I am from the same industry lprent. I originally came from a Software Engineering background, now manage many windows based customers.
Seen any voip lately? The cisco stuff? Know the bandwidth required? Not just for voice, but video too.
Online backup systems, disaster sites, hosted services (which I know you have a role in) etc all use huge amounts of data.
If we don’t need the speed, why do I then have to host all my stuff overseas because New Zealand is so horrendously priced?
VOIP in New Zealand is laughable. The only govt department I know using it NZ wide is WINZ via Cisco and that is on their own internal network via citylink.
Take a guess how much data I move around a month? If you guessed over 5tb, you’d be right.
But enough rambling, what has this got to do with productivity? Maybe if we had high speed internet, I wouldn’t have to come to work. Meetings would be able to be held without anyone leaving home. More internet based services could be offered etc.
infused: You’re mainly referring to server level operations. Not to the subject of John Keys ludicrous initiative – which is to bring fibre to the home.
I agree that we need more bandwidth around NZ and offshore. I just cannot see a reason to pull it to most homes. The prices in NZ are high – but they probably always will be, It is a small local market.
Voice – yeah that requires at most 64kbits/sec per converation. That is the maximum bandwidth used in the telco’s exchange switches for a single connection.
Video does require more bandwidth. Around my place I can get standard ADSL with 8mbit/sec downlink, and 800kbit/sec uplink. That is ample for most video formats used for meetings.
I could shift to the 24mbit/sec downlink ADSL – but I have no idea of the uplink speed. But I prefer voice/IM anyway.
Tell your employer how much you’d like to work from home. It should be a user-pays luxury because I can see other things in the local nets that’d be much better to put money into than a consumer luxury.
I run the business. The employer is very happy to have me work from home. What will happen though, forcing fiber to home is the business networks will have to be upgraded to cope. I don’t think it’s because NZ is a small market that the price is high. The price has been coming down over the years, just not quickly enough. Partially because of Telecom, but they are not all at fault.
Yeah, you can do video on a link like that, but nothing else at the same time. That’s the problem. ADSL is crap. It was a crap technology then, it’s a crap technology now.
USA had decent cable networks way back in 1996 when we were still logging in to BBS systems.
It’s just not acceptable anymore. Considering the model of software development, something you must be noticing now is that all services are becoming web based. Apps are being deployed via the web. Web workspaces etc (google). Microsoft is about to hit this one, hard. Office online.
Once again, New Zealand will be left in the slow lane.
Cool. We actually have people here who have done this stuff.
SweeetD & infused – you get my point? I’m not against putting in fibre to the exchange levels and to businesses. It is the thought of putting fibre to residential homes that I find ludicrous. I can’t see any real way that can be useful to the point of putting NZD 1.5 billion of investment into it.
I can see a point in
1. Putting more fibre under the oceans to improve the security and bandwidth available.
2. Pulling more fibre into commercial areas that don’t already have it.
3. Helping to improve the hubs (things like NZ Gateway are really hairy with the periodic upgrades and slowdowns).
4. Even wierdo things like subsidising the hosted servers – as infused said it is ridiculously expensive here. But if the stuff for NZ that is hosted offshore was here, then (maybe) the economies of scale would start to kick in.
etc. Help build the real infrastructure of the local net. Not just make a meaningless promise. If they did pull fibre to the homes, then all it is likely to do is to
1. increase the cost to the household – remember we charge per MB not by time.
2. Blow out the local and links to the international network with excessive usage. There isn’t enough there already.
Iprent, yip, good points. But, as we have a growth problem (as evidenced by our downward movemenents on the OECD table) I can only see good things happening out of providing a high speed pipe to all (not just businesses). Surely the point of the web is that you don’t have to work at a “designated” business site?!?! This goes back to my previous points on telecommunting, business should be where you want it to be.
SweeetD. I suggest you actually look at the OECD table you’re referencing to understand that a change in ranking does not mean falling further behind the top half, I don’t have time to find the link for you just now, but it’s not hard.
Great article this really shows what a hypocrite Michael Cullen is he states anything under 30% is Fiscally prudent National Plans equal 22% oh oh dear the fear doctor has been caught out yet again!!
