Aardvark

[Bruce Simpson]

This column is archived at: http://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2009/0319.shtml

Telecom's network goes down again (in Wellington).

Does this not suggest that it's really not such a clever idea to build a single national broadband network with so many critical points of failure?

Might we in fact be better off to encourage multiple companies to build multiple NBNs so that we might at least have some redundancy and fallback capability in the event of major systems failure or disaster?

And where do you go when your DSL connection falls over?

Do you have a strategy?

Can any business really afford to switch to a cellular internet connection without being bankrupted by the resulting bill from Vodafone or Telecom?

And why doesn't (or do they?) Telecom offer to provide businesses with free cellular Net connectivity when they have a DSL outage -- in the way that the offer to redirect your landline calls to your mobile for free when your voiceline is out?

Should we be putting all our eggs in one basket or not?

And is Telecom's network really starting to show its age -- or is there some other reason for the growing number of significant outages?

[Hopefulone]

At the risk of sounding like a cracked record, you get what you pay for. There was enough 'fat' in the old POTS service to allow for a high level of redundancy and security (when was the last time your landline telephone service went belly-up?). With the current mindset of 'Internet service should be faster than a speeding bullet and yet virtually free', there just isn't enough cash for the telcos to provide the redundancy required to make the service highly reliable. It's 'pay up or shut up' I'm afraid.

[erentz]

Regarding the NBN aspect of your post: This is entirely dependant on how the network is designed. A few quick points below.

1. The FTTH network should be the access layer only with multiple points of connection in each region.

2. These access networks should be regionally based, so while Wellington may conceivably go offline, Auckland won't.

3. The access network is very simple, and designed in segments, so within a region it may be conceivable for some parts of the region to be blacked out for a couple of hours if an OLT dies or a cable is cut, other parts will be fine. On top of that it is possible to provide redundancy at different levels depending on SLAs up to the point that in the access network, no one will ever likely be offline.

4. Most of these faults happen at higher layers back in the service provider's network. So it will be the customers of service provider X that go offline (as in the case of Telecom) rather than all customers of all service providers.

5. Just having more access network providers doesn't really increase availability unless someone has gone badly wrong with the network design. (This is why it's important for the Govt to recieve and act on good advice.) There is still the same chances of cable cuts and power outages and the like.

[webwat]

Problem with FTTH is that people expect "fibre to the home" to be more reliable but dont want to pay for reliability. A solution to this is to make backhaul more efficient, and will require some coordination from Government. Node X might connect a given area using subscriber PON cabling, but backhaul has to come from standard fibre provided by Vector/Telstra/Telecom as backhaul providers, each laying cable from their own network directly to a node owned by the FTTH provider. The backhaul providers are unlikely to cooperate in building Points of Presence covering whole suburbs because that would create competition between them. It would also allow business to get cheaper services, some of whom are already paying heaps for existing fibre links.