Fibre to the Home under National policies

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#177207 10-Nov-2008 20:13

TinyTim: They mean that only one company gets to operate the fibre access network - they don't mean other operators can't build their own networks. And the price they sell access for is regulated so there are no monopoly rents.

Ok that just doesn't make any sense at all.

You're saying that they're suggesting they'll deliver a cost+ price? But how with they caculate that cost? How do they factor technology up grades? How do they factor market growth? Should I have read the next 15 pages?

Why use the word monopoly then?

How would the network work if it was operated by more than one company anyway?

Who owns this company? Does it become like SCX, owned by Telcos who just hold up the price of capacity and hold down the volume of capacity?

Sorry, but it's sure sounding like epic fail stuff to me... or have I just missed something?

Cheers Don

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TinyTim

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#177215 10-Nov-2008 21:19

DonGould:
Ok that just doesn't make any sense at all.

You're saying that they're suggesting they'll deliver a cost+ price? But how with they caculate that cost? How do they factor technology up grades? How do they factor market growth?

It doesn't go into that level of detail (it's only a discussion paper!)

DonGould:

Why use the word monopoly then?

How would the network work if it was operated by more than one company anyway?

They only way they could do that is using peer to peer fibre where every home has its own fibre. I don't think that that's what they intend but again they don't go into that level of detail.

DonGould:

Who owns this company? Does it become like SCX, owned by Telcos who just hold up the price of capacity and hold down the volume of capacity?

Appears to be a public private partnership between central government - local government - telcos - utilities - private investors. (Sorry comma key isn't working on this old PC!)

DonGould:

Sorry, but it's sure sounding like epic fail stuff to me... or have I just missed something?

Cheers Don

Not necessarily fail (not until they get to the financial part of it anyway) - but just one perspective from a group with their own motives and not necessarily any experience in telecommunications!

DonGould

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#177219 10-Nov-2008 21:34

TinyTim: It doesn't go into that level of detail (it's only a discussion paper!)

What's the point of a discussion document if it's presenting stuff that's outside of the real world?

So far I haven't commented on any of the benefits or a way forward because I've been taken up with assumptions that just aren't real world.

TinyTim: Appears to be a public private partnership between central government - local government - telcos - utilities - private investors.

Except it's been shown time and time again that many of the big players don't want to play. Telcom and TelstraClear view CG, LG, utilities and PI as customers, not ppl to be in bed with.

Why even table the suggestion? It's just white wash to keep us talking for years to come while the current telcos keep raking in profits from under performing networks.

TinyTim: Not necessarily fail (not until they get to the financial part of it anyway) - but just one perspective from a group with their own motives and not necessarily any experience in telecommunications!

It reads like you got that last bit right! :)

Cheers Don

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Screeb

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#177224 10-Nov-2008 22:16

A lot of you people are being extremely short-sighted and pessimistic. Sure, YOU may not think you need FTTH RIGHT NOW, but that's not what this is about. It's about providing a road map to the future. You're being extremely ignorant if you don't think the demand for bandwidth is going to skyrocket over the next decade. FTTH is the ultimate solution. It needs to be done sooner or later. The sooner, the better. Why are you complaining?

Imagine being able to stream unlimited (in terms of bandwidth worries) HD movies from Sky or some Nexflix-esque company. Want to buy a game? Download it from Steam (with a local server) in minutes without using up your cap. Make HD video calls to friends and family across NZ. The possibilites are endless. People complain about lack of content, but it's a chicken and egg situation. No company in their right mind will offer high bandwidth services in NZ with our broadband the way it is. The infrastructure needs to be able to support it first. (Services like these are already readily available in countries like Sweden, where they have FTTH).

Edit: I just thought of another thing that's actually affecting me right now. My University (Vic) is an MSDNAA partner, which means I can get student licenced copies of some Microsoft products for free from uni. I've got the keys from MSDNAA, but I'm going to have to go into uni to burn the isos to DVDs and CDs, because I can't download them from the university due to my cap (it's >10GB in total). It's actually cheaper to take the bus from Khandallah to uni (and back) and burn the isos (including the cost of the discs) than it would be to download them from the uni's servers. How pathetic is that?

