NZ fibre puts many countries to shame

[frontliner]

I'm paying ~$69 USD/mo for 1000/500 no data limit here, for once we got something good!

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, mynameisjuan said:

But people will still live in La-La land that everything can be overhauled and migrated in a snap of a finger with money.

If you're selling tickets to La-La land I'll take one please.

[Teddy07]

Such speeds are surely nice for a very small minority that actually uses this speeds. An average user doesn´t need 1000mbit. I for example barely use my 100mbit so I see no reason to upgrade.

[mr moose]

7 hours ago, Belgarathian said:

 

Somewhat incorrect. It's managed by a crown entity and then Chrous has tendered for the work in different regions. Christchurch has Enable, and then there are a number of other players. But it boils down to there is only one entity putting comms cables in the ground with the Government controlling resale pricing per connection.

 

No remotely significant companies (that I'm aware of) other than fixed wireless broadband providers or a few smaller players that have laid fiber in subdivisions sell connections and services directly to the consumer. All major ISPs simply resell connections & services from Chrous, Enable, etc.

 

Telecom (now Spark) used to own the majority of the copper network, but in a world first in 2011 they voted to split the network and customer services so that Chorus (the network spin-off) could publicly list on the NZX and secure $1b of government funding to lay fiber and start the rollout.

Was that a world first for an NZ own company?

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

What makes me even more happy is all the jealous Aussies 

I'm not overly jealous (O.K definitely a bit in that we all want faster internet), however Australia is doing very well to have what it does,  we couldn't afford it, the people don't want to pay for it, it was very poorly conceived and basically birthed sideways out of disabled womb crying for votes. 

 

It has been frog stomped by both parties, used and abused by the independents and the media and lobby groups for both sides have had a field day misleading the general public about it.   At least we have the option of over 150 ISP's, speeds will only get faster as the network is constantly upgraded (no one sitting on their arse squeezing the last dollar out of copper) and we at least have minimum speed guarantees that are inline with 99% of usage requirements.

3 hours ago, Carclis said:

I just got a 50Mbit connection recently and that's after 10 years of waiting. So I've been jealous for a very long time

on the fringe of suburbia or rural?

[Darren]

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

There's actually a number of LFC deploying UFB but Chorus is the largest by a significant margin. Most of the internet here is run by Vocus, turn Vocus off and you turn the internet off for the country pretty much.

I wouldn't say that's entirely true, they're still smaller than Spark and Vodafone which are significant customer bases making up a much greater majority of the market.

 

As for Vocus transit customers, they should be buying redundant circuits. If they don't, well, that'll suck for them.

 

Add that with a significant portion of content being delivered locally with Auckland based caches on IXs or internally, being without Vocus would be a pretty average time for direct Vocus customers really. I've seen ISPs offload more traffic to Netflix caches than they do with their total International transit.

[leadeater]

7 minutes ago, Darren said:

I wouldn't say that's entirely true, they're still smaller than Spark and Vodafone which are significant customer bases making up a much greater majority of the market.

Spark and Vodafone aren't LFCs, there's 4 of them and Chorus do everything the other 3 don't which is like 60%-70%.

 

https://ufb.org.nz/maps/

 

8 minutes ago, Darren said:

As for Vocus transit customers, they should be buying redundant circuits. If they don't, well, that'll suck for them.

 

Add that with a significant portion of content being delivered locally with Auckland based caches on IXs or internally, being without Vocus would be a pretty average time for direct Vocus customers really. I've seen ISPs offload more traffic to Netflix caches than they do with their total International transit.

Vocus controls large parts of our core internet infrastructure and is very important to our global public routing, them vanishing would be very bad for everyone. Even REANNZ would go dark. Vocus has adsorbed some of the other important companies like FX networks that would have been alternatives and been able to mitigate such a thing.

 

Side note some of the IX names have some amusing names, at least their acronyms, purposefully so .

[GoldenLag]

Its a thing that to get these sort of thigns going you need to have the goverment sponsoring some of the bill as ROI time on this sort of thing is long. 

