Forum Home
PC World Chat
Thread ID: 108620	2010-04-05 04:05:00	Discussion: Why fibre to the door?	Chilling_Silence (9)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
873033	2010-04-05 06:20:00	Chilling Silence:- "I was busy over the period that it was being held and didn't have enough time." But you had time to update the blogs in your sig when I used to read them etc. Providors will only invest if they can see a profit for the company. A government stepping in is fine by me. I'd rather my tax go toward FTTH rather than abortions.	Sweep (90)
873034	2010-04-05 06:23:00	... continued from above... I guess the key area of contention isn't so much "is fibre good", it's "should the taxpayer fund it"? To answer this question, we need to look at when the govt funds infrastructural investments, and why they do it. - For economic benefit: The focus of Telecom (Chorus) is around supporting content consumption, not content creation. Consumption is all well and good, and has its place, but to realise economic gains we need to facilitate content creators. This could be anyone from animators, designers, through to software developers, game developers, educators, and other "less technical" fields. Even with VDSL, the content creation (i.e. upload) isn't particularly well supported. Telecom is doing a great job of catering for the short term with FTTN; the government's role is to look into the longer term. - Public utility: Two historical cases exist for large scale investment: the electricity network, and the phone network. Waiting for demand is too slow, and inevitably those who are least economical to support (i.e. those in smaller towns and rural areas) miss out. Sure - pushing fibre to rural areas isn't part of the govt's FTTH plan (strictly streaking), but it is part of a wider package of broadband policies which involves funding a MUSH approach to reaching those communities. It's no surprise that laying fibre takes time, and you've illustrated how Telecom's FTTN programme is reaching millions of NZers faster than the FTTH proposal is - but that's exactly it. Fibre is a long term solution, which will take time to implement, but will serve the country well into the future. We don't wait for the "demand" to be there before we build roads, or upgrade our electricity network - there is a lot of forward planning to make sure that the infrastructure is there when we need it. We've had to play catch up over the last 10 years with broadband; let's do what we can to keep up with the fast growing Asian economies which will become our future export market.	somebody (208)
873035	2010-04-05 06:30:00	Before I start it's worth mentioning that I'm not trying to have a go at anybody and definitely appreciate all the time put into responses :) This topic has really been thrashed to death . The key arguments on the "for" side for FTTH are (and as yet, don't appear to be answered by the "against" side on this forum): - Symmetrical connections - fast download speeds are great, but without fast upload, we will always be content consumers, rather than content creators . Creating content and adding value is how you get economic benefit, not simply watching YouTube etc . Which is what most people are, simply consumers . In fact, how many people do you know need to broadcast in realtime HD video from their home? If you're going to upload something like that, generally speaking for pretty much the vast majority, it's not a time-sensitive manner, so having a 1m/bit upload vs a 10m/bit upload will be a bit of a difference, but not the be-all and end-all . Your point is good however, and that's certainly where it falls down . - Investing for the future not for now . In the early 20th century when the electricity grid was rolled out in NZ, supplying electricity to farms and rural communities was questioned in much the same way - why was it needed, isn't there better things for the govt . to spend money on? It's thanks to those investments that utility we consider essential today is available to so many people in rural areas . Likewise, when the post and telegraph office laid phone lines, they put in far more capacity than was initially needed (I don't have the exact number off hand, but it was something like 2x the number of lines they estimated would be required in subsequent decade or so) . It wasn't needed then, but fast forward to the end of the 20th century and nearly all homes and businesses have a phone line, with some having two or more . Rather than having to dig up the roads again, that infrastructure was all there, and some of those lines are now being used to supply broadband internet today . True, but why have the government fund it all now? Why can't the private companies simply do it in their own time? There's already a truckload of fibre around Auckland (Not buying the argument of Rural people getting better coverage than ADSL under this Govt scheme . . . 