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| Thread ID: 105899 | 2009-12-18 02:54:00 | Help me understand the Southern Cross Cable | Chilling_Silence (9) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 840702 | 2009-12-19 20:56:00 | Time to get some media attention around this, I fail to see why the Govt should essentially waste $1,500,000,000 of taxpayers (Yours and mine) money, when it's not gonna do jack. 10 years from now when current ministers are long gone, people will look back and say "Well they screwed up, now time for us to clean up that mess and make a few more international routes like they *should* have 10 years ago". Like seriously if the SCC was worth $1.2b back in the day, how much would another similar spec'd one cost to build in this current day and age? To run to Hawaii or Aus? No doubt less than the $10b odd that the total cost of this fibre rollout is likely to cost. Heads in the sand much minister? This SC cable monopoly has been discussed as long as I can remember in the broadband forums, I remember bleeting on about this maybe 8 years ago. Telecom are able to provide rubbish unlimited services like Go Large and Big Time because they effectively price the other ISP out from doing the same. They never want these services running as you expect BECAUSE they make hundreds of millions on charging data (including SC Company) |
Battleneter2 (9361) | ||
| 840703 | 2009-12-19 21:04:00 | You have to take a look at this from a broader perspective - it's the last mile which is the most expensive and risky to build. That's why we've got tons of backhaul capacity across the country with a lot of fibre owned by Vector, FX Networks, Transpower and so on. It makes economic sense for companies to invest in these sort of links because the cost is relatively low (i.e. you don't have to dig up streets), and they can recover their investment by securing a few anchor tenants. On the other hand, the last mile is still undeveloped because companies are reluctant to bear the risk - that's where the Crown Fibre Holdings structure comes in, providing some form of certainty to private sector investors. Transtasman cables are similar to the backhaul networks in the sense that their risk is lower, due to the ability to secure anchor tenants on long term contracts. They can also be built relatively quickly, as the civil works involved are minimal. It's something you can't do at a residential level. Once the demand is there, ISPs and so on will start shopping around for international capacity (like they already do with backhaul). Companies like Vector and FX didn't always own nationwide fibre networks - once they saw an opportunity, they put their own money into investments, at zero cost to the taxpayer. The same applies to a transtasman link (or possibly a link to an Asian/Pacific hub) - when it makes sense to do so, someone will build it. Let's also remember one important point: a lot of the opportunities presented by FTTH can (and should) be implemented locally, rather than sending gigabits of network traffic to the US and back. IPTV (streaming, high def on demand movies and tv shows), a variety of other hosted services which consume vast amounts of bandwidth are best implemented with content caches in New Zealand. Even if they only host 90% of the content locally, the amount of international bandwidth required is minimal. The relationship between increased last-mile speeds and required international capacity is not a linear one. Taxpayer funds shouldn't be used to build the latest and greatest - rather, it should be used to stimulate the market so that the private sector will invest. That's what the FTTH proposal will do. When we can get the private sector (whether they are local or foreign) to use their money to service our needs, then it means taxpayer dollars can be used for more core services like health and education. |
somebody (208) | ||
| 840704 | 2009-12-19 22:44:00 | I find it helps doing a little research before speculating and telling the government how to do it's job. The govt employs thousands of analysts to make more than a cursory glance at the occasional article before advising the govt to throw billions of dollars away. They do this thing called research. A quick search on wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org les) finds the following cables pass through NZ: ANZCAN PacRimEast TASMAN2 Southern Cross It's not quite a monopoly... If I were involved in the BB program with the govt I'd definitely go for the low hanging fruit before laying tens of thousands of km's of submarine cable. A few hundred well chosen km's of terrestrial cable could make a huge difference for lots of NZ. |
Thebananamonkey (7741) | ||