 

Personally im a fan of goverment supporting or owning a majority stock in companies building key infrastructure like telecom and fiber

 

Spoiler

Also thanks for cleaning.

 

[mr moose]

So the article insinuated every household to get Gb fibre.   Does that mean wireless services for the extreme remote aren't bolstering their figures?

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

So the article insinuated every household to get Gb fibre.   Does that mean wireless services for the extreme remote aren't bolstering their figures?

Kind of haven't actually read it but there are two zones, UFB and RBI. All the copper is planned to be removed and fibre will be used for all UFB eligible houses, for RBI that is 700Mhz 4G or any service that supersedes that. That's my current understanding of the long term plan anyway.

[Darren]

11 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Spark and Vodafone aren't LFCs, there's 4 of them and Chorus do everything the other 3 don't which is like 60%-70%.

 

https://ufb.org.nz/maps/

 

Vocus controls large parts of our core internet infrastructure and is very important to our global public routing, them vanishing would be very bad for everyone. Even REANNZ would go dark. Vocus has adsorbed some of the other important companies like FX networks that would have been alternatives and been able to mitigate such a thing.

 

Side note some of the IX names have some amusing names, at least their acronyms, purposefully so .

Vocus isn't an LFC either and they really don't control as much infrastructure as you may think. Sure, REANNZ colocates gear in their (ex-FX) racks but but beyond optical gear sitting on the old FX network, REANNZ don't really rely on them for anything important. A significant amount of Vocus would have to disappear before REANNZ is impacted in any meaningful way. They're not even relied upon for their International transit.

 

Your perception of Vocus' importance in the NZ market is much higher than reality.

[Linus_torvalds]

And here i am paying 18$ for 50 Mbit/s up and down in Georgia.

[Darren]

18 minutes ago, mr moose said:

So the article insinuated every household to get Gb fibre.   Does that mean wireless services for the extreme remote aren't bolstering their figures?

Kinda, they're aiming for a huge amount of fibre to the premise, but, to cover everyone and ensure they can get a reasonable service - which they're aiming for 20-50Mbps here.

• They're upgrading copper distribution where they can.
• 4G LTE is making an impact and will make an even bigger one when people can prove 5G will actually deliver a meaningful service. It's great for remote, low usage people.
• There's a fairly large number of small wireless-focussed providers using commodity tech, think long range Ubiquiti, Cambium, Mikrotik. These providers seem to be trying to shift towards 4G as well, where they can.

The Government is really scraping the barrel, you need to be seriously remote to be missed out at this point, though those people will always argue they're not that far from the nearest town.

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, Darren said:

Kinda, they're aiming for a huge amount of fibre to the premise, but, to cover everyone and ensure they can get a reasonable service - which they're aiming for 20-50Mbps here.

• They're upgrading copper distribution where they can.
• 4G LTE is making an impact and will make an even bigger one when people can prove 5G will actually deliver a meaningful service. It's great for remote, low usage people.
• There's a fairly large number of small wireless-focussed providers using commodity tech, think long range Ubiquiti, Cambium, Mikrotik. These providers seem to be trying to shift towards 4G as well, where they can.

The Government is really scraping the barrel, you need to be seriously remote to be missed out at this point, though those people will always argue they're not that far from the nearest town.

Thee widest part of the NZ is what 200K, that means everyone should be within 100K of a backbone/fibre line yes?

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, Darren said:

Your perception of Vocus' importance in the NZ market is much higher than reality.

I was meaning in the context of people at home using their internet, most are served by wholesale Vocus or end up going through Vocus so all these people would have no internet if Vocus was out of action completely. The disruption would be significant.

 

5 minutes ago, Darren said:

Sure, REANNZ colocates gear in their (ex-FX) racks but but beyond optical gear sitting on the old FX network, REANNZ don't really rely on them for anything important. A significant amount of Vocus would have to disappear before REANNZ is impacted in any meaningful way. They're not even relied upon for their International transit.

From what I've been told REANNZ is still rather reliant on Vocus, and Vodafone. The important stuff I interact with is REANNZ owned and controlled, this might be slightly TMI so may be edited out later but REANNZ has a PoP in one of our DCs.

