5 ms·

Here in Australia, a few responsible providers like Aussie Broadband have already announced unmetered data usage and temporarily stopping all service suspension

by nreece 7y ago

Here in Australia, a few responsible providers like Aussie Broadband have already announced unmetered data usage and temporarily stopping all service suspensions. https://www.aussiebroadband.com.au/blog/aussie-broadband-announced-covid-19-response/ https://www.aussiebroadband.com.au/blog/aussie-broadband-ann... Edit: The real test though will be the bandwidth of our gov-sponsored, substandard, widely FTTN (instead of full FTTP).

closeparen 7y ago
I would expect rationing of the available bandwidth to become more important, not less, as the entire population is stuck at home using it all day.
- danielheath 7y ago
  Aussie Broadband have announced unlimited bandwidth for those on limited plans, but also that those few making extreme use of available bandwidth will be throttled. They might slow their connections down, too.
- dcow 7y ago
  That’s if congestion was ever actually a problem to begin with.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
    That's what I've been wondering ... will they ever try using "we need zero rating to prevent network overload" again if they'll demonstrate now that they don't?
    - mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
      I wish I could say no, but: Yes. In time they could claim - potentially truthfully - that an increasing number of increasingly connected devices engaging in more complex applications by ever more data hungry end users drove additional demand relative to the levels seen in the past, even during past crises.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  Reality is that peak usage (at least in Canada) is in the evening hours. Impact from WFH during office hours will just use excess daytime capacity. WFH (RDP/Webex/VPN) uses much less bandwidth than streaming Netflix. But the kids being at home might make a big difference.
  - rs23296008n1 7y ago
    Having kids at home without an internet connection these days is something most parents would rather not experience. Right up there with lack of electricity but lower in the priority list. I'd have thought Netflix in particular would use less bandwidth than video conf because of the amount of peering / caching tricks they can do to bring their service "closer". Note: I'm not talking purely bits transferred - I'm referring to network boundaries. In-network congestion should be easier to manage for an ISP and I'd expect plenty of them make it so Netflix and others' traffic is effectively "in-network".
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      Sure, but any sane ISP in a big enough metro will have ports are the local Internet Exchange where Amazon, Netflix (if you exceed the appliance), Google, MSFT, etc. all peer at. After that, what’s left? In Canada, it’s actually the incumbents that largely refuse to peer freely.
  - Stranger43 7y ago
    What is more important is that WFH traffic is far more balanced in it's up/down ratio and hence is likely to have neutral pearing costs if it leaves the ISP's network at all. Not to mention that most of the people now moving to home office will be spending their time working in relatively low bandwidth applications not sitting video conferences.
dmix 7y ago
In Canada Rogers (and I believe Bell), two of our biggest ISPs, have removed data cap fees on internet and ended long distance fees for calls in response to the virus: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2020/03/16/rogers-waiving-long-distance-fees-data-usage-caps-amid-covid-19-outbreak/ https://toronto.citynews.ca/2020/03/16/rogers-waiving-long-d...
m4rtink 7y ago
Two out of three mobile providers in Czech Republic already made their mobile data unlimitted due to the crisis: https://news.expats.cz/prague-technology/t-mobile-joins-o2-in-offering-unlimited-mobile-data-during-the-coronavirus-crisis/ https://news.expats.cz/prague-technology/t-mobile-joins-o2-i...
nik_0_0 7y ago
In the US, Comcast generally doesn't get a good rep - but they've done the same: https://corporate.comcast.com/covid-19 https://corporate.comcast.com/covid-19 Now if we could take a second to talk about all the "From CEO..." emails that are being sent around...
- jaytaylor 7y ago
  FYI - AT&T and other major North American ISPs have also lifted data caps for the next 60 days.
- JadeNB 7y ago
  Wait, is Comcast Comcast again? I thought they were Xfinity now (to run away from precisely that bad rap).
  - mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
    I always thought the corporation was still Comcast but they'd just rebranded their products as Xfinity. Could be wrong though, haven't fact checked that.
  - bitwize 7y ago
    Xfinity is the name of their consumer/residential package. Possibly to distance themselves from bad PR associated with the Comcast name.
    - pnutjam 7y ago
      Xfinity is how long it takes to get ahold of a CSR.
- dlgeek 7y ago
  Looks like CenturyLink is joining in: http://news.centurylink.com/fccpledge http://news.centurylink.com/fccpledge
arcboii92 7y ago
As a kiwi it blows my mind how bad your broadband is over there. My cousin recently moved to some rural Aussie town and will be getting 25 megabit, tops. Here in NZ we're rolling out 4 gigabit connections nationwide over the next 6 months. EDIT: props for getting rid of limits and disconnects though. NZ providers are just saying we'll be able to cope with everyone working from home because we have a fancy network.
- nreece 7y ago
  Yeah it sucks, and what's worse is that there's no near-future course correction by the policy makers. This is going to come back and bite us in some very uncomfortable places. Kudos for the multi-gigabit fibre, when we can only imagine of a gigabit lottery.
  - golergka 7y ago
    I'm confused, what do policy makers have to do with it?
    - duckMuppet 7y ago
      Let no tragedy go to waste...
    - nreece 7y ago
      "Here in Australia Labor’s plan was for a nationwide network with 93 per cent FTTP coverage. Under the Coalition’s model, only around 20 per cent of NBN Co customers will enjoy FTTP. Around a third of fixed-line premises will be lumbered with FTTN." https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/nbn-offering-not-good-enough-for-21st-century-australia,13647 https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/n...
- mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
  At least some of that could be due to the fact that Australia is way larger geographically though, right? It's a lot more cable to run.
XorNot 7y ago
It's worth noting for context that the NBN was meant to be FTTP across the entire country, until the most recent conservative government came in and promptly cancelled all that.
- cmroanirgo 7y ago
  My area is fixed mobile only now. The storms we had 6+ weeks ago knocked out the landline (and adsl), so we've been tethering for any internet, which is 1 bar strength of 4g. It's increasingly unlikely that Telstra (the fixed line telco) will ever repair the copper: we've had several promises and nothing yet (nor expected until April).
aidenn0 7y ago
Australia. The only country that makes the USA look good for broadband...
- gt565k 7y ago
  Hey... things have gotten better in the states in the last few years. Not great, but metropolitan areas have fiber. My old building that was built in 1965 got wired with AT&T fiber about a year ago.
  - paranoidrobot 7y ago
    Part of the problem with that, is that it's single-provider fiber. If you don't like AT&T's offerings, you can't go with another ISP. In a lot of buildings - there's exclusivity arrangements so that no other provider can install fiber. This is why Australia's NBN was a good idea - the fiber is rolled out by a single body, all the ISPs have equal access. My apartment has NBN Fiber, I have an ONT provided by NBN, and off that ONT there's four 1Gbit ethernet ports - I can call up my choice of ISP(s) and ask for service from any of them. The idea for having four data ports was that you could have multiple different network conections. Perhaps your employer wants you to have a 1Gbit connection direct into their network - no worries, they can provision directly onto one of those ports, and then it doesn't matter what malware might be on my home network, it won't impact the work device. Perhaps you need some kind of remote-monitored medical gear - well having that on the public internet is a bad idea, so your healthcare provider could provision a port for that, too. It also means that if I want to switch ISPs, I call up the new ISP and ask for a connection, and when they get around to setting it up - I switch over to their port. Not working? No worries, switch back to the old ISP and continue using that until the new ISP figures it out.
- rs23296008n1 7y ago
  While I think both countries' ISPs like to compete for a yearly "silliest restriction and worst customer experience" award, the NBN in Australia is a government screwup mostly due to the actions of vested interests and vested politicians. An entire political party decided that the internet was just for "movies and entertainment", "You don't need fast internet" and similar comments. This guided them towards penny pinching as a strategy which meant they succeeded in seizing defeat from the jaws of victory. "Penny wise, pound stupid" is the old term for it.