| 840705 | 2009-12-19 22:54:00 | I find it helps doing a little research before speculating and telling the government how to do it's job. The govt employs thousands of analysts to make more than a cursory glance at the occasional article before advising the govt to throw billions of dollars away. They do this thing called research. A quick search on wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org les) finds the following cables pass through NZ: ANZCAN PacRimEast TASMAN2 Southern Cross It's not quite a monopoly... If I were involved in the BB program with the govt I'd definitely go for the low hanging fruit before laying tens of thousands of km's of submarine cable. A few hundred well chosen km's of terrestrial cable could make a huge difference for lots of NZ. But, I think only Southern Cross is an internet data cable, I think the others are for voice communications. |
Terry Porritt (14) | ||
| 840706 | 2009-12-20 01:22:00 | SCC runs voice as well. That said... SCC is also the only high capacity link NZ has. There are a few others, but the available capacity is so low they don't even register. |
Erayd (23) | ||
| 840707 | 2009-12-20 06:43:00 | soz dupe | Battleneter2 (9361) | ||
| 840708 | 2009-12-20 06:45:00 | I find it helps doing a little research before speculating and telling the government how to do it's job . The govt employs thousands of analysts to make more than a cursory glance at the occasional article before advising the govt to throw billions of dollars away . They do this thing called research . A quick search on wikipedia ( . wikipedia . org/wiki/List_of_international_submarine_communications_cab" target="_blank">en . wikipedia . org les) finds the following cables pass through NZ: ANZCAN PacRimEast TASMAN2 Southern Cross It's not quite a monopoly . . . If I were involved in the BB program with the govt I'd definitely go for the low hanging fruit before laying tens of thousands of km's of submarine cable . A few hundred well chosen km's of terrestrial cable could make a huge difference for lots of NZ . The other cables are a fraction of the capacity of the SCC, I suggest you keep reading lol . You have clearly never worked with analysts or project managers . They are inclined to stay inside the scope they are given, that scope is often set by those who are clueless . As above the last mile is the most expensive, BUT there is no point all having fibre into our homes if we are still paying through our nose for data . The SCC cable needs competition from someone other than Telecom so competing ISP's have else where to go . |
Battleneter2 (9361) | ||
| 840709 | 2009-12-20 07:47:00 | The other thing is that not all users of international traffic actually use international traffic. Where an overseas website has a local presence on the Akamai (www.akamai.com) network, then only the first user to access that content is actually using international bandwidth. For instance, if there is an MS update, then the first user to access it within NZ, results in a sequence of events whereby the file(s) is transferred from the Akamai servers (usually Singapore) onto a local server for that first user. Thereafter, users in New Zealand will either get their update from that server or one of the other 'nodes' located within ISP's up and down the country. Akamai are pretty shy as to where their servers are located and how many there are .....but it's no real mystery. I believe sites like YouTube also use Akamai, such that we aren't all using international bandwidth when watching videos on YouTube. Andrew Interesting link :www.akamai.com |
andrew93 (249) | ||
| 840710 | 2009-12-20 08:56:00 | ANZCAN PacRimEast TASMAN2 Southern Cross I think you will find that the only one of those cables still in use is Southern Cross. |
decibel (11645) | ||
| 840711 | 2009-12-20 19:14:00 | The other thing is that not all users of international traffic actually use international traffic. Where an overseas website has a local presence on the Akamai (www.akamai.com) network, then only the first user to access that content is actually using international bandwidth. For instance, if there is an MS update, then the first user to access it within NZ, results in a sequence of events whereby the file(s) is transferred from the Akamai servers (usually Singapore) onto a local server for that first user. Thereafter, users in New Zealand will either get their update from that server or one of the other 'nodes' located within ISP's up and down the country. Akamai are pretty shy as to where their servers are located and how many there are .....but it's no real mystery. I believe sites like YouTube also use Akamai, such that we aren't all using international bandwidth when watching videos on YouTube. Andrew Interesting link :www.akamai.com All our data is charged like its international, so if your point is we are being ripped off then sure I agree lol. |
Battleneter2 (9361) | ||
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