Would we be better off without UFB?

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#1410372 21-Oct-2015 10:19

Sounddude: One thing to keep in mind, there is a date far in the future which ISP's can unbundle the Fibre network by putting their GPON kit into the exchanges, very much like what has happened in the ADSL/VDSL world.

If that actually happens is another story, but its currently in the deal with LFC's.

It's not that far in the future in terms of the planning and investment/build required to do it.

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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.

sbiddle

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#1410386 21-Oct-2015 10:48

Sounddude: One thing to keep in mind, there is a date far in the future which ISP's can unbundle the Fibre network by putting their GPON kit into the exchanges, very much like what has happened in the ADSL/VDSL world.

If that actually happens is another story, but its currently in the deal with LFC's.

And there are also a number of real world complexities to deal with.

With copper it's simple as it's a single MPF exists between the cabinet/exchange and the customer. With fibre passive equipment such as splitters in the field it makes a 3rd party deployment of GPON gear much more complex, and with the very different network architectures between the different LFCs it also adds to that.

n4

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#1410400 21-Oct-2015 11:00

Lias: The only real gripe I have with the current setup is I believe the LFC's should all be non profits or community trusts. In my view there is no place for profit in a government granted monopoly of an essential service.

LOL. How soon we forget... because the price and service from state owned monopolies was sooo fantastic! And I don't think non-profit bodies and community trusts are a realistic vehicle for raising the investment required.

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jonb

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#1410439 21-Oct-2015 12:03

I think the government did something good with UFB, the right technology at the right time and the right infrastructure model. The funding model can always be argued, but it seems to be getting the job done at not too many billions of dollars. Compare NZ's UFB to the Australian NBN, or the UK, and be thankful.

linw

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#1410735 21-Oct-2015 21:47

"Roads could be dug up a lot of times"

Wow, how could you gloss over this one? Our street has gone through the fibre 'dig' three years ago and is now suffering a complete gas pipe replacement. The process is horrendous in its effects on the householders and the expense must be ginormous.

If you want to do this a few more times to our street you can just bugger off!

darkasdes2

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#1410740 21-Oct-2015 22:01

Lias: The only real gripe I have with the current setup is I believe the LFC's should all be non profits or community trusts. In my view there is no place for profit in a government granted monopoly of an essential service.

Enable in Christchurch is owned by the Christchurch city council.

It's a shame that more LFCs are not like that

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#1410745 21-Oct-2015 22:29

I do realise that there are significant issues and costs resulting from monopoly distribution networks. But I would be very surprised if there is a realistic option that could provide an equivalent or better cost-benefit to us in NZ.

I can remember a time when there were two competing and different mobile networks that duplicated infrastructure and created additional costs for the country, the companies and us consumers. I didn't see much benefit in that then or now with hindsight. [Edit: I really like this relevant article http://www.geekzone.co.nz/sbiddle/7122 ]

Personally, I'm glad that we have largely avoided that sort of situation this time. But my current best option is a fully-owned ISP network - Vodafone cable - which has been very good but shows much less promise than UFB. Thankfully, the cable network wasn't accepted as suitable substitute for UFB here so we will have one main national network.

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DarkShadow

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#1410764 21-Oct-2015 23:44

tdgeek:

Ouch, a logistical nightmare, if every street had 5 cables running in them owned by 5 cable providers. Same with 5 power line feeds, 5 letterboxes. 5 Post Offices brands.
Competition is great, but sometimes a single solution makes more sense. Then let the 5 competitors (for my example) provide the end user experience off only one network.

Overseas, they're rolling out 10gig residential connections now. These typically are offered by ISPs that overbuild an existing network.

For us, the network companies are obliged to provide a 100Mbps residential service only. The gigabit residential connections are a luxury only available to a select few.

Are the UFB contracts too conservative and risk us being left behind?

richms

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#1410766 21-Oct-2015 23:49

DarkShadow:
tdgeek:

Ouch, a logistical nightmare, if every street had 5 cables running in them owned by 5 cable providers. Same with 5 power line feeds, 5 letterboxes. 5 Post Offices brands.
Competition is great, but sometimes a single solution makes more sense. Then let the 5 competitors (for my example) provide the end user experience off only one network.

Overseas, they're rolling out 10gig residential connections now. These typically are offered by ISPs that overbuild an existing network.

For us, the network companies are obliged to provide a 100Mbps residential service only. The gigabit residential connections are a luxury only available to a select few.

Are the UFB contracts too conservative and risk us being left behind?