by nreece 7y ago

closeparen 7y ago

I would expect rationing of the available bandwidth to become more important, not less, as the entire population is stuck at home using it all day.

danielheath 7y ago
Aussie Broadband have announced unlimited bandwidth for those on limited plans, but also that those few making extreme use of available bandwidth will be throttled. They might slow their connections down, too.
dcow 7y ago
That’s if congestion was ever actually a problem to begin with.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y ago
  That's what I've been wondering ... will they ever try using "we need zero rating to prevent network overload" again if they'll demonstrate now that they don't?
  - mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
    I wish I could say no, but: Yes. In time they could claim - potentially truthfully - that an increasing number of increasingly connected devices engaging in more complex applications by ever more data hungry end users drove additional demand relative to the levels seen in the past, even during past crises.
Scoundreller 7y ago
Reality is that peak usage (at least in Canada) is in the evening hours. Impact from WFH during office hours will just use excess daytime capacity. WFH (RDP/Webex/VPN) uses much less bandwidth than streaming Netflix. But the kids being at home might make a big difference.
- rs23296008n1 7y ago
  Having kids at home without an internet connection these days is something most parents would rather not experience. Right up there with lack of electricity but lower in the priority list. I'd have thought Netflix in particular would use less bandwidth than video conf because of the amount of peering / caching tricks they can do to bring their service "closer". Note: I'm not talking purely bits transferred - I'm referring to network boundaries. In-network congestion should be easier to manage for an ISP and I'd expect plenty of them make it so Netflix and others' traffic is effectively "in-network".
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    Sure, but any sane ISP in a big enough metro will have ports are the local Internet Exchange where Amazon, Netflix (if you exceed the appliance), Google, MSFT, etc. all peer at. After that, what’s left? In Canada, it’s actually the incumbents that largely refuse to peer freely.
- Stranger43 7y ago
  What is more important is that WFH traffic is far more balanced in it's up/down ratio and hence is likely to have neutral pearing costs if it leaves the ISP's network at all. Not to mention that most of the people now moving to home office will be spending their time working in relatively low bandwidth applications not sitting video conferences.

dmix 7y ago

In Canada Rogers (and I believe Bell), two of our biggest ISPs, have removed data cap fees on internet and ended long distance fees for calls in response to the virus: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2020/03/16/rogers-waiving-long-distance-fees-data-usage-caps-amid-covid-19-outbreak/ https://toronto.citynews.ca/2020/03/16/rogers-waiving-long-d...