Labour scores impressive own goal on debt
by Hon Bill English, Finance04 August 2008
National Party Finance spokesman Bill English says Labour has scored an impressive own goal in its rush to attack National’s plan to significantly boost infrastructure investment.
“In the last Budget, Michael Cullen’s spending plans resulted in a $10.2 billion increase in the cash deficit out to 2011/12. To pay for this, he is going to raise gross debt by a total of $2.3 billion and is going to pay for the rest by selling Crown financial assets.
“As a result, the Government’s net core Crown debt is projected to rise over the next few years.
“Where was Dr Cullen’s anti-debt hysteria then? In fact, he quietly slipped through these changes without mentioning them in his Budget speech.
“Labour is now claiming the sky is falling because National plans to borrow a modest amount more to build some of the infrastructure this country desperately needs.
“This is a classic case of Michael Cullen believing others should do as he says, not as he does.
“In his earlier Budgets, Dr Cullen declared that anything under 30% of GDP was a prudent level of debt.
“By that standard, National’s plan to see gross debt average at around 22% of GDP over the next 10 years is ultra prudent.
“OECD figures show that New Zealand has the third lowest gross debt-to-GDP ratio in the developed world. We don’t have a debt problem, we have a growth problem and a productivity problem.
“Raising productivity is the key to lifting incomes, providing world-class public services, and helping our families through the tougher times.
“National’s plan will clear the infrastructure gridlock that’s holding our country back.”
That’s not an article Rob but a National Party press release. The ideal amount of government debt is an average of 0%. Saying that we have the lowest debt in the OECD doesn’t make paying interest any more productive.
SweeetD: Yep – but as far as I’m concerned if you desperately want to have that last km to your home at highspeed. Then you (or your company) should pay for it (and I shouldn’t).
Presumably there should be sufficient economic return to the individual (or company) that it becomes worth while paying for it. I definitely think that the state should be involved in ensuring that the infrastructure should be capable of bringing it to your door. But I’m afraid I don’t approve of “free lunches” that someone else is having to pay for.
There has to be a cost that is at least partially related to the cost of provision. Otherwise the service isn’t valued, and usually therefore doesn’t get made to turn a profit. Otherwise why should I pay for you to play?
Sorry, been outofoffice or I would have replied sooner. Point of the link is the par that reads:
…interest in the power and fuel-saving ideas they promote has been boosted by spiralling energy and petrol prices
Good on Councils for educating people on sustainable living, but it’s being driven by necessity not some idyllic dream of a “The Good Life” type of existence. Pretty sorry state of affairs when we’re eking out a vege patch in our backyard because we have to, rather than because we want to.
My point is, given that neither “major” party has a plan to stop us reverting to travelling on donkeys and using oxen for agriculture (and the Greens can’t wait for us to get there), who in politics is promoting innovative alternative ways of dealing with these issues?
National’s fiddling about at the fringes with a broadband policy. That’s great, but without doing something to ensure it becomes a base on which to build a knowledge economy all they’re doing is exciting people like me who can use it to deliver high-speed high-quality streaming video, hopefully for a price.
I’m talking support for government and private sector R&D; initiatives to support growth in the service sector, which doesn’t need trains or trucks to deliver it’s outputs… that sort of thing. Meanwhile Australia offers 150 – 175% R&D tax breaks and is toying (far, far too slowly) with using the HECS scheme as a way to encourage study in areas that could potentially drive the economy rather than turning out more lawyers and accountants.
rexw.it is not a pretty sad state of affairs digging a vege patch because we have to. who guaranteed anybody anything? that includes soft carrots from the supermarket and instant rotting lettuces. People should not be allowed to live in any domicile over a cerain size ‘without’ having a vege garden under pain of eviction . people hAVE GONE SOFT IN THE HEAD AND BODY BECAUSE THEY ARE LAZy and want everything to look nice instead of basing their lives on utilitarian principles of obtaining happiness from achievement and not by buying goods. this way the weak will perish without hanging around too long.
infused: What is it used for? Anything that is heading towards a viable export industry. A home video industry with vast sales offshore perhaps? A major online games industry? Kind of makes my point really.
Face it – fibre has been around for decades so far and with the exception of trunk lines, and a few video niches, it just hasn’t found much that absolutely relies on it. Copper technologies to the home are more widespread, simpler, better supported, and steadily increasing in capabilities. They lack elegance, but they are all that the market is demanding.
