4 ms·

I'm glad it finally happened in NZ and as you say, it's awesome. I'm rocking 1000/500 - the biggest limitation is international throughput and latency which I s

I'm glad it finally happened in NZ and as you say, it's awesome. I'm rocking 1000/500 - the biggest limitation is international throughput and latency which I suppose they are working on and improving all the time.

montecarl 9y ago
We need to get the physicists (general relativists?) working on upping the speed of light. Seriously though, how much larger is your latency than speed of light limitations? 2x?
- xoa 9y ago
  TrueNet keeps track of a lot of good ISP performance measures, including one for international latency [1]. Looking at that average latency to the USA at least it seems pretty damn decent, only about 30-60% worse then the theoretical limit imposed by current fiber tech (speed of light in standard silicon glass fiber is about 30% slower then in vacuum), since direct line is about 7000-8000 miles. And of course as a practical matter fibers are not run directly between every destination, so add on extra for that and if TrueNet's numbers are reasonably accurate then everyone seems to be doing a reasonable job given the distance. I remember reading years ago about interesting research being done to use photonic-bandgap rims to make fibers that would allow propagation approaching vacuum speed [2], and if deployed eventually that could drop latency by another 40-60ms. But at least back then there seemed to be enough loss (3.5 dB/km) that it'd be impractical over long distances without excessive boosters, even ignoring any cost/durability issues of the fiber itself. That may have been improved in the last 4 years though, but I'm not sure if it ever did make it to market (or if there are even plans still in progress for it, raw throughput was impressive too FWIW). At any rate: the NZ ISPs seem to be offering pretty solid service on that front even internationally, at least in terms of pure latency. If there is increasing congestion or other issues those are just matters of capex, and between the ISP's servers and premise links there might be more lag being added in. But I don't see any glaring core inefficiencies there in terms of the international link part, unless I'm missing something entirely. Looks a lot better then I'd have expected taking a guess based on how it was a decade ago. ---- 1: https://truenet.nz/international-latency https://truenet.nz/international-latency 2: "Towards high-capacity fibre-optic communications at the speed of light in vacuum": https://www.nature.com/articles/nphoton.2013.45 https://www.nature.com/articles/nphoton.2013.45 (DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2013.45)
  - ioquatix 9y ago
    So, I do understand there are limitations, but I guess I think that once the data has started to flow, it should maximise available capacity. However, I feel like `pacman -Syu` should be faster. I don't mind the latency, but the throughput should be better right? I only get 1-2 Mbyte/s average using US servers.
jakelarkin 9y ago
hmm apparently the Southern Cross has 3.6Tbps of capacity which I could see being a constraint on throughput if that's the bulk of bandwidth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Cross_Cable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Cross_Cable
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
rayiner 9y ago
Is this pricing accurate: https://ufb.org.nz/pricing-plans https://ufb.org.nz/pricing-plans? I'm seeing prices like $150/month for symmetric 200/200: https://www.trustpower.co.nz/-/media/files/terms/legal-offer-summaries/tp0071-telco-summary-fibre-200200-naked-02.ashx?la=en https://www.trustpower.co.nz/-/media/files/terms/legal-offer.... That's pretty expensive (about what I'm paying for symmetric gigabit with TV and phone in the U.S.). It's interesting to note that the compromises made with UFB would not fly in the U.S. Liberals would kill it as a handout to rich people ("if you can't afford to feed your family by the end of the month, you can't afford $75 a month for the broadband service")[1] and conservatives would kill it because it's not available more than 50 km from an urban area. [1] http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20140219/TECHNOLOGY/140219845/mayor-pushes-verizon-to-discount-fios-for-poor http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20140219/TECHNOLOGY/140...
- versteegen 9y ago
  A few months ago I compared ISPs and found that Trustpower were one of the most expensive, especially if you don't get the bundle discount for getting power through them. Vodafone currently offer 200Mbps unlimited data fibre (don't know what the upload speed is) for $110/month, and unlimited speed (up to 900Mbps, depending on location) for $120/month, and deduct $10/month if you go on a contract. It's only in the last couple years that you can get unlimited data at a reasonable price here. A large fraction of the cost of bandwidth in NZ is international transit, because there's only one significant undersea cable connecting NZ, the Southern Cross Cable. I couldn't find current prices, but in 2013 it cost about US$0.10/GB to go through that cable [1] [1] http://www.strategies.nzl.com/wpapers/2013011.htm http://www.strategies.nzl.com/wpapers/2013011.htm
  - rayiner 9y ago
    Looks like that’s 200/20.