 

REANNZ is rather nice though, I semi regularly copy 100TB-200TB across it.

[Darren]

6 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It is working for Australia and NZ on the internet front.  My ISP just upped my internet plan to unlimited data and dropped the price because other ISP's were offering unlimited for that price. I didn't ask, there was no communication,  it just happened, why? because all ISP's operate on a level playing field, one doesn't have access to better services or get a better price for bulk, the little guy can compete as much as the big boys. That is how a free market is supposed to operate and it does that because the NBN is government owned.

Kinda, NBN is pretty terrible though, but that's because NBN turned into political point scoring and one of the seven governments Aussie has had in the last seven years had dialled it back and ruined it. The operational challenges are also different, so they say.

 

NZ is Crown regulated, but not owned. Crown put forward a tonne of capital funds for companies to build the network, in return, told them to only provide wholesale services to provide a level playing field - like you mention. This was critical and has really allowed us to be where we are today. Even the minority of build being given to other plays has helped with that, namely with getting Gig speeds earlier than planned.

[GoldenLag]

18 minutes ago, Amazonsucks said:

Nationalization of companies and infrastructure? That never fails miserably

i mean without interfierance from foreign interfierance. it works quite well. Turns out if you nationalize companies with foreign investors there is a tendancy for coups to come out of nowhere. 

 

it has proven to be effective. Goverment contracting of Roadinfrastructure is still preferred due to the idletime and multiple other reasons. Goverment stock majority in Telecom Companies have shown to be very effective in the Nordic regions due to their policy of renting of the nets provided. Capitalism still runs its course. not necessarily full nationalization. they are still companies run like companies. 

 

in smaller more rural countries the ROI time is simply too long for a sustainable businessmodel. good to see newzealand stepping in to fund the ventures. 

 

 

TBH fiber is one of those things is super important in terms of connectivity. Hopefully 5G will help along the expansion of high speed connectivty in rural regions, especially in poorer countries where 5G is probably the most cost effective implementation of connectivity. 

[mr moose]

12 minutes ago, Darren said:

Kinda, NBN is pretty terrible though, but that's because NBN turned into political point scoring and one of the seven governments Aussie has had in the last seven years had dialled it back and ruined it. The operational challenges are also different, so they say.

 

NBN was politically charged before it even became a policy in parliament, it wasn't the consecutive governments that ruined it (they just reworked into something we can afford (kinda)),  It started ruined because they did not carry out any feasibility studies or funding studies, they literally threw an arbitrary figure at the project and said it will work (it was a vote grab).

 

It is quite a complicated project but the long and short of it is this:

 

1. while it has some issues (some even hilariously stupid), it still is a far superior service than what we had

2. It has given every Australian fair access to every ISP (no backroom deals or corporate interference)

3. It will only get better, as the backbone street service is constantly being upgraded peoples experience will only get better, they won't be left with a crippled network that no ISP will upgrade.

4. much to my surprise it is cheaper than the previous system for nearly everyone, a 12Mb connection plan is about $10 cheaper than their old 8Mb ADSL.

 

Interesting to note I actually joined this forum to respond to a thread on the NBN, if you search for any of my posts you will see a lot of information and commentary on it's inception and evolution. I have even changed my opinion several times on it as new services change and get better.  I used to be opposed to it for other reasons, but it was the downgrade from FTTP to FTTN that got me looking deep into it and realising just how good thee concept was.  Which is kinda rare for the throw away vote grab idea it was.

 

EDIT: don't know why I keep calling it the backbone.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Thee widest part of the NZ is what 200K, that means everyone should be within 100K of a backbone/fibre line yes?

I'm 2km away from fibre but they won't send it up my road. Rollout to rural communities sure, but I live 15m away from one of the four main centres of NZ, as well as being rural. Just makes me depressed 8 of the 4000 houses are on my road and only 2km from the fibre cable, maybe 10km at most from the backbone cable. 

 

Tell you what though they said I could get VDSL with Spark (Which you might recognise as really Telecom) and my internet speed actually decreased by 2Mbps. 

