Trans-Tasman Capacity Upgrade

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NickMack

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#268432 19-Mar-2020 16:03

Hi All,

In light of the current Covid-19 climate, a lot of businesses and customers are preparing to work from home. Today we have added 100Gb Trans-Tasman capacity to provide for the unknown. We are in the process of adding additional diversity and upgrading our Australian handovers to take advantage of this additional capacity. I'll keep you posted as we continue and complete these upgrades.

Nick.

https://nick.mackechnie.co.nz | NZ ISP latency monitoring - https://smokeping.thenet.gen.nz

Mahon

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#2446721 25-Mar-2020 22:21

Great, however tonight I struggled streaming television during peak. I am assuming demand for international bandwidth is at record levels? Also quite high latency to US WoW servers approx 300ms. Latency to Aussie servers was still around 50 which is normal so I assume its the NZ to US that is stretched.

Mahon

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#2446757 26-Mar-2020 00:05

and further, getting 2.5 mbps down 7.73 up on an ethernet connection to LA. IS 2 degrees looking at capacity to US or is out of your control due to the current crisis?

Linux

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#2446760 26-Mar-2020 00:12

Mahon:

and further, getting 2.5 mbps down 7.73 up on an ethernet connection to LA. IS 2 degrees looking at capacity to US or is out of your control due to the current crisis?

Well this might the internet for the near future so you will just have to take it as it comes!

Mahon

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#2446762 26-Mar-2020 00:16

Linux:

Mahon:

and further, getting 2.5 mbps down 7.73 up on an ethernet connection to LA. IS 2 degrees looking at capacity to US or is out of your control due to the current crisis?

Well this might the internet for the near future so you will just have to take it as it comes!

Yes its looking that way. But thought I would check that it isnt some sort of fault or if capacity may be upgraded.

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#2446766 26-Mar-2020 00:22

I am sure the ISPs will be in black out mode and only doing work to keep the lights on (internet going)

michaelmurfy

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#2446777 26-Mar-2020 01:54

@Mahon You've mentioned problems streaming "Television" and WoW in the past however in the past you were also using WiFi. That is problem #1 if you're still doing that.

You don't mention what "Television" you're streaming. Is this some dodgy illegal stream? As for both WoW and your "Television" provider you do understand that many services would be under intense load? This is outside of the control of whatever ISP you're with and you have to be a bit more patient with some online services. Personally with me I've noticed many websites appear to be running slower or even some sites fully down but at the same time I know that traffic to these sites would be an order of magnitude greater too. It is not just NZ on a lockdown, the world is in a crisis.

New Zealand has excellent broadband and connectivity and to services I personally manage hosted in the US, Australia and the EU I have not personally noticed any speed or latency differences. I also personally track latency to these services also.

Related: I personally host a very busy website and traffic has gone from ~1.3mil hits per day to ~4mil hits per day, my servers are having to work much harder also and I've had to add additional capacity within the last week. I also work on one of the busiest apps and websites for one of the biggest corporate bodies here in New Zealand and can tell you the traffic we've seen has been the worst I've ever seen it in my long-term history of working there and we've had to frantically add more capacity to ensure customers can keep using these essential apps / websites. You've also likely touched either apps / websites I personally manage and people who know me do know what I am talking about.

And lastly don't trust Speedtests, stop doing Speedtests and for now ignore your internet speed. Like everything I have spoken about above I could well imagine these can be somewhat overloaded with everyone doing tests thinking their internet is running slow when in reality it isn't. It gives a false impression of how your connectivity to the rest of the world is currently.

So in conclusion, be patient, stop complaining, your ISP will be watching the traffic graphs especially during today with the full lockdown and upgrading routes as they reach capacity to ensure a positive customer experience. It is in their best interest to and perhaps find a backup service / game to play during the lockdown period as I can fully expect these to go down under heavy load at any given time.

And stay at home.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
Referral Links: Quic Broadband (use R122101E7CV7Q for free setup)

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Mahon

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#2446820 26-Mar-2020 08:41

michaelmurfy:

@Mahon You've mentioned problems streaming "Television" and WoW in the past however in the past you were also using WiFi. That is problem #1 if you're still doing that.

You don't mention what "Television" you're streaming. Is this some dodgy illegal stream? As for both WoW and your "Television" provider you do understand that many services would be under intense load? This is outside of the control of whatever ISP you're with and you have to be a bit more patient with some online services. Personally with me I've noticed many websites appear to be running slower or even some sites fully down but at the same time I know that traffic to these sites would be an order of magnitude greater too. It is not just NZ on a lockdown, the world is in a crisis.

New Zealand has excellent broadband and connectivity and to services I personally manage hosted in the US, Australia and the EU I have not personally noticed any speed or latency differences. I also personally track latency to these services also.

