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NZ Plan For Fiber To the Home 169

Ars has a note about New Zealand's plans for nationwide broadband access, which will induce envy in many North American readers. "New Zealand has decided not to sit around while incumbent DSL operators milk the withered dugs of their cash cow until it keels over from old age. Instead, the Kiwis have established a government-owned corporation to invest NZ$1.5 billion for open-access fiber to the home. By 2020, 75 percent of residents should have, at a bare minimum, 100Mbps down/50 Mbps up with a choice of providers. Crown Fibre Holdings Limited is the company, and it's wholly owned by the government — for now — and the company's mission couldn't be any clearer. Two of its six guiding principles include 'focusing on building new infrastructure, and not unduly preserving the "legacy assets" of the past' and 'avoiding "lining the pockets" of existing broadband network providers.'"
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NZ Plan For Fiber To the Home

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  • Deja Vu (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wonder where that got this amazing original idea from? *cough* Australia *cough*
    • Re:Deja Vu (Score:5, Informative)

      by Cimexus ( 1355033 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @01:43AM (#32492992)

      Yep it appears to be modeled at least partly on the Australian National Broadband Network [nbnco.com.au], although it will no doubt be modified somewhat to suit the NZ telecommunications market, geography and requirements.

      Incidentally, actual consumer plans on the new (Australian) network (which has several trial areas already wired up) have just been announced in the last week or two. And they are better value than comparable DSL plans (in terms of download quota), despite the far greater speeds. This will come as a pleasant surprise to those that feared that new, faster tech would also mean more expense.

      Taking a look at one ISPs NBN offerings [on.net], initial launch speeds are 25/2, 50/4 and 100/8 Mbit (downstream/upstream), with a choice of quotas from 15 GB (entry level) to 200 GB. And these prices will almost certainly come down further once the NBN is available in more than just a handful of trial areas and more ISPs come on board. I actually suspect we'll eventually see true unlimited plans becoming common (some ISPs such as TPG and AAPT are offer this now, albeit expensively!)

      I suspect though that NZers will get their network completed before Australia does due to their smaller land area though (and potentially less political infighting!). Good to see it happening on both sides of the Tasman. Copper POTS networks are on their way out. They have served well for ~100 years, but everyone knows replacing them with fibre is inevitable. Might as well start the job now.

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        by timmarhy ( 659436 )
        The NBN is going to be another K Rudd disaster. essentially what they are proposing in Australia is to duplicate telstra at a cost of 43 BILLION. Guess what the market cap of telstra is? 37.7 billion. I'm having trouble deciding if our government is retarded or just incompetent. For the proposed cost of the NBN (which given the Rudd government's hisotry with pink batts and the buildings for school scheme seems 99.9% certain to blow out in cost), they could buy telstra and simply upgrade that networks last m
        • Yeah true. There are multiple ways it could be done from a political and economic perspective and I don't doubt that the NBN isn't one of the more expensive options. And I'm not a Labor voter so I agree with you that the management of the rollout is almost certain to be stuffed up in some way or another!

          I was looking at it more from the high level technical perspective and the need for SOMETHING to be done. Wasn't making a comment on the merits (or not) of Rudd's particular scheme. I think from a technology

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I'm wondering if you are retarded or incompetent.
          Regional areas are where we need fibre the most, the cost of having an upgrade in speed using copper in these areas will require significantly more exchanges to be built without the same benefits that fibre has over copper, doesn't sound very economical not to mention the constant degradation of the state of the copper. Maybe your thinking of rural areas they are defined very differently.
          Not to mention you don't have an activist trying to do something he beli

        • it's largely irrelevant, there is no way the network will go ahead, the liberal party will run interference till they eventually get into power and nuke the whole thing. imho i pretty much agree with you but i think fibre to the node even when un-economical would be A Good Thing, but fibre to the home is probably going too far.
      • Just got to make sure that fiber network is designed in such a way that it's easilly upgradable as newer tech comes along.

        Many years ago (long before DSL) telcos in some places ran fiber to the cabinet and then pots/isdn from there to individual properties. This was touted as being the way of the future.

