Half-speed international downloads not good enough

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Posted Fri 3 July 2009 @ 1:50 p.m. by Louis van Wyk

Lack of capacity on international and national backhaul links continue to throttle broadband speeds in New Zealand, according to a new report by the Commerce Commission.

In its latest quarterly broadband quality report, the Commission found that international download speeds were usually less than half of national download speeds.

According to the Commission, insufficient capacity on national and international connections is a major constraint on users seeing improvements in their broadband speeds.

This is despite the behind the scenes work by some ISPs to boost broadband performance.

This includes caching techniques where ISPs store popular international and national content locally. This has helped to deliver a two to threefold improvement in international download speeds, although it appears to have only a marginal impact on national download speeds, the Commission states.

Meanwhile, the report finds that national download speeds are significantly lower for Dunedin than the other main centres tested.

Robust international and backhaul links are vital in any broadband infrastructure, and these results demonstrate that New Zealand cannot continue to rely on one internet link to the rest of world. This is simply not good enough.

The results also highlight the need for more investment in national backhaul. The Government’s broadband investment initiative should help address this.

At the recent Telecommunications and ICT Summit ICT Minister Steven Joyce stated that his officials are looking at national and regional backhaul access to support fibre access networks.

This issue was also flagged by Joyce’s predecessor David Cunliffe last March.

International bandwidth will definitely need to be addressed if the Government’s planned fibre roll-out to 75% of the population is to deliver its full potential.

As TUANZ has stated before a competing international cable that connects New Zealand to the world should ease the restrictions placed on Kiwis’ internet use.

The Commerce Commission report meanwhile found that there was an incremental improvement in overall broadband performance in the quarter up to March.

Other key findings include that the gap in performance between the best and worst performing ISPs has continued to widen, driven largely by significant investment in network performance by the best performing ISPs, the Commission says.

One positive result was that the level of broadband reliability was found to be good, averaging 99.97 % in March. This equates to an average network downtime of approximately 14 minutes per month for most ISPs, the Commission states.

The report was compiled by Epitiro and IDC. It measures the quality of broadband services provided by ISPs as measured by Epitiro from central sites using premium residential plans.

Categories: Innovation | ISPs | TUANZ policy

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5 comments

• Neil says:

  I copy some conclusions from the Quarterly Broadband Quality Report:
  1) The issues of congestion in the portion of the network which backhauls traffic from a city exchange to an ISP’s network and also between cities appears to be the greatest constraint on broadband download speeds.
  
  2) Congestion particularly affects cities remote from Auckland, although is also a factor in local backhaul around the cities. All international traffic has to be physically routed via Auckland Central so backhaul networks will affect performance.
  
  3) There is an increasing gap in service provider performance. Investment in caching solutions, international capacity and backhaul provisioning appears to be boosting the performance of some service providers. Others are however showing increased volatility and overall improvement.
  
  All of these are pointing to the fact that the key issues are National Backhaul and International capacity. (shown by ISP's investing in caching)
  
  I would reiterate what I have suggested before. We (TUANZ and the industry) should be pushing hard for the Government to help out in driving the cost of Backhaul and International capacity down. (By dropping a decent amount of their proposed $1.5 Billion of OUR money into this area) This will increase data speeds across the board and therefore increase the demand for increased Local speeds and Fibre To The Home. (maybe. . . . )

  Added: 3 July 2009, 4:54 p.m.

• Jane says:

  You have no argument with me on that score, Neil. No point in upping the capacity of the first/last mile when the traffic has nowhere to go. And for anything other than local content, no point sorting that out unless you deal with international capacity. We are after all, a tiny island at the bottom of the Pacific and superb connectivity is needed to keep us interenationally competitive.

  Added: 4 July 2009, 10:24 a.m.

• hoane.doe says:

  *There is no shortage of capacity out of/into New Zealand*
  
  Bleating about the price of international bandwidth is like bleating about Mobile Termination Rates - changing them WILL NOT reduce retail prices to consumers.
  
  New Zealand, Australia, etc etc all source MOST of their content from the USA. Building 10 or even 100 new cables (to create trans-Pacific competition) WILL NOT dramatically reduce the price of internet bandwidth.
  
  The price of internet bandwidth will always be expensive while countries outside the USA have to PAY to terminate and originate traffic in continental USA. Just because you carry all your own traffic to the USA does not mean you can inject it into the US internet for free. YOU HAVE TO PAY. You cannot buy a 100 Gig pipe for a fixed fee and then push as much traffic down it as you can - you have to pay by the Gigabyte. This happens for traffic coming in the opposite direction as well.
  
  The only way to put a dent in bandwidth pricing is for the army of MED, Commerce Commission, Trade & Enterprise and Treasury wallers to get real when it comes to negotiating a Free Trade Deal with the USA. If they want copyright protection as part of a FTA then we want relief from the USA interweb traffic monopoly.
  
  Either that or we all start speaking Te Reo and then we won't download so much "crap" from the USA and bandwidth pricing won't be an issue!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The price of bandwidth WILL NOT

  Added: 4 July 2009, 4:19 p.m.

• kiwibrew says:

  I believe hoane.doe has some poor information about terminating traffic overseas. You can indeed buy fixed fee pipes at overseas exchanges, and the major cost in such an exercise is Southern Cross, not the overseas termination. The cost factor is 10:1 or higher, SXC to overseas termination.
  
  For some detailed reading on why overseas carriers require us to pay transit at overseas exchanges, I suggest Bill Manning's "The Art of Peering: The Peering Playbook", available online. Alternatively please come to NZNOG10 next January. Bill comes over every year.
  
  -JB

  Added: 6 July 2009, 1:18 p.m.

• Neil says:

  hoane.doe
  
  Thanks for your comment.
  
  I now understand, from your comment, that the many tomes that have been written about supply and demand are really untrue. . . .
  
  From what you have written, I understand that what you mean is that if Kordia, with Pipeworks built their fibre out of New Zealand and put a lot more capacity on the market, this would not drive down pricing at all. Reah Right. . . .
  
  Now don't get me started about Mobile Termination rates. You say that putting them down won't reduce charges to customers.
  
  I will put a small token wager (a single dollar coin) if you are willing to accept, that if the government legislates bill and Keep, (ie reducing the Mobile Termination rate to zero) that 2 degrees will gut the current excessive Mobile pricing and that the Customers in New Zealand will significantly reduce what they pay for their "current" usage. I would also bet that they will continue to pay the same but make a lot more calls.
  
  Now thinking about what you have spoken about. Essentially Southern Cross pricing and Mobile Termination Rates? I would put another dollar on a bet that you work for Telecom. . . .

  Added: 9 July 2009, 5:28 p.m.