Fast internet access: RIP
A missed opportunity for cheaper fast internet
Juha Saarinen | Monday, January 26 2004What are the consequences of the Commerce Commission’s volte-face decision on local loop unbundling? The shock decision reversed a draft report’s recommendation that Telecom competitors should have access to the “last mile” of its network (the copper wires that run into your home), but TelstraClear, Ihug and others will be given wholesale access to ADSL (the technology that JetStream runs on) from Telecom. That’s good, isn’t it, for promoting cheaper fast internet access?
Well, no: the devil’s in the technical details, as usual. To start with, the Commerce Commission only refers to asymmetric DSL; that is, just a single digital subscriber line technology (albeit the most popular one currently). There are other flavours of DSL, and these are not covered by the decision.
For instance, Telecom is already using G.SHDSL (ITU G.991.2) for business connections. This is a symmetric service that provides up to 2.3Mbit/s (4.6Mbit/s with two pair and 9.2Mbit/s with four pair cables) up and downstream, and would thus be ideal for typical Kiwi business use. What’s more, it has a third longer reach and could be deployed at similar cost to Telecom’s RADSL (rate-adaptive DSL, which again isn’t mentioned in the Commerce Commission’s decision). However, you won’t get G.SHDSL from anyone else but Telecom.
Second, the Commerce Commission’s definition of fast internet access is minimalist to say the least. It will allow Telecom to wholesale a “fast” connection with a piddly speed of 128kbit/s upstream maximum and 256kbit/s downstream minimum, with no support for any “real time network capability” (so no internet telephony, video on demand, and so on). Network latency (lag) is not specified, nor is the contention ratio (how many users share the same circuit) or any other service quality parameter, meaning the connection could be overloaded, laggy and unreliable, and still satisfy the Commerce Commission’s requirements.
That’s all the ADSL Telecom has to wholesale to competing providers in 2004, when we should be looking at 10Mbit/s as the starting point for internet connections, and aim towards 100/1000Mbit/s over the next couple of years. It looks like most New Zealanders will be stuck with dial-up and JetStart, courtesy of the Commerce Commission’s monumentally bad decision that leaves no space for fast internet access competition.
Some providers, however, have welcomed the decision, saying that DSL and Telecom’s copper network is dinosaur technology. We should build fast metro-Ethernet, fibre-optic and wireless networks instead. That’s a great vision, but one that might have had greater chance of becoming reality if local loop unbundling had taken place — without unbundling to kickstart the fast internet access market, providers face an uphill struggle to come up with financially viable solutions.
Technically, however, it’s not that hard to become a do-it-yourself ISP. You could wire the street with Ethernet cable and outdoors switches, all self-powered according to Richard Naylor of Wellington fibre-optic provider CityLink. To avoid potentially lethal electrical issues (like houses having different ground potential and lightning strikes) network operator Joe Abley suggests using multimode optical fibre. This type of glass fibre has longer reach than Ethernet (around 300 metres) and doesn’t need expensive fusion splices. Cheap fibre-to-Ethernet media converters are pretty much all you need for smaller networks, or inexpensive PC-based routers if you’re building a bigger, managed IP grid.
If you’re lucky, you’ll have somewhere nearby to connect your community network to the internet, like an ISP willing to onsell bandwidth at wholesale rates (or even Telecom). WiFi or 802.11b point-to-point connections go a surprisingly long distance with the right aerial (an unnamed ISP owner says he’s getting 8Mbit/s over 45km using 5.8GHz frequency). Wireless isn’t as reliable as cable, but it compensates with low prices for the gear.
This year, wireless gear based on Intel’s new WiMAX standard will appear. With 50km reach, and speeds of 55 to 100Mbit/s, and no line-of-sight requirement for shorter distances, WiMAX looks tempting for the DIY ISP, provided the pricing for the gear is reasonable.
If the notion of having to become an ISP in order to get decent quality and priced fast internet access strikes you as ridiculous, I couldn’t agree more. But Telecom doesn’t want to come to the party and the government says it doesn’t have to, so what choice is there? Start cabling up the 'hood.
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