        Then DSL came along and those areas were the last to get it because the decentralised system made upgrading a few customers at a time far more expensive (with a traditional exchange you can just put your DSL

        • by thogard ( 43403 )

          Now they just run one fiber to a cabinet and use a prism to split that signal up to about 32 ways and put everyone on a digital party line. FiOS has found that you can't off 100 mb on the 622 (or even the 1.2 gig) PON and provide TV at the same time. Cable TV take up in Australia is far lower so there is a chance your 100 mb won't have to fight with the closer data streams. And before someone says they use one color for TV and on for Internet, keep in mind that the Pay per view and preloading movies is do

  • Good thing I live in New Zealand
    • by QuantumG ( 50515 ) * <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @01:34AM (#32492946) Homepage Journal

      We think so too - regards, Australia

  • good plan (Score:5, Informative)

    by dropadrop ( 1057046 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @01:33AM (#32492940)

    I spent a month in NZ at a friends house a year ago, and the internet connections where like we had in Finland 10 years ago... Or even worse. They had an ADSL connection limited to 1Mb/s down (and very slow up) with a 2GB monthly limit. After the limit is full it would throttle down to 5KB/s for the rest of the month. The price of the connection was more then I payed for a full rate (8/1) ADSL back at home, with no caps. I guess if this was somewhere far in the countryside I could understand it, but it was in one of the better areas of Auckland!

    I do have to admit, that internet connections were far more expensive in Finland too until they made a law forcing telco's to rent out the last mile with pricing based on the true expenses rather to what they feel like. This brought a lot of competition that ended up lowering prices by about half in all areas worth competing in. You still have areas in the country side where the only company offering ADSL is the "old telco" of the area, but that's just because there really is no money to be made. In most of the country the situation improved dramatically, and looking how the government has originally subsidized building the infrastructure I feel the decision was a good one. You can't count on telco's bringing down prices of internet connections, or speeding them up by much.

    • Re:good plan (Score:5, Informative)

      by GreatDrok ( 684119 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @01:46AM (#32493018) Journal

      I live in Auckland and have a reasonably fast connection - much better than the one I had in the UK. I get 6Mbps down, 700Kbps up and have an 80GB cap. There is some competition now so the situation has improved markedly even over the last couple of years and I expect this fibre to the door to improve it even more. Of course we also have to worry about being spied on while we're enjoying our new fast connection. I find it funny that ISPs advertise how fast their connection is in how many movies you can get when there are few legal movie download services. I have an AppleTV and my previous 20GB cap was a serious impediment so I upgraded to 40GB and the ISP offered to double it again if I would commit to stay with them for 12 months. I wonder if caps will still exist once we get fibre because the download speeds are likely to be so high that even 80GB may not be enough.

      Also, as someone else commented, it isn't necessarily the speed of the connection to the ISP that is the limiting factor. Often my connection is super fast but accessing sites in the US can be really slow due to traffic making its way across the Pacific. Also, don't get me started on how we suffer from the Aussies censorship decisions - I couldn't even get the proper version of GTAIV because the Aussies don't have adult/M ratings for games and rather than sell us the full version we got shipped the same watered down PG version that Australia got.

      At least in Auckland we have broadband, there are still large numbers of people stuck on dialup out in the sticks.....

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Cimexus ( 1355033 )

        I hate the Australian game censorship problem as much as you do, but to be fair:

        - That should be changing quite soon. Michael Atkinson has retired as South Australian Attorney-General. He was the only AG holding back an R18+ game rating in AU. So the wheels are in motion to amend the classification legislation to bring games into line with movies/books etc. Of course, being a slow, political process, it could still be a few years off. But I firmly believe it will happen.

        - On the internet filtering side of t

        • I think you'll find a "Family First" MP will take-over the position of Atkinson on this issue; being an important independent with power to decide other issues when the major parties are locked-up, Family Firsters will have to be "bribed" - now & then - with silly restrictions, like the one affecting games, just like they've got the Rudd gov't backing a costly but useless mandatory Internet filter.

          I'd like to know: WHO is getting all the $$$ that pays for its roll-out...?

      • I was using over 100gig per month on 2Mbit. I am now on 8Mbit... True unlimited is the way to go.
        • True unlimited is the way to go.