So tell me again – why do the Nat’s think that I should invest in this technology, because I have no idea why I’d want to.
My point is, given that neither “major’ party has a plan to stop us reverting to travelling on donkeys and using oxen for agriculture (and the Greens can’t wait for us to get there), who in politics is promoting innovative alternative ways of dealing with these issues?
You are either sorely exaggerating or you seriously do not understand Green policy. Try reading the stuff that’s available.
Suggesting the Green Party would love us all to turn to oxen for agriculture is like suggesting Winston Peters would love for us all to become personality politicians.
So tell me again – why do the Nat’s think that I should invest in this technology, because I have no idea why I’d want to.
Because it opens up possibilities for the economy that copper based technologies keep closed. FttH will also make those possibilities more competitive ensuring that they are delivered at the best price. IMO, copper based tech is just a stepping stone to fiber – use it until it can be replaced but you certainly don’t plan on keeping it.
That said, I still don’t think Nationals plan is all that good either. IMO, any good plan will start with a public buy back of the existing fiber networks. My estimation is that our telecommunications are about 5 to 10 years behind where we would be if we hadn’t sold Telecom.
>>infused. “Don’t we have a power crisis on our hands?’ No we don’t , in case you missed it, it’s been raining for the last month solid the lakes are full, we are not and never were short of power.
What a load of bollocks! Solid rain is called snow…it doesn’t fill the lakes till springtime. Southern lake levels are lower than they were a month ago. This is one subject where you don’t know nuthin boy.
Ari: Okay, I admit to using hyperbole to make a point. But I’m not inspired by the Green’s policies any more than I am by Labour’s or National’s, though the latter’s commitment to broadband is a sort of vague gesture in the right direction without, I think, any actual plan to capitalise upon it in a way that would address NZ’s competitiveness.
randal: Compulsory vege gardening. Now there’s a fascinating platform. Who’ll enforce the law? I guess it’d give your hero Winnie something to do when the voters sack him and his thugs… after all his sole expertise is in shovelling manure.
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I am from the same industry lprent. I originally came from a Software Engineering background, now manage many windows based customers.
Seen any voip lately? The cisco stuff? Know the bandwidth required? Not just for voice, but video too.
Online backup systems, disaster sites, hosted services (which I know you have a role in) etc all use huge amounts of data.
If we don’t need the speed, why do I then have to host all my stuff overseas because New Zealand is so horrendously priced?
VOIP in New Zealand is laughable. The only govt department I know using it NZ wide is WINZ via Cisco and that is on their own internal network via citylink.
Take a guess how much data I move around a month? If you guessed over 5tb, you’d be right.
But enough rambling, what has this got to do with productivity? Maybe if we had high speed internet, I wouldn’t have to come to work. Meetings would be able to be held without anyone leaving home. More internet based services could be offered etc.
infused: You’re mainly referring to server level operations. Not to the subject of John Keys ludicrous initiative – which is to bring fibre to the home.
I agree that we need more bandwidth around NZ and offshore. I just cannot see a reason to pull it to most homes. The prices in NZ are high – but they probably always will be, It is a small local market.
Voice – yeah that requires at most 64kbits/sec per converation. That is the maximum bandwidth used in the telco’s exchange switches for a single connection.
Video does require more bandwidth. Around my place I can get standard ADSL with 8mbit/sec downlink, and 800kbit/sec uplink. That is ample for most video formats used for meetings.
I could shift to the 24mbit/sec downlink ADSL – but I have no idea of the uplink speed. But I prefer voice/IM anyway.
Tell your employer how much you’d like to work from home. It should be a user-pays luxury because I can see other things in the local nets that’d be much better to put money into than a consumer luxury.
Is it possible the broadband package could be the first step toward a program of modernisation for TVNZ?
I run the business. The employer is very happy to have me work from home. What will happen though, forcing fiber to home is the business networks will have to be upgraded to cope. I don’t think it’s because NZ is a small market that the price is high. The price has been coming down over the years, just not quickly enough. Partially because of Telecom, but they are not all at fault.
Yeah, you can do video on a link like that, but nothing else at the same time. That’s the problem. ADSL is crap. It was a crap technology then, it’s a crap technology now.