The other thing is people are talking about "it's only $1.5Bn, that's not enough!". It's not only 1.5Bn. That's the public investment amount. It will be matched by whoever builds the network, and private investment by individuals (govt is guaranteeing a reasonable rate of return (Dom post today)). Another thing is people are talking about how it costs heaps to wire up people's houses. Who said this is going to cover that? If someone wants FTTH, they will probably have to get their house wired up. The investment will probably only run the fibre to the streets, not to people's houses. The other thing is it's only 75% of houses. That's all in cities, not in the wops.

DonGould

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#177229 10-Nov-2008 22:32

Screeb:Why are you complaining?

Actually I think most of us are quietly laughing.

I'm sure most have been following the on going joke that is NBN in AU.

As for needing FTTH, perhaps is was a nice idea 5 years ago when Verision got in to it in the US.

I think you've got the NZ market all wrong based on your comments.

You need to be thinking in terms of wireless. FTTN makes lots of sense.

Cheers Don

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Screeb

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#177246 10-Nov-2008 23:36

DonGould:
Screeb:Why are you complaining?

Actually I think most of us are quietly laughing.

I'm sure most have been following the on going joke that is NBN in AU.

As for needing FTTH, perhaps is was a nice idea 5 years ago when Verision got in to it in the US.

I think you've got the NZ market all wrong based on your comments.

You need to be thinking in terms of wireless. FTTN makes lots of sense.

Cheers Don

Wireless cannot yet provide the bandwidth necessary. Especially given our topology and population density. Then there's the latency issues. Not to mention bad/no performance in poor weather.

As for Australia, their NBN issues are purely political. Nothing to do with whether it's a good idea or not.

All the top broadband countries (Sweden, South Korea, Japan, Denmark, etc) have networks based on FTTH, not wireless. It's a proven technology and IMHO, necessary for having a good broadband infrastructure.

DonGould

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#177247 10-Nov-2008 23:51

Screeb: Wireless cannot yet provide the bandwidth necessary.

What bandwidth do you see as necessary?

Screeb: As for Australia, their NBN issues are purely political.

Rubbish. It's all to do with industry not wanting to take part in the process.

Screeb: All the top broadband countries (Sweden, South Korea, Japan, Denmark, etc) have networks based on FTTH, not wireless. It's a proven technology and IMHO, necessary for having a good broadband infrastructure.

We have a limited amount of money in NZ for spending on technology.

How is FTTH going to help New Zealanders?

In your previous post you offered up suggestions that are going to, in fact, put New Zealanders out of jobs in their droves.

I 100% agree that households need more bandwidth than they've been getting. No arguments here on that one.

However New Zealand households are yet to even see basic ADSL1 technology work as it's mean to. They have not been able to download at 8mbit even when their modems are syncing at 8mbit. Why is that, do you know?

Fibre from the exchange to our homes isn't going to fix this problem. More fibre between exchanges might help. More fibre out of NZ will help (and that's already on the way - PPC2). More locally hosted content will help - and that's happening. Upgrading the core network capacity will help. Removing and/or improving the traffic management systems that everyones hidden in the network will help.

Cheers Don

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cokemaster

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#177248 10-Nov-2008 23:53

Tell us, where does the bulk of traffic end up for the likes of japan, denmark, korea, and sweden?

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TinyTim

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#177261 11-Nov-2008 07:45

I have to side with Don on this one. In the graphs of applications vs bandwidth required, videoconferencing is one of the most bandwidth-hungry applications - and HD videoconferencing bandwidth is now down to around a meg. Another application is broadcast TV - can't see Sky changing from a successful satellite platform to fibre. Ditto Freeview. I guess VoD/IPTV requires a bit of bandwidth - but not anything more than what can be provided on other technologies. Remember many large businesses do their whole business on no more than a few meg of leased lines.

However fibre is the most future proof - and we don't know what's coming in the future (or how far away it is). Perhaps Mr Key can build us our FTTH network as one of his ~~depression~~ recession relief infrastructure projects. Something for all the laid-off public servants to do.

TinyTim

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#177265 11-Nov-2008 08:18

Screeb:
The other thing is people are talking about "it's only $1.5Bn, that's not enough!". It's not only 1.5Bn. That's the public investment amount. It will be matched by whoever builds the network, and private investment by individuals (govt is guaranteeing a reasonable rate of return (Dom post today)).