          Unlimited simply means that the 90% of users with low usage are subsidizing the 10% with high usage.

          When I go to McDonalds for just a burger, I don't want to pay for your Big Mac with super-sized fries.

          A fair plan with metered use makes most sense. Problem is of course that too many Telcos and ISP's have scrapped the word fair from their spelling checker.

          • Most folks I know here have similar usage patterns. I don't know anyone that's using under 50G. The cake does not need to be a lie.
      • As an Aussie, I'd just like to say sorry. We're not all complete morons, some of us are doing the best we can about this rubbish.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Five years ago maybe. For at least the last couple of years 4 Mb/s / 500 Kb/s and 10 GB caps have been the norm -- let's say "early Iron Age" as opposed to the Bronze Age service you're reporting. All bets are off if you're using Telecom, mind, and reliability is crap no matter where you turn.

      As for competition: there are oodles of ISPs, and local loop unbundling is still in progress. The future's looking tolerable as long as Telecom doesn't regain its stranglehold on the country's collective throat. The go

    • You still have areas in the country side where the only company offering ADSL is the "old telco" of the area, but that's just because there really is no money to be made.

      I live outside Hiltulanlahti, which is high-density rural, but lower density than US exurbs (residences along the road are 100-300 meters apart). We have a monopoly telco which stopped laying copper several years ago. Nowadays, it's fiber only for all new houses, carrying TV and telephone as well as internet. They seem to think there's enough money in it: we have 100/10 internet and IP TV for about 65euro/month.

      • we have 100/10 internet and IP TV for about 65euro/month.

        I don't even have the opportunity, without leasing a dedicated line (for gobs of money, haven't even thought of pricing it), for 100/10 access (as a minimum), where I am (Champaign IL, where the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is, home of NCSA). My piddly 12/2 connection tends to barely max at 8/1, though Comcast tries to blame it on my equipment (though I've been through two modems issued by them, 4 routers, all different makes, and 4 NICs (only one of which was a 10Mbps Ethernet card). This, for

    • by drsmithy ( 35869 )

      I spent a month in NZ at a friends house a year ago, and the internet connections where like we had in Finland 10 years ago... Or even worse. They had an ADSL connection limited to 1Mb/s down (and very slow up) with a 2GB monthly limit. After the limit is full it would throttle down to 5KB/s for the rest of the month. The price of the connection was more then I payed for a full rate (8/1) ADSL back at home, with no caps. I guess if this was somewhere far in the countryside I could understand it, but it was

    • by mttlg ( 174815 )

      I spent a month in NZ at a friends house a year ago, and the internet connections where like we had in Finland 10 years ago... Or even worse. They had an ADSL connection limited to 1Mb/s down (and very slow up) with a 2GB monthly limit. After the limit is full it would throttle down to 5KB/s for the rest of the month. The price of the connection was more then I payed for a full rate (8/1) ADSL back at home, with no caps. I guess if this was somewhere far in the countryside I could understand it, but it was in one of the better areas of Auckland!

      I spent two weeks in New Zealand earlier this year, and the countryside is lucky to have wired telephones. The North Island wasn't too bad (cell phone service available except where terrain blocked, somewhat slow but reliable free wireless at one hotel), but the South Island felt like a completely different country. If it was available, internet access at hotels tended to be slow and pricey (browsing web sites was often difficult or impossible and 10 cents per megabyte was typical) and prices were simila

  • Take your mum.

  • First of all we should be able to mark the article a troll. That's just ridiculous.

    Second that's only 355 USD per person I'm guessing they're not going to get everybody for that.

    • by Macgrrl ( 762836 )

      They don't need to run fibre per person, they need to run it per address. Who knows whether they plan to run fibre to every unit in a block of flats (for example), the number of connections points will be lower than the population so they can spend more per connection.

    • by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @01:49AM (#32493026) Journal

      First of all we should be able to mark the article a troll. That's just ridiculous.

      Second that's only 355 USD per person I'm guessing they're not going to get everybody for that.

      FFS learn some math.
      $355 per person over 10 years is dirt cheap.
      It's not even the price of one month's extra internet service per year.
      And no, they're not going to get everyone. The title of TFA is "75% of New Zealanders to get 100Mbps fiber by 2020"
      Could you fail any harder?

