[Caven]

What on Earth is going on here, then?

Just browsed the list of Googled ISPs available in New Zealand and at first glance, I'm totally unimpressed.

What is this traffic limit? Allowed 10GB a month then 2.5c per MB thereafter!! Sorry, done PDH/SDH, Fibre Optics and can't see the justification for that at all. Come on net-heads, help this ravenous mp3 sharer! There must be a broadband ISP out there that charges a flat rate for unmetered access????

Just uploading small video files and albums to a family site for our relatives in Blighty could soon dent these allowances. Having said that the web hosting options seem pretty dire too, roughly similar in price to the UK but what good is 50MB to anyone? You can get 1GB these days on those stupid flash based electric pens for christ's sake.

For a simple site, containing small clips and hundreds of family photos ( I'm thinking of hosting the WHOLE family, so to create a central meeting point for everyone ) which I don't want to have to resize to glorified thumbs, can anyone recommend?

Thanks in advance, if anyone answers, lol!

[xanctus]

Caven,
my friend told me that even in Australia the internet is not as good as in US (which most of the high speed are unlimited access). He said to get the unlimited is very expensive. :?
I, myself, concern about this matter as well...I really need an unlimited high speed online connections. However, he told me about NZ connection would be fully high speed in 2007. Anyone knows this matter maybe?

[cloudboy99]

I hope so. If an island country such as Japan can have Mb speeds, then hopefully NZ will too. That sure puts a damper on things for an IT geek like me. So much for running my own web/mail/DNS server on a static IP with unlimited bandwidth...

[veronica]

Not really up to computor stuff but we are just getting organised for the lines to go into the backpackers we are setting up. we are going for the limited to start with but will probably upgrade if we need to. Hi speed line
will be at 2,000kbps and we are going for the 1000mb a month cost of linewith this is $75 (inc GST) 5gig would cost $97 but can't remember the unlimited cost. Thats with telstra clear (paradise) www.telstraclear.co.nz.
We've got unlimited at the moment in another area of town but its at only 250kbp. and it costs $99. don't know if this helps.

[chris b]

I did see an advertisement for what looked like microwave wireless (I want to say the name of the company is "Woosh" but I don't clearly remember). Their site listed an "unlimited" bandwidth option, but upon further inspection even this was capped at 15GB a month; line speed was "250" nominal (I'm assuming 250kbps, which is roughly equivalent to the slowest DSL available in the U.S.). It was about $55/month for the service, and the microwave antenna/modem unit could be used anywhere in a specific zone of NZ. Would be nice for traveling in a car with a laptop, but it looked a large to be carrying around in an attache case or similar. They had a limited plan at the same speed with a 1GB cap for $40/month.

Update: just found the site, it's http://www.woosh.com/, they advertise on the stuff.co.nz site regularly.

[DB]

Internet in NZ is different to most other places on the planet.

There are basically three sources of "broadband" internet, namely ADSL, Cable and Wireless. None are unlimited in the sense of the word as understood in the USA or UK, and you could also argue that none of them are particularly "broad".

There is nothing wrong with the technical infrastructure here in NZ, its just that the incumbent telco has the market sewn up, and delivers services it is prepared to deliver, not what the market or the customers want. A few years back, all NZ international internet bandwidth came through a university, and they charged by the byte, a practice that has sort of continued to this day. Many wise souls thought that the creation of the Southern Cross undersea cable would herald a sea-change in internet pricing in NZ, but they underestimated the resolve of Telecom.

I wrote some stuff in another place that is relevant and that you may find interesting, see my contribution (username David) here http://www.uk2nz.co.uk/chat/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=3606.

Feel free to ask questions.

And as for your own "web/mail/DNS server on a static IP" - err - no. No static IPs here... and I seem to recall that running servers is against the T&Cs. Best bet is to get cheap hosting in some other country. Annoying.

[Caven]

Thanks db, excuse the pun!

I'm pretty stunned by the nature of comms in NZ. For a relatively progressive government, wanting to increase the population and strengthen the economy, at the very least there should be a strong fibre backbone routed throughout the country. It's this lack of fibre, coupled with Telecom's monopoly keeping the embers damp. Planners in the UK are now looking at "Fibre To The Home", as in Sweden (26Mb/Sec!!!) by comparison.

Reason not to emigrate? Definately not!

But it's still pants. Are there any plans afoot by govt. to break the Telecom monopoly, like ours did to B.T.? There's no doubt about how much things improved here in the UK when this happened.

Thanks for the link to your other posts, DB, it looks like the 256 connection for me, but like you say, if the ratios are better it won't make much difference... :hopeso

Know any ways to circumvent, lol?

[DB]

...at the very least there should be a strong fibre backbone routed throughout the country.

Err - there is, almost the whole place is wired for fibre. There are a just a couple of places where fibre doesnt go, they are microwave linked.

Planners in the UK are now looking at "Fibre To The Home"

NZ is much closer to fibre to the premise than the UK is. The NZ phone network is much more like the UK cable network than the UK phone network. BTs fibre network only goes to its exchanges, then the last mile is all copper. The cable companies go fibre to the streetside box, which is literally the last hop till your home. Here in NZ its fibre all the way to the streetside box, and that is just a few hundred meters from your home.

There are no technical issues here, just lack of a regulation regime to force Telecom to deliver the services that the market wants.

My ADSL downstream leg runs at 7.6mbit/sec, upstream 320kbit/sec but my actual connection rate is bandwidth limited to 256kbit/sec 'cos thats what I've paid for.

[Caven]

Thanks for the clarification. I've either read an old article or misread a current one :uhoh

With your points in mind, are there plans to make drop-cables fibre, eventually? Is a fibre drop-cable an option if you want it installed, and are willing to front the cost yourself? Obviously, not much use with prices as they are for bandwitdh now, but if the NZ telephone network is that much more advanced than the UK's, the future should be looking bright. With ATM and DWDM it should be looking affordable for the consumer too, provided the fat-cats let go of the strings.

I can't get my head round the justification (if any offered) used for pricing policies in relation to data traffic. Bandwitdh, yes, but if a stream is bought and paid for, that's it, it's spoken for and that should be it.

[DB]

With your points in mind, are there plans to make drop-cables fibre, eventually? Is a fibre drop-cable an option if you want it installed, and are willing to front the cost yourself?

Not that I am aware of. The drop from the street to your house is a piece of flexible conduit anyway, so replacing copper with fibre for recently cabled connections is a no-brainer.

But bear in mind - you can get more than 20x the currently available bandwidth over the copper that is installed today...

provided the fat-cats let go of the strings.

With the introduction of the surf packages, and effectively the dumping of any ISP provided bandwidth, we've just taken a step backwards towards further monopoly control. If this were the UK, BT would be positively wetting themselves...

I can't get my head round the justification (if any offered)

Theres nothing to get your head around. Its just the way it is. Until and unless Telecom start to offer backhaul connections to other ISPs, alomng with a volume independent costing system, nothing can possibly change for ADSL in NZ.