1.5 billion is half. 3.0 billion is not enough. As noted earlier it assumes micro-trenching, which isn't suitable everwhere in New Zealand. See this Dom Post article from July: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4617846a28.html

Don't forget any guarantee on return comes out of our taxes. (Like the initial 1.5 billion.)

Screeb:
Another thing is people are talking about how it costs heaps to wire up people's houses. Who said this is going to cover that? If someone wants FTTH, they will probably have to get their house wired up. The investment will probably only run the fibre to the streets, not to people's houses.

You can be sure the $3 billion doesn't include any house wiring or even the drop. So how many are going to fork out $2500+ for the drop, ONT and house wiring? When they are probably going to get ADSL2+ for no additional cost? These costs are going to have to be paid for by the operator otherwise it just won't work.

Screeb:

The other thing is it's only 75% of houses. That's all in cities, not in the wops.

Largest 22 cities and towns down to the size of Blenheim (28,000), according to Maurice Williamson.

However, you could argue that the wops need it more than homes in the the larger towns and cities. That's the farms, farms are businesses and generate most of our country's income. They have a need for broadband that goes beyond downloading games and movies but many of them currently have poor dial-up internet access only. (14.4kb/s is the maximum required speed according to the TSO). National should perhaps look at extending the government's Broadband Investment Fund (not scrapping it like they promised) rather than focusing on homes.

DonGould

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#177369 11-Nov-2008 17:30

TinyTim: You can be sure the $3 billion doesn't include any house wiring or even the drop. So how many are going to fork out $2500+ for the drop, ONT and house wiring?

I keep reading these sort of figure and they're just not right.

The price for setting up a house is dropping all the time and is currently sub $1500 AIUI. Also what house wiring do you see? Plug a Draft N wifi AP in to the ONT and away you go. DECT cordless for phone service.

TinyTim: When they are probably going to get ADSL2+ for no additional cost? These costs are going to have to be paid for by the operator otherwise it just won't work.

I agree that DSL makes 100% sense were you can get cabinets within 1km of the home. The CPE is cheap and at this point even if we had FTTH, we couldn't deliver 100mbits to homes from the international capacity. Wait 5 to 7 years for PPC2?

TinyTim: However, you could argue that the wops need it more than homes in the the larger towns and cities.

No only could you argue this, but you should.

FTTN to those homes doesn't make sense. You run fibre to a cabinet per home (in some cases) because the homes are more than 1km apart.

It makes sense to use SMOF to run all the way to the home.

This is the sort of thing that government should be stepping up and funding from the tax pool.

They shouldn't be rocking the boat in the economic market place. That's just silly given the amount of investment that has gone in already.

FTTN makes sense in NZ for metro areas. Telcom will use the fibre to connect data closer to the copper - VDSL2 while providers like Vodafone will use the fibre to deliver via wireless - LTE.

Cheers Don

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Screeb

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#177392 11-Nov-2008 19:03

DonGould: What bandwidth do you see as necessary?

100Mbit/s over the next 5 years or so will be important for many people in the suburbs. But that's debatable. The point is having an infrastructure that can scale up. Wireless provides far less bandwidth than fibre, full stop. FTTH can provide 100Mbit/s+ dedicated to each household on the node. Good luck with that on wireless.

Rubbish. It's all to do with industry not wanting to take part in the process.

Sorry, that's what I meant. It's just bickering between different companies and the govt. As I said, nothing to do with whether it's a good idea or not.

We have a limited amount of money in NZ for spending on technology.

How is FTTH going to help New Zealanders?

And the new government has decided to spend some of that limited money on FTTH. What's the problem? It's pretty much the pinnacle of technology and is recognised as important to the economy (fast broadband in general). It's going to help NZers just like any other fast broadband solution would, only with more bandwidth able to scale up to future needs.

In your previous post you offered up suggestions that are going to, in fact, put New Zealanders out of jobs in their droves.

What on earth are you talking about? How is FTTH going to put anyone out of a job? In fact, with essentially unlimited national bandwidth, new jobs will be created in the information sector (new companies offering bandwidth heavy services - just look overseas).

However New Zealand households are yet to even see basic ADSL1 technology work as it's mean to. They have not been able to download at 8mbit even when their modems are syncing at 8mbit. Why is that, do you know?