      Here's how it works: every fiber builder who takes government money needs to lay basic, unmanaged dark fiber that any ISP can light in order to offer service to a particular home or business. The fiber companies can also run some particular Layer 2 services, but they can't offer full-blown Internet access directly. Instead, they are allowed to sell Internet access to their own retail unit so long as it operates like a separate business, and all other ISPs must be offered access at the same rate.

      That is the kind of competition most capitalists talk about, but rarely see in the real world.
      If New Zealand doesn't end up with higher speeds and lower costs, I'll eat a sheep's eye.

      • by AliasMarlowe ( 1042386 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @02:12AM (#32493112) Journal

        If New Zealand doesn't end up with higher speeds and lower costs, I'll eat a sheep's eye.

        Eat one anyway.
        They're good, surprisingly crunchy if cooked properly (quickly grilled by itself, or roasted in the sheep's head). Don't just leave it boiling in a soup - it will dissolve into mush.

      • by Malc ( 1751 )

        I love how people justify taxation based on spreading it out over time. How many of these "little" projects can politicians contrive before your tax burden or government debt is unreasonable? Is that per person in NZ, or per ISP customer, per tax payer, BTW? Money would be better invested elsewhere.

        • by sqrt(2) ( 786011 )

          Availability of high speed internet access is actually pretty important to modern life, and the economy. It's a legitimate use of tax dollars for government to improve that infrastructure, especially when market forces alone have proved insufficient to do so.

          • by Malc ( 1751 )

            High speed's a joke with some of the bandwidth caps and the amount charged for excess GB. I lived in Australia for 6 months last year, coming from Canada. I could not believe what the Aussies tolerate for internet, nor the cost. New Zealand doesn't sound much better. Last mile speed was not my impediment to internet usage/participation, but the costs and ISP practices were. My DSL line was never the bottleneck, but rather the link across the Pacific. I'm in the UK now, and although more expensive than

            • by sqrt(2) ( 786011 )

              Currently there is only one cable connecting NZ to North America, use government funds to build another link that can compete with the monopoly and speed and prices will improve. Same with Australia, although I am reading that competition has improved recently resulting in better speeds and higher caps.

        • I love how people justify taxation based on spreading it out over time. How many of these "little" projects can politicians contrive before your tax burden or government debt is unreasonable? Is that per person in NZ, or per ISP customer, per tax payer, BTW? Money would be better invested elsewhere.

          Personally, I think that you can afford a whole lot of such small projects. Really, loads.
          We're talking about $355 in 10 yrs. That equals about $1.50 per month. In many European countries, the average tax payer will pay up to 1500 euro in tax. So, you can have 1000 such small projects. Or a number of big ones (such as a war or proper healthcare) and still some small ones.

          I see your point that money eventually runs out...
          But contrary to popular belief, fast internet is not only used for gaming and facebook -

        • by iserlohn ( 49556 )

          What's wrong with taxation when you have representation? We live in societies, you know, not in castles with a moat. I pay my share to keep everything humming along and you should pay yours. If you have problem with that, then change it through the political system.

        • I love how people justify taxation based on spreading it out over time.

          What's wrong with that? Our modern civilization was practically built on massive projects funded by taxation over time, things that would never have been done without short-term thinking or government investment.

          Secondly, why would one have to justify taxation in the first place? It's proven to be remarkably effective.

      • $355 per person over 10 years is dirt cheap.

        no it's impossibly cheap (which was my point).

        And no, they're not going to get everyone. The title of TFA is "75% of New Zealanders to get 100Mbps fiber by 2020"

        Whatever it's still only like 450 USD. Good luck to them, but it seems REALLY low ball.

      • Here's how it works: every fiber builder who takes government money needs to lay basic, unmanaged dark fiber that any ISP can light in order to offer service to a particular home or business. The fiber companies can also run some particular Layer 2 services, but they can't offer full-blown Internet access directly. Instead, they are allowed to sell Internet access to their own retail unit so long as it operates like a separate business, and all other ISPs must be offered access at the same rate.

        That is the kind of competition most capitalists talk about, but rarely see in the real world.
        If New Zealand doesn't end up with higher speeds and lower costs, I'll eat a sheep's eye.

