::fibreculture:: At least 56K ?

[Ned Lukies]

Kim,

I don't think that this problem is entirely related to Telstra or modems
for that matter. Lets assume that in San Francisco the modem connects at
52k, which is about the highest connection speed you will get in the
USA. The largest amount of data that can be downloaded in 5 minutes at
that speed (6.5kbytes/s) is just under 2mb. If the download in Australia
takes around 20 minutes then the data is coming down the line at
1.6kbytes/s which is about the speed achieved by a 14.4k modem. I know
that *most* of the time I can download faster then that.

Generally congestion problems like this are caused at the ISP or the
backbone. I have never worked for a backbone provider so I can't really
comment on what goes on with their networks but I have worked for a
number of consumer ISP's. The wholesale price of bandwidth in Australia
is very high compared to the rest of the world yet the cost of consumers
getting on the net is very close, if not cheaper to what you would pay
elsewhere. Consumers are now demanding "unlimited download" access for
around $25 a month. If you ignore the other costs involved with running
an ISP and just look at how much data $25 buys you at Telstra Big Pond's
published wholesale rate (19c per mb) you will see that "unlimited
download" access is a hard game. Sure there are discounts to be found on
wholesale bandwidth. We are now seeing wholesale providers offer
bandwidth for under 8c per mb. To solve this problem, ISP's only
purchase a small connection to their upstream provider to limit the
amount of data that the customer can download.

This doesn't just happen with the small ISP's. A number of large
providers use a process known as traffic shaping to effectively limit
customer's downloads. I guess you get what you pay for, except in the
case of wholesale bandwidth that is. :)

So why is wholesale bandwidth so expensive in Australia? I have a few
theories:

1, The cost of high speed digital connections (ISDN, Frame Relay) in
Australia is too high. Most ISP's do not peer with each other as the
cost of such services is so high it is better to just buy more
bandwidth. Contact me if you don't understand what peering involves.

2, The backbone providers (Telstra, Optus and UUNet) are also in the
retail game. They can't see that their is any advantage in allowing
their wholesale customers to undercut their retail prices.

3, The real cost of broadband is not being passed on to the customer.
Telstra claimed just under two years ago that they were not making much
money on wholesale bandwidth at 19c per mb. Imaging how much money they
are loosing out of selling cable internet with "unlimited downloads" at
$70 a month. The two companies who sell cable internet must recover
their costs somewhere.

How will these problems be solved? NFI!


Ned Lukies
Xenon Internet


Kim Machan wrote:

> Hello ListI wanted to raise a basic bandwidth infrastructure question
> that i am hoping others will have more concrete knowledge to
> address. I was in conversation with a steady corporate IT worker who
> related this story to me. It astounded me and felt it relevant to the
> idea of using this list as potential lobby group to government. The
> conversation circled a sales report software that a multinational
> company is using. The sales rep was complaining about the long
> download time to implement his upload of current figures in australia
> . He was attending a meeting in San Franscisco and reps from India and
> Latin America were also present. Yes, they agreed that the download
> was very boring from their home locations taking nearly ten minutes to
> reach the program. The australian rep was feeling flabergasted as in
> San Fransico it took under 5 minutes to download - and reports for
> India and Latin america (all on 56 K Modem) now reported at 10 minutes
> - but in Australia it was 20 - 30 minutes!!!!!!! He went on to explain
> that the bottle neck was created by Telstra and inbuilt constriction
> that he felt could be rectified if the will was there. He was
> suggesting to me that it is not possible to acheive a 56 K download in
> Australia because of the way the infrastructure is set and that
> perhaps Telstra was quite happy with this as it would encourage
> consumers into the cable and other higher priced technologies to
> receive their data at a faster speed. My corporate colleage angrily
> voiced that this was one fine example as to why Australia is lagging
> in international credibility - what is at question is the efficient
> use of basic technology - this doesn't appear to be happening. I am
> not well informed as to the cabling of this fair country or technical
> issues of bandwidth supply - but hopefully someone on this list might
> be able to respond to what appears to be an everyday scandle.  Can
> anyone expand this claim? bestkim Kim Machan
> Director
> Multimedia Art Asia Pacific Inc
> www.maap.org.auMAAP is a not for profit organisation that promotes
> excellence in art and technology in Australia/Asia Pacific regions.