of LLU delivering faster broadband at all. And it's not really cheaper either - I'm really paying the same amount.

What gives? Are we going to keep talking about faster, cheaper broadband (and I use the term "broadband" loosely, this is New Zealand after all) or are we going to actually do it? I still fail to see how I can lease a server in the states and get 2TB of bandwidth at 100Mb/s full duplex for NZ$250 or so, while my home connection I can't even get 10Mb/s for $120.

PenultimateHop

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#191344 22-Jan-2009 17:04

Kyanar:
Dratsab: Perhaps you're an ingredient that's not in their recipe??

To be honest, I'm an Orcon customer and I don't feel part of that recipe at all. My connection speed is pathetic (on LLU, $120/month) I'm getting 3Mb/s download speed, and that's just the attainable line rate. Demons only know how fast my actual connection is - all I know is it's pathetic, and doesn't match up to the talk of LLU delivering faster broadband at all. And it's not really cheaper either - I'm really paying the same amount.

What gives? Are we going to keep talking about faster, cheaper broadband (and I use the term "broadband" loosely, this is New Zealand after all) or are we going to actually do it? I still fail to see how I can lease a server in the states and get 2TB of bandwidth at 100Mb/s full duplex for NZ$250 or so, while my home connection I can't even get 10Mb/s for $120.

The quote 'champagne taste, beer budget' comes to my mind. You have received cheaper and faster broadband over the last few years (when I lived in Wellington, I paid circa $100/month for 2Mbps/192K DSL with a 10GB cap, by the time I had included the cost of the POTS line I never used - I moved out of Wellington at the end of 2006). Getting 3Mbps for $120-ish sounds quite reasonable, as I would bet that is with a much larger data cap too.

Looking at what you have quoted with your server (a virtual instance or actual dedicated hardware?) in the US, is 2TB of bandwidth on a 100Mbps port. That equates to 6.4Mbps sustained over a month in a single direction to get 2TB, or 3Mbps if the data is accounted bidirectionally. You could look at it as purchasing a 100Mbps PIR with a 6Mbps CIR.

If you actually ran your 100Mbps port flat-out, I guarantee you your ISP would either disconnect you or send you a lovely large bill. Not to mention the cost of transit on a 10G port in the US is around the $4/Mb mark, so your ISP is marking that 6Mbps up quite chronically.

It's very similar to your DSL: you could look at it as a 24M PIR (or whatever your sync rate is; obviously if your sync rate is poor you're either at the max loop length or you're on crap copper) with an approximately 100Kbps CIR, depending on your data cap.

Dratsab

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#191361 22-Jan-2009 18:34

Ragnor: Some estimates predict that a competiting cable will halve the cost of international transit for NZ and AU.

Any links for these?

While I have no doubt that, on the face of it, the cost of international traffic could be reduced by the installation of a competing cable, the cynic in me doubts consumers would have much, if anything, in the way of savings passed to them.

Ragnor

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#191427 23-Jan-2009 01:09

I didn't say it would halve the cost for conumsers :)

engty

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#191493 23-Jan-2009 11:28

Yes, more ACTION, less TALK. Deliver Orcon+ LLU to Birkdale/Beach Haven pls :-)

w2krules

444 posts

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#191573 23-Jan-2009 15:00

grant_k:
w2krules: So Orcon's answer to this is another cable? When the Southern Cross cable is running at a few percent of its capacity? Sorry, but I must be missing something here.

The thing that you (and all of us) are missing is competition in the marketplace for International Bandwidth out of NZ. The current owners of SCC include Telecom with a 50% shareholding and others whom I can't think of right now.

They have a monopoly and are exploiting it to the full whilst they can. All of us are paying the price in terms of expensive internet plans and degraded performance at peak times because our smaller ISPs cannot afford to purchase sufficient international bandwidth for the number of customers they have. Those that can afford sufficient international bandwidth e.g. Telecom Xtra and TelstraClear charge more for their plans, so whichever way you look at it, we, the NZ Internet Consuming Public, are being exploited by the SCC shareholders.

I agree, it is a shame that we need to duplicate the existing investment in undersea cabling merely to bring down the price of international bandwidth. From a technical viewpoint this doesn't make sense but from a marketing viewpoint it would seem to be the only way forward unless the SCC shareholders come to the party. Meanwhile, we all keep waiting in hope but definitely don't hold your breath...

The other main shareholder in the SCC is Optus. Yes, they do have a monopoly, but how is it that Telecom and Telstra can provide adequate international bandwidth when Orcon can't? I'm sure that all ISPs are paying similar rates for international bandwidth - I'd expect that Telecom's SCC shareholding sits with Telecom Wholesale.

And the SCC will not be duplicated - this is a loop with a total length of 30,500 km that crosses the Pacific twice. PPC-2 will piggyback onto the PPC-1 cable which will connect Sydney to Guam, so PPC-2 will be about 2,000 km long.

And gamers, according to the SCC website their cable is not responsible for much of the latency to the US : It takes only seven hundredths of a second for information to go from Australia to the US on the Southern Cross Network.

I was a geek before the word was invented!

PenultimateHop

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#191605 23-Jan-2009 16:15

w2krules: The other main shareholder in the SCC is Optus. Yes, they do have a monopoly, but how is it that Telecom and Telstra can provide adequate international bandwidth when Orcon can't? I'm sure that all ISPs are paying similar rates for international bandwidth - I'd expect that Telecom's SCC shareholding sits with Telecom Wholesale.

Telecom (50%), Optus/Singtel (40%), Verizon (10%). I can't remember if it is Telecom International or another investment arm which owns the SX shareholding.

ISPs generally pay transit rates based on volume commitments, contract length, which service provider they're buying from (Pacnet, for instance, is very cheap in general), relationship, etc. Someone buying 1Mbps might pay $400-800/Mbps, someone buying 1000Mbps might pay $80-100/Mbps.

w2krules: And gamers, according to the SCC website their cable is not responsible for much of the latency to the US : It takes only seven hundredths of a second for information to go from Australia to the US on the Southern Cross Network.

Which is 70msec, and since generally you need a response packet back, that makes a round trip time of 140msec on the transmission network, excluding routing/switching delays, backhaul to/from the network, and any other transmission requirements (e.g. if you're in Melbourne and the game server is in Chicago, the Sydney-LA delay is only part of the equation).

So yes, their network does make up a significant component of the latency between Australia (and NZ) and the US, but there isn't much they can do about it until someone figures out how to increase the speed of light in fiber.

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