80% vs 75%), so why not let them roll it out to places as it's requested? They have a service, if they make it cost-effective then people will come . Current problem: I can get Fibre, but it's not cost-effective . Why pay $1K per-month when I can get the same speed download (not upload, again granted you have a good point there) for $60 on Telecom Big Time? I did almost 350GB last month, so I'm definitely not making full use of it, but I'm getting my money's worth . . . Yet this national fibre rollout would *not* specifically decrease the per-GB cost of bandwidth in NZ, would it? Some initial thoughts below (disclaimer: I haven't read the content on Vector's website particularly thoroughly) . It's OK you're not missing much . In fact here's a nice summary: "We don't know WTF you'd want this all for, aside from maybe HD video conferencing, but we're hoping if we build it then you'll come" Video conferencing is just one use case, and putting in QoS isn't going to solve the problem if you are maxing out your ADSL or VDSL connection . I disagree . It will prevent a single application, such as downloading a linux ISO, or bittorrent, from interfering with the rest of your connection while you game, or have a VoIP call . It reserves bandwidth for specific applications or uses, and that is something that even Fibre will run into the issue of (Though you'll download a 700MB Linux ISO much faster and so be affected for a shorted time granted): If I'm doing something that is bandwidth sensitive, and I have something else on my connection downloading, it doesn't matter how fast my line is, it's going to try and max it out . Without QoS this will affect the bandwidth sensitive application . Also, see the symmetry comment in my earlier post - xDSL technologies are great for download, but not so great for upload . If you want to be a consumer of content, great, but you don't make money doing that - you need to be a creator of content, and be able to get that out to people . Yup it's a good point, can't fault you there . Schools "can" get fibre, but they have to pay a premium for it . More often than not, schools are too far away from the nearest tie-in point for existing fibre networks passing through their cities . Yes but rolling out an additional fibre network (Again Auckland has many) isn't going to specifically aid there . There's already competition in the market, but the base-cost is too great because right now fibre is seen as a "premium" product . Hell, even HSNS costs around $700+ for a base fee and that's not even Fibre and without any data use . How will another network improve that? Again, we're talking 75% vs 80% here . . . . There are also very legitimate cases for having good quality, low jitter connections around the country, and internationally, to further the education of students . To take an example from the Wellington Loop initiative (http://www . wellingtonloop . net . nz/ ), the high definition video conferencing capability allows students who are learning more obscure musical instruments gain access to international experts - e . g . if someone wanted to be assessed for for Grade 7 bagpiping, and there was nobody in the country qualified to do the assessment, you could do a high-def video conference to someone in the UK who could do the assessment . True, but I fail to see why an entire school must do that all at the same time, and why it must be in high definition for that matter . Again though upload and education is the exception rather than the rule, and you have a good point ;) Still, low jitter, good quality, low latency . . . all that sounds like my plain and simple ADSL2+ connection at home, from the exchange, running at 4400kbps . Why would I class my connection better than most? Good CPE and QoS! There is also (I don't know if this is on the website) now a centralised way for teachers to get access to (legally), and share educational television content . Tie-in with the KAREN and international research networks allows access to a vast amount of resources . I think Nelson has an equivalent (pilot) network . That's pretty cool, however if you're going to make something like that a part of your curriculum you'd be smarter to locally cache it, or have a central (local) distribution server . Download it once from the 'net, broadcast it across the LAN . You're right - for families, content consumption is the main use case . Fibre on its own won't bring about new content delivery models, but the availability of the bandwidth can allow local on-demand services to be created . The TiVo (Caspa???) service is just a tiny example of what could be possible . And interestingly enough CASPA works brilliantly over ADSL ;) The availability of bandwidth in the form of per-gig consumption, rather than max burst line speed is what will allow that . Take my wifes extended family . Not a single one of them has more than 5GB of data on their monthly plan . Hell half of them are still crappy limited-speed 128 / 256k plans . . That whole "you won't have to see a doctor" argument does sound a little bizarre, but the real opportunities (in my view) is tapping into a nationwide (and international) pool of experts in a more meaningful way . It might not mean sitting in your home and having your illness diagnosed, but it could mean that your local GP could conference in an international expert on your illness and they could do some diagnosis through high def video and other means . Yeah it's a funky one, but not entirely realistic . Who knows, 10 years down the track I may be eating my words, but I'd rather go physically see a doctor and have him take my pulse ;)	Chilling_Silence (9)
