No data caps?
August 30th, 2010 at 11:00 am by David FarrarPacific Fibre may charge internet providers a fee per customer to use its proposed international communications cable, rather than charging for a set amount of bandwidth, to encourage them to offer generous or unlimited data caps to broadband users. …
Co-founder Rod Drury said carriers had to guess how much capacity they might need on the existing Southern Cross Cable. Pacific Fibre’s approach would be to avoid a situation where consumers faced restrictive data caps while most of the bandwidth available on subsea cables went unsold.
“We don’t want to be `Southern Cross minus 5 per cent’. Why don’t we flip the model around and go to a per-person charging model and then try to give internet providers as much bandwidth as we possibly can for that?” The charges could be segmented by customer type. “You could do it for mobile connections, home connections, schools, hospitals and businesses, and set a reasonable price.”
Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Ernie Newman welcomed the approach. “The way the world is moving is towards all-you-can-eat-type plans and any move like that has got to be the way of the future.”
Hear hear.
I pay an enormous amount for Internet data. There is my home Internet connection and my work Internet connection. Then you had the Vodem for mobile Internet. Add on the data plan for the Blackberry and the data plan for the iPad, and you get the idea.
Wouldn’t it be great if Vodafone or Telecom offered a universal data package, regardless of medium. Say 20 GB a month which can be used on any of your devices.
Related posts:
- A terabyte data cap
- Southern Cross doubtful of need for Kordia cable
- Pacific Fibre folds
- High Speed Mobile Data
August 30th, 2010 at 11:26 am
I thought the world was moving away from all-you-can-eat plans because they’re becoming unsustainable in the era of youtube, torrents, and other on-demand video.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 11:29 am
The world has moved Ernie. We haven’t. NZ going to all-you-can-eat isn’t the future, it’s just no longer being captured by the past.
@Repton – I think you’ll find quality-of-service constraints tend to be introduced before outright limits. Backhaul providers can (and do!) detect and throttle P2P-type traffic
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 11:37 am
I can’t speak for certain about internet billing, but for fixed line telecommunications it often costs more to the telecommunications company to pay for the ink when a line is printed on a telephone bill than it costs to provide the call.
In other words the cost of metering and billing systems is a substantial – maybe even the largest – cost component. It wouldn’t surprise me if the economics of internet billing are similar – although ISPs rarely print physical bills these days.
So you’d think all-you-can-eat plans would make sense.
Oh… and David 20GB isn’t enough. I’d like to see a plan stretching 40GB a month across all my devices.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 11:40 am
This sounds like a great marketing tool. If they basically throw open the cable, and say “we’ll split the capacity between those on it, until we get enough users that it slows down” or some such, then that will work well.
What this means in a marketing sense is that the first few ISPs who come across will get oodles of bandwidth – they’ll kill everyone else in the market. But as soon as a bunch come across, the cable will start to fill up, and suddenly it won’t be so attractive anymore. For a new entrant, that’s a brilliant model – the people who buy first get a bonus. For the end consumer, and for the ISP, maybe not quite so attractive – once the cable starts filling up the speeds will drop.
Realistically, quotas and bandwidth caps are driven by the cost of the cable. NZ is a long way from anywhere, the cable is expensive. And laying a thin cable isn’t much cheaper than laying a thick cable, in a place like NZ you’ve got to divide the cost of that cable across a pretty small consumer base.
Anyway, I’d expect an almost immediate reaction from Southern Cross if this does actually happen, and either way, we’re going to see more data.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Wouldn’t it be great if Vodafone or Telecom offered a universal data package, regardless of medium. Say 20 GB a month which can be used on any of your devices.
Yes, it would, but why would they when they make $$$ the current way?
Ever wondered why a txt costs anything up to 20 cents, while an email is free?
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
After spending the weekend @ A5 – Auckmageddon where we had unfettered access to the Internet via 1 Gig E (big thanks to Orcon & Vector), it’s time NZ came out of the dark ages.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
@Paul – It’ll take a long time to ‘fill the pipe’.
According to a speaker at this year’s Auckland CommsDay Summit the Southern Cross Cable is used at about 7% of capacity. Depending on how many partners Pacific Fibre signs, the new cable will add considerably more capacity. So even if use doubles every year, it’ll be enough for years to come.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
Bill, if we assume that the new cable doubles total capacity, and we’re therefore currently using 3.5% of total, then:
– 3.5% now
– 7% end year one
– 14% end year two
– 28% end year three
– 56% end year four
– overfilled end year five
Yes, 5 years is “years”. But still close enough to think about. I’d also suggest that if someone gave lots of NZers unmetered downloads, the growth in the first couple years would be a lot more than double – if I had unmetered content my usage would quadruple or more in the first year.
Bottom line, any exponential series eats capacity fast.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
I was in Australia last week and 180GB/month plans seem to be common and about the same price I pay for 30GB/month. You can also pick up affordable 500GB/month plans, altho these are spread across peak and off-peak.
I feel like screaming when ISPs here advertise the benefits of an “enormous” 20GB/month. It’s like an airline boasting about a clapped out old biplane when everyone else are flying 747s.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Paul, Southern Cross is currently (or will soon be) 1.2Tbps. I think it can, in theory, go all the way up to 5.12Tbps.
Pacific Fibre says its cable will be 5.12TBPS per pair – there will be at least two pairs, possibly more.
So Pacific Fibre doesn’t double total capacity, it takes it from 1.2Tbps to at least 11.5Tbps – that’s more like a ten-fold increase. So we’ll get there in around 10 years if demand doubles each year, we’ll be looking at at least eight years.
I don’t have stats for demand growth, but it isn’t as much as 50% a year. Even with the UFB, we’ve got a decade.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
I can’t keep up with all the porn now….and you fanatics want me to be able to get more of it and faster???!!!!
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
No James, higher quality. Unfortunately, in the sense of higher resolution video, not in the sense of better acting.
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
# PaulL (3,438) Says:
August 30th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
No James, higher quality. Unfortunately, in the sense of higher resolution video, not in the sense of better acting.
You buggers spoil a fellow’s expectations on purpose don’t you?
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
No James, higher quality. Unfortunately, in the sense of higher resolution video, not in the sense of better acting.
Better what…?
;-0
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Well, you see, I just watch them for the plot……
Vote:August 30th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Excuse me…. I’m crying here in joy…
Do I honestly believe we will ever get unlimited – no. The simple reality is that a vast number of people would abuse it, but even decent datacaps measured in the the 100s of gigabytes would be a vast improvement.
But then, I’m not holding my breath.
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