m4rtink 7y ago

Two out of three mobile providers in Czech Republic already made their mobile data unlimitted due to the crisis: https://news.expats.cz/prague-technology/t-mobile-joins-o2-in-offering-unlimited-mobile-data-during-the-coronavirus-crisis/ https://news.expats.cz/prague-technology/t-mobile-joins-o2-i...

nik_0_0 7y ago

In the US, Comcast generally doesn't get a good rep - but they've done the same: https://corporate.comcast.com/covid-19 https://corporate.comcast.com/covid-19 Now if we could take a second to talk about all the "From CEO..." emails that are being sent around...

jaytaylor 7y ago
FYI - AT&T and other major North American ISPs have also lifted data caps for the next 60 days.
JadeNB 7y ago
Wait, is Comcast Comcast again? I thought they were Xfinity now (to run away from precisely that bad rap).
- mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
  I always thought the corporation was still Comcast but they'd just rebranded their products as Xfinity. Could be wrong though, haven't fact checked that.
- bitwize 7y ago
  Xfinity is the name of their consumer/residential package. Possibly to distance themselves from bad PR associated with the Comcast name.
  - pnutjam 7y ago
    Xfinity is how long it takes to get ahold of a CSR.
dlgeek 7y ago
Looks like CenturyLink is joining in: http://news.centurylink.com/fccpledge http://news.centurylink.com/fccpledge

arcboii92 7y ago

As a kiwi it blows my mind how bad your broadband is over there. My cousin recently moved to some rural Aussie town and will be getting 25 megabit, tops. Here in NZ we're rolling out 4 gigabit connections nationwide over the next 6 months. EDIT: props for getting rid of limits and disconnects though. NZ providers are just saying we'll be able to cope with everyone working from home because we have a fancy network.

nreece 7y ago
Yeah it sucks, and what's worse is that there's no near-future course correction by the policy makers. This is going to come back and bite us in some very uncomfortable places. Kudos for the multi-gigabit fibre, when we can only imagine of a gigabit lottery.
- golergka 7y ago
  I'm confused, what do policy makers have to do with it?
  - duckMuppet 7y ago
    Let no tragedy go to waste...
  - nreece 7y ago
    "Here in Australia Labor’s plan was for a nationwide network with 93 per cent FTTP coverage. Under the Coalition’s model, only around 20 per cent of NBN Co customers will enjoy FTTP. Around a third of fixed-line premises will be lumbered with FTTN." https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/nbn-offering-not-good-enough-for-21st-century-australia,13647 https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/n...
mandelbrotwurst 7y ago
At least some of that could be due to the fact that Australia is way larger geographically though, right? It's a lot more cable to run.

XorNot 7y ago

It's worth noting for context that the NBN was meant to be FTTP across the entire country, until the most recent conservative government came in and promptly cancelled all that.

cmroanirgo 7y ago
My area is fixed mobile only now. The storms we had 6+ weeks ago knocked out the landline (and adsl), so we've been tethering for any internet, which is 1 bar strength of 4g. It's increasingly unlikely that Telstra (the fixed line telco) will ever repair the copper: we've had several promises and nothing yet (nor expected until April).

aidenn0 7y ago

Australia. The only country that makes the USA look good for broadband...

gt565k 7y ago
Hey... things have gotten better in the states in the last few years. Not great, but metropolitan areas have fiber. My old building that was built in 1965 got wired with AT&T fiber about a year ago.
- paranoidrobot 7y ago
  Part of the problem with that, is that it's single-provider fiber. If you don't like AT&T's offerings, you can't go with another ISP. In a lot of buildings - there's exclusivity arrangements so that no other provider can install fiber. This is why Australia's NBN was a good idea - the fiber is rolled out by a single body, all the ISPs have equal access. My apartment has NBN Fiber, I have an ONT provided by NBN, and off that ONT there's four 1Gbit ethernet ports - I can call up my choice of ISP(s) and ask for service from any of them. The idea for having four data ports was that you could have multiple different network conections. Perhaps your employer wants you to have a 1Gbit connection direct into their network - no worries, they can provision directly onto one of those ports, and then it doesn't matter what malware might be on my home network, it won't impact the work device. Perhaps you need some kind of remote-monitored medical gear - well having that on the public internet is a bad idea, so your healthcare provider could provision a port for that, too. It also means that if I want to switch ISPs, I call up the new ISP and ask for a connection, and when they get around to setting it up - I switch over to their port. Not working? No worries, switch back to the old ISP and continue using that until the new ISP figures it out.
rs23296008n1 7y ago
While I think both countries' ISPs like to compete for a yearly "silliest restriction and worst customer experience" award, the NBN in Australia is a government screwup mostly due to the actions of vested interests and vested politicians. An entire political party decided that the internet was just for "movies and entertainment", "You don't need fast internet" and similar comments. This guided them towards penny pinching as a strategy which meant they succeeded in seizing defeat from the jaws of victory. "Penny wise, pound stupid" is the old term for it.