Forum Home
Press F1
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
840712	2009-12-20 19:45:00	All our data is charged like its international, so if your point is we are being ripped off then sure I agree lol. If it was all international, rather than being cached, then we would be paying double what we're paying now for our broadband.	somebody (208)
840713	2009-12-20 20:23:00	All our data is charged like its international, so if your point is we are being ripped off then sure I agree lol. Sorry to disappoint but that wasn't my point. I doubt the Southern Cross cable could handle all of the simultaneous requests for international traffic going in and out of New Zealand if the content wasn't cached locally (here and overseas) or pushed through a network like Akamai. The demand for bandwidth is only going to go one way, so there must be intelligent solutions to the problem. It's a bit like trying to force more traffic down a motorway; there are options other than putting in more lanes or another motorway. When you say 'we are being ripped off', is that we as in the ISP's? Or we as in consumers? Andrew	andrew93 (249)
840714	2009-12-20 22:27:00	I am stating ISP's are paying excessively high charges for international capacity (they don't get charged in data blocks like consumers). ISP's then pass this charge onto consumers. I would have thought "we" was fairly obvious. Lets not fuzzy this issue over with unnecessary fluff about caching, Telecom/SCCCN still have NZ Internet by the balls. Dont get me started on Telecom cabinetisation lol. When I start seeing Data Charges substantially dropping ill be more than happy to entertain fluff about the wonders of caching.	Battleneter2 (9361)
840715	2009-12-20 22:51:00	Lets not fuzzy this issue over with unnecessary fluff about caching, Telecom/SCCCN still have NZ Internet by the balls. Dont get me started on Telecom cabinetisation lol. When I start seeing Data Charges substantially dropping ill be more than happy to entertain fluff about the wonders of caching. This isn't fluff. I'll give you a real life example. We were looking at using the Akamai service as a way of reducing the load / demand on our own servers and bandwidth. I can't go into too much specifics for commercial reasons but instead of serving huge (and I mean huge) volumes of video streams from our own servers each week, we would now upload less than 50 per week (directly to Akamai). The demand load would then be borne by the Akamai nodes around NZ and we would get at least 90-95% reduction in bandwidth requirements (not all of the bandwidth is used for serving video, it is also used by the entire organisation for everything else internet-related). The concept is no different to international providers who have signed up with Akamai. When you get an MS update, where do you think the files come from? Redmond or your ISP? If you are with one of the larger ISPs then I will put money on the file having come from your ISP, if not then it would probably have come from a larger ISP within NZ given MS are part of the Akamai network. That download speed you experience is not constrained by the SC cable, the constraint (for my example) exists somewhere within NZ. Yes I agree data charges are a crock, and IMO that is the fundamental issue with internet pricing for consumers in NZ. We have an all-you-can-eat plan with a really fat pipe so we don't care how many TB's we (or our viewers) use each week. However, ISPs charge consumers for data because they can't work out how to make money any other way, especially while Telecom is riding the pig's back and calling the shots. However, the point is the charges would be significantly higher if we didn't have caching, and other methods, for reducing international demand from within NZ. Cheers, Andrew	andrew93 (249)
840716	2009-12-20 23:26:00	Yes I understand how caching works thanks and have for a long time. Just not seeing any movement on data charges to consumers. There is no distinction between local and international traffic, so its just one excessive cost. As a consumer I dont care if its cached on the moon, I care about the $ I pay for data. We agree its Telecom still calling most of the shots, I certainly dont blame other ISP's. Pricing has been Telecom's weapon of choice since the year dot, squeezing other ISP's as Government policy lags 5 years+ behind the current issues. Its a very dirty game that Telecom have been playing for a very long time.	Battleneter2 (9361)
840717	2009-12-21 01:33:00	Lets not fuzzy this issue over with unnecessary fluff about caching, Telecom/SCCCN still have NZ Internet by the balls. Dont get me started on Telecom cabinetisation lol. Do get started on cabinetisation - I'd like to hear what you dislike about it so much.	somebody (208)
840718	2009-12-21 02:09:00	Do get started on cabinetisation - I'd like to hear what you dislike about it so much. There have been issues for some whose ISP is other than Telecom, (quite a few posted on Geekzone) www.orcon.net.nz rs/ For me all that happened was my router reports ADSL2+ but Orcon don't yet provide that because they do not have their equipment in the cabinet.	Terry Porritt (14)
840719	2009-12-21 04:03:00	Just not seeing any movement on data charges to consumers. There is no distinction between local and international traffic, so its just one excessive cost. Have you seen any movement in the wholesale prices for bandwidth? If you haven't then I'm curious why you are expecting movements in the retail prices....? As a consumer I dont care if its cached on the moon, I care about the $ I pay for data. Now I know that's incorrect. If Telecom owned the connection to the Moon then we would all be paying interstellar rates.* We agree its Telecom still calling most of the shots, I certainly dont blame other ISP's. So we can't expect anything to change unless something else happens. I haven't seen any major changes lately so I'm not expecting any change to happen by itself. In any case, Telecom is the incumbent, they own the market, they only need to play defensive strategy, so it's up to the innovators to come up with alternative solutions. Rather than complain about it (I'm not complaining), what do you propose is done about it? The ISPs aren't helping themselves. This was my experience recently : I recently approached an ISP about a wholesale plan, and after telling the rep that we were not going to pay any data charges (given the content was geo-filtered/blocked), he wanted to quote for data charges! Some people just don't get it. The ISPs have to get smarter. __________________________________________________ ______ Separate but related subject for Chill: I didn't get into this for a Telecom-bash: the reason I posted was because (as somebody said) there is not a fixed relationship between internet users and international traffic. To divide the bitrate speed of the SC cable by an average user bitrate, is ignoring other factors (as has already been thrashed). The SC cable is not (yet) the rate limiting factor. It's more likely to be your own ISP, your set-up and/or proximity to an exchange or cabinet. The 2nd biggest issue with the internet in NZ (other than data charges) is the shocking state of interconnectivity between ISPs. Creating more backbone choices within NZ may (hopefully) provide better connectivity/peering opportunities between ISPs. There is no point looking at international options until the national networks are fixed first. So I don't have an issue with investing in backbone and last mile technology - once we have our own house sorted, then we can look at international connectivity. Although APE and WIX are going some way to resolving the peering issues....	andrew93 (249)
840720	2009-12-21 07:17:00	Have you seen any movement in the wholesale prices for bandwidth? If you haven't then I'm curious why you are expecting movements in the retail prices . . . . ? Ka? I dont, I read back I dont see me saying I expect that . Rather than complain about it (I'm not complaining), what do you propose is done about it? Ummm well I am not complaining, I am discussing in a relevant thread titled "Help me understand the Southern Cross Cable", its just the way it is, I can't change that . The SC cable is not (yet) the rate limiting factor . It's more likely to be your own ISP, your set-up and/or proximity to an exchange or cabinet . lol well I never said it was but ill assume your answering someone else or preaching . You may also like to add, a lot of single source file servers have load balanced limited bandwidth themselves, so a slow speed may not be at your end . Are we done? oh good :)	Battleneter2 (9361)
840721	2009-12-21 07:40:00	Dig a big tunnel, and drive cars... as Andrew Tanenbaum put it "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway."	Agent_24 (57)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7