USA had decent cable networks way back in 1996 when we were still logging in to BBS systems.
It’s just not acceptable anymore. Considering the model of software development, something you must be noticing now is that all services are becoming web based. Apps are being deployed via the web. Web workspaces etc (google). Microsoft is about to hit this one, hard. Office online.
Once again, New Zealand will be left in the slow lane.
Cool. We actually have people here who have done this stuff.
SweeetD & infused – you get my point? I’m not against putting in fibre to the exchange levels and to businesses. It is the thought of putting fibre to residential homes that I find ludicrous. I can’t see any real way that can be useful to the point of putting NZD 1.5 billion of investment into it.
I can see a point in
1. Putting more fibre under the oceans to improve the security and bandwidth available.
2. Pulling more fibre into commercial areas that don’t already have it.
3. Helping to improve the hubs (things like NZ Gateway are really hairy with the periodic upgrades and slowdowns).
4. Even wierdo things like subsidising the hosted servers – as infused said it is ridiculously expensive here. But if the stuff for NZ that is hosted offshore was here, then (maybe) the economies of scale would start to kick in.
etc. Help build the real infrastructure of the local net. Not just make a meaningless promise. If they did pull fibre to the homes, then all it is likely to do is to
1. increase the cost to the household – remember we charge per MB not by time.
2. Blow out the local and links to the international network with excessive usage. There isn’t enough there already.
Phil: Who cares about TVNZ. Same problem – it doesn’t improve productivity or increase growth as far as I can see.
I’ll have to have a think about it more, but I see what you’re saying.
Iprent, yip, good points. But, as we have a growth problem (as evidenced by our downward movemenents on the OECD table) I can only see good things happening out of providing a high speed pipe to all (not just businesses). Surely the point of the web is that you don’t have to work at a “designated” business site?!?! This goes back to my previous points on telecommunting, business should be where you want it to be.
SweeetD. I suggest you actually look at the OECD table you’re referencing to understand that a change in ranking does not mean falling further behind the top half, I don’t have time to find the link for you just now, but it’s not hard.
Great article this really shows what a hypocrite Michael Cullen is he states anything under 30% is Fiscally prudent National Plans equal 22% oh oh dear the fear doctor has been caught out yet again!!
Labour scores impressive own goal on debt
by Hon Bill English, Finance04 August 2008
National Party Finance spokesman Bill English says Labour has scored an impressive own goal in its rush to attack National’s plan to significantly boost infrastructure investment.
“In the last Budget, Michael Cullen’s spending plans resulted in a $10.2 billion increase in the cash deficit out to 2011/12. To pay for this, he is going to raise gross debt by a total of $2.3 billion and is going to pay for the rest by selling Crown financial assets.
“As a result, the Government’s net core Crown debt is projected to rise over the next few years.
“Where was Dr Cullen’s anti-debt hysteria then? In fact, he quietly slipped through these changes without mentioning them in his Budget speech.
“Labour is now claiming the sky is falling because National plans to borrow a modest amount more to build some of the infrastructure this country desperately needs.
“This is a classic case of Michael Cullen believing others should do as he says, not as he does.
“In his earlier Budgets, Dr Cullen declared that anything under 30% of GDP was a prudent level of debt.
“By that standard, National’s plan to see gross debt average at around 22% of GDP over the next 10 years is ultra prudent.
“OECD figures show that New Zealand has the third lowest gross debt-to-GDP ratio in the developed world. We don’t have a debt problem, we have a growth problem and a productivity problem.
“Raising productivity is the key to lifting incomes, providing world-class public services, and helping our families through the tougher times.
“National’s plan will clear the infrastructure gridlock that’s holding our country back.”
That’s not an article Rob but a National Party press release. The ideal amount of government debt is an average of 0%. Saying that we have the lowest debt in the OECD doesn’t make paying interest any more productive.
SweeetD: Yep – but as far as I’m concerned if you desperately want to have that last km to your home at highspeed. Then you (or your company) should pay for it (and I shouldn’t).
Presumably there should be sufficient economic return to the individual (or company) that it becomes worth while paying for it. I definitely think that the state should be involved in ensuring that the infrastructure should be capable of bringing it to your door. But I’m afraid I don’t approve of “free lunches” that someone else is having to pay for.