At the moment, no. 10 gig is just silly for almost all people. Even gig has limited use cases. Get the 100/200 stuff built and then faster is just a case of new gear at each end of the fiber.

Once the ducts are in, and people are moving off copper, then worry about the faster speeds. The fiber will take it and no point shelling out for 10 gig ONT's when most people will still be using crappy wifi etc.

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#1410767 22-Oct-2015 00:18

Just be glad that we are getting a nationwide fibre network. Sure people say that Google fibre is better. But have a look at their coverage map https://fiber.google.com/newcities/ Not many places can get it. If you can't then it is cable if your lucky. If not then ADSL fed from an exchange. And if you can get Google fibre. They connect 32 customers to each OLT port. So you have 2.4gbit shared between 32 customers, who can get gigabit plans if they want. While Chorus do a max of 24 customer per OLT port, and often less. And they have designed the ducting so you can get point to point fibre if you want (an OLT port all to yourself, Sure it will be expensive but at least you can if you want).

And to get 10gig, all that needs to be done is upgrading the ONTs in peoples homes, And the OLTs in the exchanges. The fibre that is in the ground can be reused. So future upgrades are cost effective. And when usage demands get to the point that gigabit is not enough. There will still be lots of places in the world that will only have copper based services available.

I see the fibre build as the most important network build of this century. It could be compared to the rollout of the electricity network early last century. I bet there were people at the time who said that it is not necessary. And that a coal stove, and kerosene lanterns provide all the required heating, lighting and cooking. But just as people from the 1920s would never have been able to imagine the things that we now plug into power sockets today. In 100 years time we will be using the UFB network for things we would never have dreamed of today.

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#1410804 22-Oct-2015 08:10

DarkShadow:
Overseas, they're rolling out 10gig residential connections now.

10Gig services are solely for the "we're the fastest" factor. Even the companies rolling it out don't expect anybody to sign up.

The network architecture and build of many global GPON networks is vastly inferior to the UFB build in NZ looking at factors such as GPON splits. This is hardly surprising in the US, which really is the home of poor internet.

Nebbie

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#1411050 22-Oct-2015 12:20

DarkShadow:
Overseas, they're rolling out 10gig residential connections now. These typically are offered by ISPs that overbuild an existing network.

I was wondering when this would be come up in this thread.
10gig is purely I have a bigger/faster connection that you factor, and a show case for what will come in the Feature NOT now! Then after that possibly 100gbit and so on.

For me I have noticed no difference between VDSL and UFB, the only difference is now when I start one of those Linux ISO of witch there is so many out there, I can get faster speed.
Those steaming/real-time I feel no change, the services and products aren't out there to max out my current 100/50 UFB connection, However I only noticed speed differences for that non-attended traffic "downloading, Bittorrent etc..." these are not essential and speed is not necessary.

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graemeh

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#1411125 22-Oct-2015 13:52

Nebbie:
DarkShadow:
Overseas, they're rolling out 10gig residential connections now. These typically are offered by ISPs that overbuild an existing network.

I was wondering when this would be come up in this thread.
10gig is purely I have a bigger/faster connection that you factor, and a show case for what will come in the Feature NOT now! Then after that possibly 100gbit and so on.
For me I have noticed no difference between VDSL and UFB, the only difference is now when I start one of those Linux ISO of witch there is so many out there, I can get faster speed.
Those steaming/real-time I feel no change, the services and products aren't out there to max out my current 100/50 UFB connection, However I only noticed speed differences for that non-attended traffic "downloading, Bittorrent etc..." these are not essential and speed is not necessary.

Off site backups can max out the 50mb upload.

Can you even buy consumer devices with a 10gig port on them?

Imagine what a 10 gig router must cost!

Nebbie

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#1411182 22-Oct-2015 15:21

graemeh:
Off site backups can max out the 50mb upload.

Can you even buy consumer devices with a 10gig port on them?

Imagine what a 10 gig router must cost!

Yes offsite backups can max out 50mbit bandwidth however this is unattended traffic I could list many things that "could" max out a 50mbit connection but just because we can max it out doesn't mean this is the reason why we need 10gbit.

However $50 per month Unlimited 1gig fibre is unrealistic, a realistic price I would say is actually around $150-$200 this allows RSP's to actually make a profit. Dunedin for example has been a nightmare, its not just about the end user there's business to make profits.

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#1411185 22-Oct-2015 15:31

Dunedin for example has been a nightmare, its not just about the end user there's business to make profits.

Why has Dunedin been a nightmare??

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