        Actually, they won't allow any fibre company under the control of the same shareholders as a retail company at all, so it pretty much actually does have to be a seperate business, not just act like one.

        They also state that if local governments (city councils) want to submit a proposal, they're free to do so.

  • by kickme_hax0r ( 968593 ) <simon@welsh.co.nz> on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @01:35AM (#32492958) Homepage
    Yet, this corporation doesn't take into account New Zealand's main bottle-neck: the Southern Cross Cable. Only having one link to the rest of the internet, and that link is owned by a for-profit business, makes for piss-poor international bandwidth. Luckily, there are some people making some noise about laying another cable, just so there's no longer a monopoly and we might actually get some decent speeds.
    • by Cimexus ( 1355033 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @01:49AM (#32493030)

      To be fair, Southern Cross Cable is a pretty nice cable. It's recently had a major upgrade (new wavelengths lit up) and has plenty of spare capacity, so your international bandwidth doesn't *have* to be 'piss poor' - it all depends on how much capacity on it your telcos purchase.

      Having said that, I agree that the quality of that link is fairly irrelevant if there's only one link (i.e. a monopoly). That'll never get costs down. We were in a similar situation in Australia of course up until quite recently (Southern Cross, up until last year, was by far the biggest pipe in/out of Australia ... but PPC1 turning on in October made a massive difference - within weeks, quotas on my ISP almost doubled for the same price!).

      • by mudshark ( 19714 )
        Fair enough...the **cable** is pretty nice. The ownership and the resulting price structure is the part that's not so flash. Telecom has used the doctrine of artificial scarcity to squeeze ISPs for international transit costs and put the equivalent of a banana in NZ's internet tailpipe. Here's hoping that the competition [geekzone.co.nz] envisioned by Drury, Morgan and Co comes to fruition sooner and not later....
    • by mr_exit ( 216086 )

      There's a new cable planned to compete with the southern cross. Competition will bring the price down, especially as the southern cross still has spare capacity.

      http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/3435625/Top-business-figures-in-bold-broadband-bid [stuff.co.nz]

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Telecos may not tell you this. But there are more than that cable servicing NZ international bandwidth. There is at least one going to the west cost of USA and one heading up to japan. They installed the latest pacific cable while i was still living in NZ, with the cable work on one of the beaches in Auckland making the news papers. A new cable like that has serious capacity.

      Fact is, most of the "bandwidth caps" and costs have more to do with artificial scarcity and cheaper local infrastructure. As an ex
    • by jonwil ( 467024 )

      Didn't Pipe (the guys who just opened PPC-1) talk about a cable to New Zealand (possibly as an extention of PPC-1)?

      • Last I heard they had changed their minds on building their own cable, and were going to team up with PacificFibre. I could be wrong about that though.

  • Setting the bar low (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Alarindris ( 1253418 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @01:36AM (#32492964)
    Isn't this like saying in 2000 "By 2010 we hope 75% of people have a 56k connection"?

    10 years is a long time. A real goal would be more like 2Gb symmetrical. Or something.
    • In a decade those speeds might be weak.
      However, I doubt that the fiber that they lay will become outdated.

      Kind of like how DSL runs over copper that was laid decades ago at much higher bandwidth than originally conceived.

      The equipment running the system will probably be upgraded over the years without digging up the streets and running new media. The cost will be negligible compared to the initial roll-out.

    • by Eivind ( 15695 ) <eivindorama@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 08, 2010 @01:56AM (#32493058) Homepage

      Yes and no. The thing is, there's 2 parts needed for a connection: some kinda physical link, and suitable tranceivers in each end of the physical link. Changing the physical link (the copper-pair or the optical fibre) is expensive and difficult. Changing the tranceivers on the ends of an existing cable, on the other hand, is as simple as buying a new faster modem (i.e. the consumer can do it himself, and the cost can be less than $100.)