There has to be a cost that is at least partially related to the cost of provision. Otherwise the service isn’t valued, and usually therefore doesn’t get made to turn a profit. Otherwise why should I pay for you to play?
do a few twangs on shonky johnkeys rubber bandwidth band?
lprent: ever looked at japan where the average bandwidth to home is 100mbit?
outofbed:
Sorry, been outofoffice or I would have replied sooner. Point of the link is the par that reads:
Good on Councils for educating people on sustainable living, but it’s being driven by necessity not some idyllic dream of a “The Good Life” type of existence. Pretty sorry state of affairs when we’re eking out a vege patch in our backyard because we have to, rather than because we want to.
My point is, given that neither “major” party has a plan to stop us reverting to travelling on donkeys and using oxen for agriculture (and the Greens can’t wait for us to get there), who in politics is promoting innovative alternative ways of dealing with these issues?
National’s fiddling about at the fringes with a broadband policy. That’s great, but without doing something to ensure it becomes a base on which to build a knowledge economy all they’re doing is exciting people like me who can use it to deliver high-speed high-quality streaming video, hopefully for a price.
I’m talking support for government and private sector R&D; initiatives to support growth in the service sector, which doesn’t need trains or trucks to deliver it’s outputs… that sort of thing. Meanwhile Australia offers 150 – 175% R&D tax breaks and is toying (far, far too slowly) with using the HECS scheme as a way to encourage study in areas that could potentially drive the economy rather than turning out more lawyers and accountants.
rexw.it is not a pretty sad state of affairs digging a vege patch because we have to. who guaranteed anybody anything? that includes soft carrots from the supermarket and instant rotting lettuces. People should not be allowed to live in any domicile over a cerain size ‘without’ having a vege garden under pain of eviction . people hAVE GONE SOFT IN THE HEAD AND BODY BECAUSE THEY ARE LAZy and want everything to look nice instead of basing their lives on utilitarian principles of obtaining happiness from achievement and not by buying goods. this way the weak will perish without hanging around too long.
infused: What is it used for? Anything that is heading towards a viable export industry. A home video industry with vast sales offshore perhaps? A major online games industry? Kind of makes my point really.
Face it – fibre has been around for decades so far and with the exception of trunk lines, and a few video niches, it just hasn’t found much that absolutely relies on it. Copper technologies to the home are more widespread, simpler, better supported, and steadily increasing in capabilities. They lack elegance, but they are all that the market is demanding.
So tell me again – why do the Nat’s think that I should invest in this technology, because I have no idea why I’d want to.
BTW: have a look at this…
williamson vs cunliffe at the hyatt ballroom
You are either sorely exaggerating or you seriously do not understand Green policy. Try reading the stuff that’s available.
Suggesting the Green Party would love us all to turn to oxen for agriculture is like suggesting Winston Peters would love for us all to become personality politicians.
Because it opens up possibilities for the economy that copper based technologies keep closed. FttH will also make those possibilities more competitive ensuring that they are delivered at the best price. IMO, copper based tech is just a stepping stone to fiber – use it until it can be replaced but you certainly don’t plan on keeping it.
That said, I still don’t think Nationals plan is all that good either. IMO, any good plan will start with a public buy back of the existing fiber networks. My estimation is that our telecommunications are about 5 to 10 years behind where we would be if we hadn’t sold Telecom.
>>infused. “Don’t we have a power crisis on our hands?’ No we don’t , in case you missed it, it’s been raining for the last month solid the lakes are full, we are not and never were short of power.
What a load of bollocks! Solid rain is called snow…it doesn’t fill the lakes till springtime. Southern lake levels are lower than they were a month ago. This is one subject where you don’t know nuthin boy.
Ari: Okay, I admit to using hyperbole to make a point. But I’m not inspired by the Green’s policies any more than I am by Labour’s or National’s, though the latter’s commitment to broadband is a sort of vague gesture in the right direction without, I think, any actual plan to capitalise upon it in a way that would address NZ’s competitiveness.
randal: Compulsory vege gardening. Now there’s a fascinating platform. Who’ll enforce the law? I guess it’d give your hero Winnie something to do when the voters sack him and his thugs… after all his sole expertise is in shovelling manure.