Related: I personally host a very busy website and traffic has gone from ~1.3mil hits per day to ~4mil hits per day, my servers are having to work much harder also and I've had to add additional capacity within the last week. I also work on one of the busiest apps and websites for one of the biggest corporate bodies here in New Zealand and can tell you the traffic we've seen has been the worst I've ever seen it in my long-term history of working there and we've had to frantically add more capacity to ensure customers can keep using these essential apps / websites. You've also likely touched either apps / websites I personally manage and people who know me do know what I am talking about.

And lastly don't trust Speedtests, stop doing Speedtests and for now ignore your internet speed. Like everything I have spoken about above I could well imagine these can be somewhat overloaded with everyone doing tests thinking their internet is running slow when in reality it isn't. It gives a false impression of how your connectivity to the rest of the world is currently.

So in conclusion, be patient, stop complaining, your ISP will be watching the traffic graphs especially during today with the full lockdown and upgrading routes as they reach capacity to ensure a positive customer experience. It is in their best interest to and perhaps find a backup service / game to play during the lockdown period as I can fully expect these to go down under heavy load at any given time.

And stay at home.

I wasnt complaining!

I was questioning to see if this could be the new norm for a while. My main online activity is wow and I play from a US server and last night I couldnt and the speedtest showed me why. ALso heard that a lot of businesses/people are throwing large amounts of data on the cloud to enable people to work from home. I assume this could have an effect as well.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

darkasdes2

428 posts

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#2446834 26-Mar-2020 08:57

michaelmurfy:

@Mahon You've mentioned problems streaming "Television" and WoW in the past however in the past you were also using WiFi. That is problem #1 if you're still doing that.

You don't mention what "Television" you're streaming. Is this some dodgy illegal stream? As for both WoW and your "Television" provider you do understand that many services would be under intense load? This is outside of the control of whatever ISP you're with and you have to be a bit more patient with some online services. Personally with me I've noticed many websites appear to be running slower or even some sites fully down but at the same time I know that traffic to these sites would be an order of magnitude greater too. It is not just NZ on a lockdown, the world is in a crisis.

New Zealand has excellent broadband and connectivity and to services I personally manage hosted in the US, Australia and the EU I have not personally noticed any speed or latency differences. I also personally track latency to these services also.

Related: I personally host a very busy website and traffic has gone from ~1.3mil hits per day to ~4mil hits per day, my servers are having to work much harder also and I've had to add additional capacity within the last week. I also work on one of the busiest apps and websites for one of the biggest corporate bodies here in New Zealand and can tell you the traffic we've seen has been the worst I've ever seen it in my long-term history of working there and we've had to frantically add more capacity to ensure customers can keep using these essential apps / websites. You've also likely touched either apps / websites I personally manage and people who know me do know what I am talking about.

And lastly don't trust Speedtests, stop doing Speedtests and for now ignore your internet speed. Like everything I have spoken about above I could well imagine these can be somewhat overloaded with everyone doing tests thinking their internet is running slow when in reality it isn't. It gives a false impression of how your connectivity to the rest of the world is currently.

So in conclusion, be patient, stop complaining, your ISP will be watching the traffic graphs especially during today with the full lockdown and upgrading routes as they reach capacity to ensure a positive customer experience. It is in their best interest to and perhaps find a backup service / game to play during the lockdown period as I can fully expect these to go down under heavy load at any given time.

And stay at home.

I dont think it was a complaint either.

To the OP, I had issues streaming of CBS all access last night (buffering every 5 seconds) but had no issues with NZ content such as Amazon Prime.

Good to know that I wasn't the only one having issues as well.

HTPC connected by Ethernet to 200/20 Fibre plan with 2 Degrees (before people assume I was connecting to the Fritzbox by wifi).

NickMack

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#2446870 26-Mar-2020 09:50

Hi All,

Quick update - Trans-Tasman and links around NZ are looking great, For the direct US paths we are waiting on some additional capacity within the US (order is in), we are seeing some congestion at peek times.

Nick.

https://nick.mackechnie.co.nz | NZ ISP latency monitoring - https://smokeping.thenet.gen.nz

darkasdes2

428 posts

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#2446872 26-Mar-2020 09:56

Thanks for the update Nick, much appreciated.

Mahon

473 posts

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#2446883 26-Mar-2020 10:11

NickMack:

Hi All,

Quick update - Trans-Tasman and links around NZ are looking great, For the direct US paths we are waiting on some additional capacity within the US (order is in), we are seeing some congestion at peek times.

Nick.

Awesome. Good to know

timmmay

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#2446886 26-Mar-2020 10:14

Nice work Nick / 2degrees, good to see capacity being added to cater for what is clearly a higher load.

NickMack

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#2451969 1-Apr-2020 09:06

Update - We added more capacity to handovers in Australia last week to take advantage of the additional Trans-Tasman, yesterday our newly deployed (last week) Apple caches filled - great timing for the new apple updates released and more capacity to our google caches :-)

Nick

https://nick.mackechnie.co.nz | NZ ISP latency monitoring - https://smokeping.thenet.gen.nz