montecarl 9y ago

We need to get the physicists (general relativists?) working on upping the speed of light. Seriously though, how much larger is your latency than speed of light limitations? 2x?

xoa 9y ago
TrueNet keeps track of a lot of good ISP performance measures, including one for international latency [1]. Looking at that average latency to the USA at least it seems pretty damn decent, only about 30-60% worse then the theoretical limit imposed by current fiber tech (speed of light in standard silicon glass fiber is about 30% slower then in vacuum), since direct line is about 7000-8000 miles. And of course as a practical matter fibers are not run directly between every destination, so add on extra for that and if TrueNet's numbers are reasonably accurate then everyone seems to be doing a reasonable job given the distance. I remember reading years ago about interesting research being done to use photonic-bandgap rims to make fibers that would allow propagation approaching vacuum speed [2], and if deployed eventually that could drop latency by another 40-60ms. But at least back then there seemed to be enough loss (3.5 dB/km) that it'd be impractical over long distances without excessive boosters, even ignoring any cost/durability issues of the fiber itself. That may have been improved in the last 4 years though, but I'm not sure if it ever did make it to market (or if there are even plans still in progress for it, raw throughput was impressive too FWIW). At any rate: the NZ ISPs seem to be offering pretty solid service on that front even internationally, at least in terms of pure latency. If there is increasing congestion or other issues those are just matters of capex, and between the ISP's servers and premise links there might be more lag being added in. But I don't see any glaring core inefficiencies there in terms of the international link part, unless I'm missing something entirely. Looks a lot better then I'd have expected taking a guess based on how it was a decade ago. ---- 1: https://truenet.nz/international-latency https://truenet.nz/international-latency 2: "Towards high-capacity fibre-optic communications at the speed of light in vacuum": https://www.nature.com/articles/nphoton.2013.45 https://www.nature.com/articles/nphoton.2013.45 (DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2013.45)
- ioquatix 9y ago
  So, I do understand there are limitations, but I guess I think that once the data has started to flow, it should maximise available capacity. However, I feel like `pacman -Syu` should be faster. I don't mind the latency, but the throughput should be better right? I only get 1-2 Mbyte/s average using US servers.

jakelarkin 9y ago

hmm apparently the Southern Cross has 3.6Tbps of capacity which I could see being a constraint on throughput if that's the bulk of bandwidth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Cross_Cable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Cross_Cable

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

rayiner 9y ago

Is this pricing accurate: https://ufb.org.nz/pricing-plans https://ufb.org.nz/pricing-plans? I'm seeing prices like $150/month for symmetric 200/200: https://www.trustpower.co.nz/-/media/files/terms/legal-offer-summaries/tp0071-telco-summary-fibre-200200-naked-02.ashx?la=en https://www.trustpower.co.nz/-/media/files/terms/legal-offer.... That's pretty expensive (about what I'm paying for symmetric gigabit with TV and phone in the U.S.). It's interesting to note that the compromises made with UFB would not fly in the U.S. Liberals would kill it as a handout to rich people ("if you can't afford to feed your family by the end of the month, you can't afford $75 a month for the broadband service")[1] and conservatives would kill it because it's not available more than 50 km from an urban area. [1] http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20140219/TECHNOLOGY/140219845/mayor-pushes-verizon-to-discount-fios-for-poor http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20140219/TECHNOLOGY/140...

versteegen 9y ago
A few months ago I compared ISPs and found that Trustpower were one of the most expensive, especially if you don't get the bundle discount for getting power through them. Vodafone currently offer 200Mbps unlimited data fibre (don't know what the upload speed is) for $110/month, and unlimited speed (up to 900Mbps, depending on location) for $120/month, and deduct $10/month if you go on a contract. It's only in the last couple years that you can get unlimited data at a reasonable price here. A large fraction of the cost of bandwidth in NZ is international transit, because there's only one significant undersea cable connecting NZ, the Southern Cross Cable. I couldn't find current prices, but in 2013 it cost about US$0.10/GB to go through that cable [1] [1] http://www.strategies.nzl.com/wpapers/2013011.htm http://www.strategies.nzl.com/wpapers/2013011.htm
- rayiner 9y ago
  Looks like that’s 200/20.