That's because ISPs are paying too much for bandwidth on the copper network. I can get my full 10Mbit/s using multiple threads at any time of the day on TelstraClear cable. That's because it's their own network. They don't have to pay heaps to use it. An open access fibre network would allow ISPs to offer enough bandwidth that there won't be any contention.

Fibre from the exchange to our homes isn't going to fix this problem. More fibre between exchanges might help. More fibre out of NZ will help (and that's already on the way - PPC2). More locally hosted content will help - and that's happening. Upgrading the core network capacity will help. Removing and/or improving the traffic management systems that everyones hidden in the network will help.

All those things you mentioned are happening, as you say. Of course they're needed... OK so once we have them, then what? Then we're not much better off because we're still congested out to the exchange. Thus we need FTTH (and will need it even more in 10 years time).

cokemaster: Tell us, where does the bulk of traffic end up for the likes of japan, denmark, korea, and sweden?

What does that have to do with anything? National infrastructure needs be good regardless of whether the traffic stays in the country or goes overseas.

TinyTim: 1.5 billion is half. 3.0 billion is not enough. As noted earlier it assumes micro-trenching, which isn't suitable everwhere in New Zealand. See this Dom Post article from July: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4617846a28.html

Of course microtrenching isn't suitable for everywhere. The point is that it CAN be used to save money where is IS suitable. In Wellington, for instance, the article states that microtrenching isn't suitable for the inner city. OK, so then it will be laid in ducts/sewer/overhead. The council has previously stated it will allow this for new fibre networks.

Don't forget any guarantee on return comes out of our taxes. (Like the initial 1.5 billion.)

As do most things the government does... There are many things that come out of my taxes that I don't like - such as wastefull spending on various programmes (I'm not going to get into that).

You can be sure the $3 billion doesn't include any house wiring or even the drop. So how many are going to fork out $2500+ for the drop, ONT and house wiring? When they are probably going to get ADSL2+ for no additional cost? These costs are going to have to be paid for by the operator otherwise it just won't work.

As Don said, $2500+ is just ridiculous. Not to mention that it will obviously be subsidised by the ISP. Once FTTH is hooked up to a house it's done for the life of the house.

>>When they are probably going to get ADSL2+ for no additional cost?

Sure, lots of people may find ADSL2+ acceptable for the time being. However, there will always be the people like me who would want to take advantage of fibre. As time goes on, that number will increase as xDSL* doesn't cut it any more.

Largest 22 cities and towns down to the size of Blenheim (28,000), according to Maurice Williamson.

However, you could argue that the wops need it more than homes in the the larger towns and cities. That's the farms, farms are businesses and generate most of our country's income. They have a need for broadband that goes beyond downloading games and movies but many of them currently have poor dial-up internet access only. (14.4kb/s is the maximum required speed according to the TSO). National should perhaps look at extending the government's Broadband Investment Fund (not scrapping it like they promised) rather than focusing on homes.

Again, as Don said, it's impractical by any stretch of the imagination to serve the wops with FTTH. These markets are best served by alternate means such as satelliteor mobile broadband (which they are - if anyone is still using 14.4kb/s and they want broadband, they need to accept that being the only dwelling for 10km is going to mean broadband will be more expensive).

TinyTim

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#177395 11-Nov-2008 19:23

Screeb:
Again, as Don said, it's impractical by any stretch of the imagination to serve the wops with FTTH. These markets are best served by alternate means such as satelliteor mobile broadband (which they are - if anyone is still using 14.4kb/s and they want broadband, they need to accept that being the only dwelling for 10km is going to mean broadband will be more expensive).

Sorry, I never meant FTTH for the wops. I just meant subsidised broadband of *whatever* sort - as you say, mobile, satellite or whatever.

DonGould

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#177405 11-Nov-2008 20:15

So much to respond to, I might do this in stages....

Screeb: 100Mbit/s over the next 5 years or so will be important for many people in the suburbs. But that's debatable.

You're right about one point... "it's debatable"!

What do you see people doing with this capacity that is good for our economoy and society.

I agree with anyone who suggests that 56k or even 2mbit is not enough. I have a 4mbit link and it's only just pratical for browsing media rich news sites.

Screeb: The point is having an infrastructure that can scale up.

Again I'll agree with you on a point...