      We've got fibre. The current tranceiver is just capable of 1Gbps, but that's just because currently there's no demand for more, and faster tranceivers are expensive today. (infact we're currently subscribing for only 100Mbps of internet-connectivity, so they artificially limit us in their router) If in a decade a gigabit seems puny, the actual physical fibre is capable of at least 1Tbps, with TODAYS tranceivers. (yes, those things are expensive today, but so where gigabit ethernet-cards, once upon a time)

      So short answer: Once you've got a decent-quality single-mode fibre to your basement, you've got enough bandwith in the fibre for a while. I don't want to guess if/when a terabit to your home is going to start feeling puny, but I doubt it'll be this decade.

      • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Once its rolled out, any telco should be able to offer you service too.
        From low cost email and light surfing to 24/7 HD options.
        Thats the cool thing, its out in suburbia and free of one telco to milk, you have freedom.
      • A lot depends on the topology. Afaict one of the reasons that DSL was a commercial sucess was that it could be deployed gradually. When a customer orders DSL you just add a patch jumper at the exchange to the DSL gear. IIRC there were some places in the UK and germany (I dunno if any were in america) that had fiber to the cabinet and then equipment to convert that to pots/ISDN in the cabinet and afaict these were among the last places to get DSL because of the huge cost of upgrading all those cabinated.

        Does

  • So 100/50 is cool all within the mainland for them, but how much content is actually native (ie: how much will this really benefit people)? The bottleneck is still the pipe(s) that feed the island.
  • NZ's issue is connectivity with the outside world. Full-rate DSL (up to 26 Mbps or whatever) is common in the cities. It's about $500 a month for unlimited bandwidth anything (aside from one plan with speed caps so bad you can't even play WoW or a single stream of anything). $20 per GB overages. No one in the cities have a problem with speeds to their house. There are some rural areas with poor coverage. But in general the issue is connectivity with the rest of the planet. What they need to be doing
    • I am sick of correcting this!

      Australia does not have any internet filtering. There is only a PROPOSAL for doing so (mostly driven by a particular few senators). It hasn't even been introduced as a Bill into Parliament yet. Hell, the legislation hasn't even been ~drafted~ yet. And isn't likely to be, given that this is an election year and the filter is incredibly unpopular.

      OTOH, New Zealand already has a live, functioning Internet filter much like the one being proposed in Australia. So your argument about

      • by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        Australia does not have any internet filtering.

        "Internet censorship in Australia currently consists of a regulatory regime under which the Australian Communications and Media Authority has the power to enforce content restrictions on Internet content hosted within Australia, and maintain a "black-list" of overseas websites which is then provided for use in filtering software." That's from Wikipedia. If I'm misinformed, it's because I've seen that and things like that in many places.

        I am sick of corr
        • Wikipedia does not need to be corrected. A blacklist that can be used in filtering software (that you install on an end-user PC) is not the same as a blacklist that is mandatory and enforced at an ISP or backbone level.

          ACMA maintains a blacklist, yes. That blacklist can be included in third party internet filtering software that consumers can use at their own discretion (net nanny-type software). Such commercial filter software is available in every country. But use of this software is not mandatory in Aust

          • by AK Marc ( 707885 )
            Wikipedia does not need to be corrected. A blacklist that can be used in filtering software (that you install on an end-user PC) is not the same as a blacklist that is mandatory and enforced at an ISP or backbone level.

            You claim NZ has a working filter and Australia just has proposals. While the truth is that NZ has an opt-in filter that two small ISPs have opted into, and Australia has two small ISPs that have opted into the Australia system. So you claim that NZ has one and Australia doesn't, when the
            • Fair call on the NZ thing - that filter is indeed opt-in (well, on the basis that not all ISPs use it, and if you can choose your ISP then you can 'opt out' in that way).

              But the NZ filter is still 'live and working'. The Australian one had a couple of small ISPs participate in a short-term trial of it a while back. That was only a test though, and it finished long ago. So for now, AU has no filtering (other than via user-installed software). That's the comparison I was making (NZ live and implemented, albei

    • You don't call $500 a month for full rate adsl an issue? As mentioned above, 24/1 adsl with no caps and a 2 year contract can be had for 9,90€ first year and 19,90 second year here in Finland. And I'm fairly sure the companies will still be making a profit as long as they don't need to spend a lot of setting up the connection (that is, connecting your apartment to the dslam does not require somebody coming over to the apartments switching board). I do understand your point about connectivity to the res
      • by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        You don't call $500 a month for full rate adsl an issue?