873036	2010-04-05 06:34:00	"I was busy over the period that it was being held and didn't have enough time." But you had time to update the blogs in your sig when I used to read them etc. I know, priorities huh? ;) Providors will only invest if they can see a profit for the company. A government stepping in is fine by me. I'd rather my tax go toward FTTH rather than abortions. True, but surely if it's such a blindingly obvious necessity for the future as everybody is pointing it out, then why should the Govt fund it? :D I agree, better FTTH than abortions, but surely with the Govt already in a truckload of debt they should fix that before spending a truckload more? Or, spend it somewhere that's going to have greater immediate returns for them?	Chilling_Silence (9)
873037	2010-04-05 06:42:00	Chill:- Why was the Nippon Clip on required on the harbour bridge? It was a bottleneck. Why are alternative studies being conducted as to another bridge or maybe a tunnel? The clipon failed to remove the bottleneck. Who paid for that? Who is going to pay for an alternative? Why is a bridge at Kopu being replaced. It is a bottleneck. But the taxpayers will cough up, FTTH may remove caps or not.	Sweep (90)
873038	2010-04-05 06:53:00	Chill:- People do not have to have FTTH. It's not a necessary as such and for that matter why even have the internet for that matter?	Sweep (90)
873039	2010-04-05 08:32:00	Just to organise things a bit better, let's look at this topic in terms of two broad areas . First, "what will Fibre to the door give us that today's ADSL2+ connections can't?", and secondly "should the taxpayer foot the bill?" . Question: What will Fibre to the door give us that today's ADSL2+ connections can't? Chill's first argument can be loosely summarised as "xDSL is 'good enough'" . The key points to consider here are that while DSL technologies might be fine for our needs as content consumers today, they don't support the needs of businesses who are creating content and adding value, and isn't future proof . I've highlighted the point about the connection being asymmetrical - even with VDSL/VDSL2 increasing both up and downstream speeds, DSL technologies focus on downstream speeds which are all well and good if you want to consume content, but not helpful if you want to create content, add value, and actually grow the economy . The argument about QoS being a solution to all our problems seems like a bit of a red herring - as Rodney Hide loves to say, we need to make the pie bigger, not just find a different way to cut up the pie we already have . Making better use of a 1 . 5mbit upstream pipe using good QoS policies won't help a school stream high definition audio and video to a music assessor, who needs both good quality video and good quality audio to properly assess the ability of a student . Latency, jitter, and low stream quality in general makes it different to see/hear the subtleties which differentiate a "good" musician from a "great" musician . From a medical perspective, having a good high resolution image is critical for diagnosis - what might be good enough for Youtube isn't good enough for a medical specialist . From the technology perspective, I don't think there's any argument that fibre is better - it supports better upstream speeds, and is more future proof . We know today that Bill Gates' alleged statement that "640K of memory should be enough for anybody" was short sighted - saying that DSL speeds is good enough 10 years from now would be making the same mistake . From a cost perspective, Chill has cited some exorbitant prices for fibre connections using today's pricing - and he's right, it is expensive . What we need to remember is you can't use today's figures as a reliable indicator of what FTTH will end up costing - it's a bit like using mobile broadband rates from 5 years ago as an indicator of what we'd be paying today . Estimates thrown around by the govt at the moment suggest an entry level pricing of around $50/month for fibre broadband, which isn't too far off entry level DSL plans . These sort of infrastructural investments rely on critical mass to make it affordable - if we look at the Northern Gateway Toll Road as an example, it's thanks to the large number of users which make the per-trip cost so low . If there was only a fraction of the traffic using it, then the tolls would have to be much higher to cover the cost; that is assuming that a public-private-partnership would have been possible at all . I think we also need to be careful with assuming that our broadband usage patterns will remain the same - i . e . mostly relying on international content - as the impact local content delivery services may have could be huge . Having established that DSL might be good enough for us here and now, but it simply isn't good enough in the long run, let's answer this first question - what does fibre give us? - A robust, future proof technology - Infrastructure which is affordable as we can't base assumptions on today's prices - Decent upload speeds to support for the type of activity which will generate economic growth - i . e . content creation - A bigger pi(p)e (which still needs to be cut up properly with QoS . . . but it's a bigger pie nonetheless) . Moving on to the second big question: Should the taxpayer fund it? The first thing to examine is the notion that we can wait for the private sector can do it . This country has seen from experience that waiting for Telecom and other companies to roll out fast broadband simply puts us in catch-up mode . How many years has it taken for FTTN to happen - how many years did we put up with horrendous ADSL1 speeds on ancient and outdated copper phone lines? We have a lot of fibre backhaul, and pockets of availability in Auckland, Wellington, plus a handful of other main centres, but that's about it . Fibre, like any major piece of utility infrastructure, is something that needs critical mass to succeed, which means that private enterprise will not take the risk - especially in a geographically dispersed country like NZ . Imagine what would have happened if previous governments decided to leave the electricity network to the private sector, and just wait until the demand was there? Likewise, what would have happened if the Post and Telegraph office had just left it to private companies to lay a few phone lines here and there? What about our roads? Unfortunately in order for these sort of infrastructural investments to be made, it requires someone to stump up a large sum of money, and not expect a return for a long period of time - something which no sensible company will gamble on . PPPs are a good way of getting private funds into public infrastructure - like the toll road I mentioned earlier . A private company would never have built that road on their own, so a little bit of encouragement and support was needed to help make it happen . The $1 . 5b of taxpayer money earmarked for the FTTH plan is just like that - a pool of money which will be used to help fund infrastructure around the country, in conjunction with private funds . It's also important to remember that it will eventually be recovered as bits of the network are sold off, so it isn't a one way expense like the billions we throw at welfare . Consider it more of a $1 . 5b loan which the government (via Crown Fibre Holdings) won't get back for 10-20 years . So the key question is, when is taxpayer money justified for infrastructural investments? Well, fibre, at the start of the 21st century, is like the electricity grid of the early 20th century . It's a utility, which has huge set up costs, does not have the demand necessary today to make it viable for a private entity to build on their own, and can aid significant economic and social development . We've finally caught up to some parts of the developed world thanks to ADSL2+, but we'll fall behind yet again if we stick our heads in the sand and say "just let Telecom sort it out" . A FTTH network is a long term investment, which provides the infrastructure we need for economic growth in the long term . Governments invest in infrastructure not just to serve the needs of today, but to serve the needs of the future - roads, hospitals, rail, electricity - broadband in the 21st century is just another utility which is essential for any 1st world developed nation . DSL technologies will serve us for the next 5 years - fibre will serve us for the next 50 . I end this (very long) post with this: imagine what would have happened if we waited for the private sector to build our electricity network - what sort of life would we be living? Fibre is, in today's terms, what power lines and the electricity grid was early in the 20th century .	somebody (208)
873040	2010-04-05 08:34:00	A chain is only as strong as its weakest link - in my case, and I believe many others, the weakest link is my ISP's connection via Southern Cross to the USA. The government should be encouraging Sam Morgan et al.	decibel (11645)
873041	2010-04-05 08:37:00	Yeah, talking about Fibre-optic cable, I don't really know what Telecom is doing, we have fibre optic in our area since 1996 (Howick & Pakuranga) but Telecom never made use of it for Internet. Remembered they spent millions of dollars 'updating' the cable supposedly for Internet and digital cable TV. They did tried cable TV for about a year or two but stopped for reasons unknown. We were one of those 'pioneer' customers at that time but stopped subscribing because of reasons which I forgot. lol Why wasting money on the 'road side cabinet' where there is better option - fibre optic cables? Any body knows why?	bk T (215)
873042	2010-04-05 08:44:00	A chain is only as strong as its weakest link - in my case, and I believe many others, the weakest link is my ISP's connection via Southern Cross to the USA . I was hoping someone would say that . Yes, international connectivity is vital, but increasing the amount of content which can be delivered locally is also something which needs to be addressed - it's idiotic to stream the same TV show or movie to thousands of households individually from servers hosted in the US . A second international link is out of scope for this thread, but is something worthy of debate as a separate issue .	somebody (208)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14