However we already have that infrastructure in place - it's called copper.

People keep wanting to write the stuff off. Why?

Screeb: Wireless provides far less bandwidth than fibre, full stop. FTTH can provide 100Mbit/s+ dedicated to each household on the node. Good luck with that on wireless.

LTE is talking about node speeds up to 200mbits. You can put up to 3 nodes per tower with just three freq blocks. No need to dig/bore across the whole city.

Don't get me wrong. I think FTTH would be cool!!!!!! I'd love to have 1GBit into my house to play with.

However we have to be just a bit pratical.

CCNL got the go ahead almost a year ago to put 80km of fibre into Chc. At present almost every street I drive down has boring equipment parked up on it. It's not going to be lite until some time next year.

Compare this with the amount of time it's take to put up a new mobile tower that's serving way more people from the minute they turn on the power.

Can you tell me how we're going to put all this ftth in the ground? Who's going to do it? How much resource is going to be needed?

Let's assume money is no problem, let's face it, it isn't.... we can print the stuff!

People are a problem though. So is equipment. Were is all this new boring equipment going to come from to start with?

Cheers Don

DonGould

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#177416 11-Nov-2008 21:09

Screeb: It's just bickering between different companies and the govt.

In fact it's worse than that... So far the govt seems to have said very little. The oporsition has had a big waaa waaa... but that's what they're there to do.

Industry has lobbyed to stall and stall and stall the whole process.

Screeb: As I said, nothing to do with whether it's a good idea or not.

There's been a fair amount of debate abot that point as well.

And the new government has decided to spend some of that limited money on FTTH. What's the problem?

My current problems are:

Will the process end up in a mess like it has in AU?
Will the process put the breaks on current investment?
Will technology move forward in the insuing 10 years to make FTTH a mistake?

It's pretty much the pinnacle of technology and is recognised as important to the economy (fast broadband in general). It's going to help NZers just like any other fast broadband solution would, only with more bandwidth able to scale up to future needs.

Good argument for FTTN, not so good for FTTH.

Personally I want fast data where ever I am. Not just in my home.

Recently I've been giving more thought to the number of people who have iPhones, what they're doing with them and what's in them. It's some really interesting stuff when you start to think about it.

I've also been looking at how people use computers in their homes.

Look at the new CPE technology that's appearing.

G1, iPhone, NetTops.

All small, all portable, all used in mutipul locations.

Sure, give me 100mbits in my house, do you know what the first thing I do with it is?... that's right, I plug it into a wireless router.

Don: In your previous post you offered up suggestions that are going to, in fact, put New Zealanders out of jobs in their droves.

What on earth are you talking about? How is FTTH going to put anyone out of a job?

Best question I've read on GZ in a while! :)

VoD --> People will order content on line rather than visit video stores. Have you looked at the number of DVDs that people buy at places like Kmart, the Warehouse, even the supermarket (yes, that's the last place my wife paid for a DVD).

Setting up VoD banks is going to give you a job. It's a highly skilled job.

What about unskilled labour such as the jobs that people like Kmart and Warehouse staff fill? Do you assume that those people are going to be able to go back to uni to study then come out being able to set up VoD banks?

This is of course assuming that people purchase the content from VoD banks rather than just using P2P to store and share the content across the network.

Value of Retail: I keep hearing people rant about how wonderful VoD is, but they never give any value to the retail experience. Go have a sit in a video store for a couple of hours and just watch people at the counter.

How many people pick up 'extras' to go with their video? Pop corn, chips, an ice cream. It's the same logic that applies in the petrol station business.

FTTH will only move the economy: Given the examples I've sighted all that's going to happen is the economy is going to change, it's not going to grow and could infact shrink.

HDVC --> Same issues apply. At present my mother comes to visit my son (Wellington --> Christchurch) every couple of months. When she comes she hires a car. She normally takes us out for a couple of meals. She take two plane flights. Can you explain how HDVC is going to benefit the economy in my home?

In fact, with essentially unlimited national bandwidth, new jobs will be created in the information sector (new companies offering bandwidth heavy services - just look overseas).

Not everyone wants to work in the information sector. In fact, not everyone can work in the sector.
You said to look overseas at heavy bandwidth servces. Can you point them out? I don't know what you're refeering to.

Cheers Don

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