        Full rate ADSL 2+ costs about $20, but will come with a cap of about 1 GB or 2 GB. The last mile speed is great, it's the cost of the bytes that's the issue. Getting 24/1 DSL in New Zealand is cheaper than your two year average in Finland. You just can't use it in NZ because the backhaul is so expensive that they have low caps.
    • by zonky ( 1153039 )
      I have 14Mbps/700kbps, a 40 GB included, no limits between 1am-7am, and overage outside those hours is very reasonable 1NZD per gig.

      (And i can bank my data, so if i don't use my 40gb, it keeps rolling over.)

      I'm not unhappy to be honest- i'd rather be transparently sold a cap, and be able to purchase reasonable overage, then some sort of unclear rules around what 'unlimited' really was.

      Pacific Fibre may address these wider connectivity to the world problems, but the major issues appears to be people
      • by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        the major issues appears to be people not shopping around and buying retarded internet plans of dominant legacy telcos.

        Well, what are you on? Slingshot advertises numbers close to what you state, but off by an hour here or there on the no limit time, data banking doesn't work like you describe, overages not like you list (unless you count buying $50 overage chunk as $1 per gig) and they don't have a 14/700 plan, but those may be your speeds, as they have FS/FS plans.

        And buying that without any other ser
    • I have said this before. I worked for ISPs in NZ, I have friends working for ISPs in NZ now. There are other cables. At least one to the US and at least one in the general direction of Japan(don't remember where is goes exactly anymore). I also worked for telecom for a while. The cost of bandwidth on any of these cables is so low (cents per 100Gb), that bandwidth caps have more to do with telecom than any other single factor.
      • by erayd ( 1131355 ) *

        References please. Last time I looked, the SSC system was the only cable network in place that even comes close to the capacity needed to service NZ's internet requirements. Every other cable I'm aware of is several orders of magnitude slower, and therefore not even worth bringing to the table...

        If, as you claim, there are actually other cables of meaningful capacity (which I personally doubt), there will be available data to support this - care to provide us with a link or two?

        • Google is your friend. Clue one. The southern cross cable *network* doesn't just go to Austria.
          • by erayd ( 1131355 ) *

            Google is your friend. Clue one. The southern cross cable *network* doesn't just go to Austria.

            I am fully aware of that fact, and I did check Google before posting. Now instead of being so patronising, I suggest you make note of the following clues yourself, and then provide some evidence to back up your claim:

            1. I never claimed the SSC system was a single cable - read my post again.
            2. The SSC system doesn't go to *Austria* either - we don't live in the middle of Europe.
            3. The SSC system is a ring network connecting NZ and Australia to the US via Hawaii & Fiji (ref [wikimedia.org]).
            4. There is no other cable system conne
  • More benefits of being that small island in the middle of everywhere: we had this years ago.

    Of cause, being "Not in America", latency in gaming is still horrible. Bah humbug.

  • The hard (read expensive) part of any comm link to homes/businesses, is the last mile. NZ would be smart to create a gov. owned monopoly that covers from the residence to the green box. Then allow different companies to compete at providing fiber and services to the greenbox. The advantage of this is that each greenbox will end up with multiple fibers coming in. While less efficient, each greenbox will actually have redundancy. More importantly, it will introduce competition for services while allowing easy
  • I would rather see every lamp post have a Wi-Fi base station on it and cell phone carriers cease to exist. The Internet itself only runs at Wi-Fi speeds (or less) so pervasive Wi-Fi is better than fiber that is only in my home and which I'm going to turn into Wi-Fi anyway and have to manage it.

  • I have fiber to the home with the building wiring remaining as coax. But it doesn't matter much as Comcast is only going to feed data at its usual rate anyway. We need governmental measures to mandate data speed and quantity for ISPs.

  • The NZ market is significantly different from the US market in that cable TV has only ever been a very minor player in the market. (I only some suburbs of Wellington, and only in the last 10 years or so, but I haven't tried to keep current on this.) Subscription TV comes by satellite to decoder boxes. This means that currently cable modem is not an option, but I'm guessing that fiber-to-the-home will get used for cable TV service once it is installed.

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