 

  

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I used to be opposed to it for other reasons, but it was the downgrade from FTTP to FTTN that got me looking deep into it and realising just how good thee concept was.

That also doesn't exclude the future upgrading to FTTP if/when required or funds become available. FTTN saves a huge amount of money in civil works which is extremely expensive and time consuming. I massively prefer FTTP/H but FTTN for everyone is better than FTTP/H only for some.

[mr moose]

13 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

 

in smaller more rural countries the ROI time is simply too long for a sustainable businessmodel. good to see newzealand stepping in to fund the ventures. 

 

This is probably the crux of it here,  ROI is why many countries have outdated telecom's, they are the countries that built their networks back when copper was king.  If you were to build a new telecom infrastructure today would you run copper or fibre to every building?  Which is why a lot of third world countries are are starting to develop and finally building their telecom network fibre is cheaper than copper. but not if you are replacing it and the copper still works,  Ergo they have a better network.  

[leadeater]

Just now, RorzNZ said:

Tell you what though they said I could get VDSL with Spark (Which you might recognise as really Telecom) and my internet speed actually decreased by 2Mbps. 

Oh the joys of VDSL2 vectoring, I know someone else who had problems switching from ADSL2+ to VDSL2.

[Guest]

Just now, leadeater said:

Oh the joys of VDSL2 vectoring, I know someone else who had problems switching from ADSL2+ to VDSL2.

When we were with Vodafone they said VDSL was not available, maybe Spark didn't get the memo. 

[GoldenLag]

5 minutes ago, Amazonsucks said:

You can say its "affordable" monthly after taxpayers already paid billions pf dollars for it... its laughable to say something that absurd though.

I mean its that or nothing. You will end up paying the bill one way or another........ Its not like companies magically makes stuff cheaper and cost nothing......

 

ROI time is a bitch.

 

Goverments for some reason have a really bad rep regardless of what they do. 

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, Amazonsucks said:

Riiiight. Thats why a huge portion of people surveyed want their old connections back?

 

And of course this kind of stuff:

 

 

https://www.smartcompany.com.au/technology/nbn-irrelevance-cities-competitors-build-faster-cheaper-alternatives/

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2018/jan/21/the-main-problem-with-the-nbn-lies-within-the-governments-intent

 

https://www.smartcompany.com.au/industries/telecommunications/telecommunications-hell-businesses-left-lurch-australia-nbn-internet-fiasco/

 

Yep looks like EVERYONE is better off with the rather disastrous and disappointing NBN.

 

THATS what happens when you get incompetent bureaucrats to do things that require competence.

I've got an idea, lets search the net for easy to find media articles that shit on something and are based  on little more than the opposition of the days compulsory slandering of anything the government does.

 

People complaining because they didn't get their 100Mb/s, let's just ignore that they are now getting a much faster connection than what they had on ADSL and getting it cheaper and have the option to get it from a 150 different ISP's.    So what your arguing is that because people can't have the full 100Mb or get 1 Gb connection the whole system is a failure?  please, whats the average connection in the US? how many ISPs can you choose from?  It's not even comparable.

 

 

 

 

4 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

I'm 2km away from fibre but they won't send it up my road. Rollout to rural communities sure, but I live 15m away from one of the four main centres of NZ, as well as being rural. Just makes me depressed 8 of the 4000 houses are on my road and only 2km from the fibre cable, maybe 10km at most from the backbone cable. 

 

Tell you what though they said I could get VDSL with Spark (Which you might recognise as really Telecom) and my internet speed actually decreased by 2Mbps. 

 

  

ouch

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

I will admit. I didnt read the entire thing, but it is a major net overhaul. Issues will occur. How much more would a similar solution provided by a company that would experience much the same issues cost? 

Correct, It would likely have just as many issues, a company is looking at the bottom line while the NBN is on a budget dependent on what people will pay for internet.  So no real difference beyond the fact that private enterprise was never going to build the NBN or anything like it.  It is beyond absurd to think that a private company in Australia or any country similar would invest in what is garrunteed to be a loss situation for decades.