Asymmetric speeds plague first NBN plans
- 21 May, 2010 13:34
- Comments 14
Residential customers of the stage 1 trial sites for the national broadband network (NBN) in Tasmania will receive committed upstream speeds of two to eight megabits per second (Mbps) on the iPrimus network, the service provider's chief executive officer, Ravi Bhatia, has revealed.
The upstream speeds will be tiered in line with downstream. Users on the 25Mbps line will be able to upload at 2Mbps, 50Mbps users will get 4Mbps upstream while those on the full-speed, 100Mbps package will be able to upload at 8Mbps.
iPrimus has already revealed its first pricing plans for the NBN, beginning at $39.95 for 25Mbps downstream speeds and 15GB of data quota. The most expensive plan is currently at $139 per month, with 100Mbps speeds and 300GB of data quota.
The prevalent broadband service, ADSL2+, typically provides upload speeds of 1024Kbps (1Mbps) with some business services offering up to 2Mbps. The network is technologically asymmetric in nature, in that it can't provide the same downstream and upstream speeds over the same bandwidth. However, Bhatia said that even these advertised speeds are peak, and real world practice hardly reaches these.
"The highest available [upstream speeds] today in practice rarely exceed 512Kbps," he told Computerworld Australia. "It's not digital. [Optical fibre] is digital, so when it says 2Mbps, it's going to be a true 2Mbps upstream."
The optical fibre network on which the NBN will run, in Tasmania and across Australia, is technologically symmetric so it will theoretically allow downstream and upstream speeds of 100Mbps simultaneously. While iPrimus plans to offer symmetric speeds to business customers, Bhatia said there weren't enough residential applications to warrant higher speeds than those offered.
"There isn't that much stuff going upstream except in torrent applications," he said. "The only application which uses significant upstream speeds is video conferencing which, in my experience, works very well at 384Kbps."
However, AARNet's director of e-research, Guido Aben, has urged that "the vision ought to be symmetrical data pipes. The NBN ought to be 100Mbps up and 100Mbps down - I haven't seen that happening."
AARNet already provides fibre-based services with symmetrical speeds of 100Mbps to 10Gbps, to universities and research institutions. The provider is traditionally known as a testing bed for Internet applications that could potentially reach the wider consumer populace, five or more years ahead of mass roll-outs. Current applications include CloudStor, a Rapidshire-like service for distributing massively large files, and Vivu, a multi-party videoconferencing application with desktop sharing capabilities.
Though Aben said that while an application like Vivu - which is already in mainstream use in North America and Europe - can be used on ADSL2+ connections, the NBN's opportunities for higher bandwidth would better benefit the application.
"The quality would be even better if you had more bandwidth and you would be able to conference with even more people," he said. "You won't be hogging the bandwidth from your family members."
According to Aben, the use of symmetric bandwidth for residential customers may not benefit the wider range of consumers, but would be essential to the growing prosumer market in Australia.
"Prosumers are ready for it, I just think the current prevailing business model hasn't caught up," he said. "I point to the countries where this vision has been taken up, and there isn't a single user who complains about the bandwidth being too high.
"Our clear vision is that users - if treated as prosumers - would enrich the community tremendously."
Bhatia said iPrimus was "flexible to accomodate the market and applications as they grow", but challenged AARNet to provide real-world examples of residential applications that already required higher upstream bandwidth.
While an application like CloudStor - released last year - may be five years from mass consumption in Australia, Vivu is consumer-ready, with its technology underpinning some of the features already available in Skype. AARNet is beta testing the video conferencing application through its Brisbane data centre, with plans to scale to other data centres and other consumer markets nationwide. While AARNet's constituency is largely university networks as a whole, Aben said the service provider hoped to reach the majority of students in tertiary education, from university students sharing ideas to TAFE students learning remotely.
"There comes a point where we can only show the point of things," Aben said, "and it's up to other entitites, be that government, be that industry bodies, to decide this is something they want to take up, or not do so."
Another technology in incubation by university IT managers, the Australian Access Federation (AAF), could potentially underpin a mass roll-out of applications like Vivu, by allowing the mass sharing of user authentication information between services. The Australia.gov.au site already provides a similar, federated user access portal for Medicare, Centrelink and child support services.
- Bookmark this page
- Share this article
- Got more on this story? Email Computerworld
- Follow Computerworld on twitter
- Top 5 Threat Protection Best Practices
- Case Study: Danske Bank Group improves efficiency and reduces time to market
- Printer Usage and Cost Management Strategies for the Australian Mid-market, an Unrealised Opportunity
- Security Threat Report 2012
- Information Security Policies, Standards and Procedure
-
CeBIT 2012: Will NBN speed up freight delivery times?
-
Coalition NBN better or worse?
-
Coalition NBN better or worse?
-
CeBIT 2012: Will NBN speed up freight delivery times?
-
NBN build gaining momentum daily: Quigley
-
Computers for Seniors for Dummies, 2nd Edition
-
Microsoft Office
-
Windows 7 for Dummies®
-
Windows 7 for Seniors for Dummies®
-
MYOB Software for Dummies 6E Australian Edition
-
Windows 7 for Dummies® Dvd+book Bundle
-
Teach Yourself Visually Windows 7
-
Office 2007 All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies
-
Excel 2007 All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies
Comments
Bruce
Have to agree with computerworld on this one. Without high speed uplinks we can forget about all the promised social and business transformations used to justify the $42B. It is just a top down TV distribution network.
Peter
Upload speeds are a joke.
Psychaotix
Agreed. There IS a demand for 100Mbps synchronous links already. We have technology like Windows Skydrive, which already stores files on the cloud. Currently, it's restricted by upload bandwidth, so we can't really put big files on because it will take so long. If we were on synchronous links, it would be almost realtime.
Another application is web serving for Windows Home Server. That requires a decent uplink speed, given it was designed for sharing to families worldwide.
What about VoIP? Yes, it does work on ADSL, but it competes with other applications for a really small share, which means quality can suffer. if you've got a decent uplink, it will improve quality as well.
There's 3 applications that would benefit from synchronous downlink/uplink connections.
Pete
""The highest available [upstream speeds] today in practice rarely exceed 512Kbps," he told Computerworld Australia. "It's not digital. [Optical fibre] is digital, so when it says 2Mbps, it's going to be a true 2Mbps upstream.""
Er... wot? Is that why DSL stands for Analog Subscriber Line????
dave
I can't believe the CEO of iPrimus is such a complete technology luddite with the numerous stated factual errors mentioned in the article:
1. "The highest available [upstream speeds] today in practice rarely exceed 512Kbps" - Strange then how on every ADSL2+ service I have used I can consistently send data at ~900kbps speeds 24/7. Maybe this is an admission of how crap the iPrimus backhaul network is.
2. "It's not digital. [Optical fibre] is digital, so when it says 2Mbps, it's going to be a true 2Mbps upstream." - oh dear god this is LOL material. Light is analogue just as much as electrical impulses on a DSL line. Both however are digitally sampled and encoded. It's hilarious that he doesn't know what the letter D in the acronym DSL stands for. Additionally a 2 Mbps DSL line is true 2 Mbps just as much as a 2Mbps fibre service. Sure the payload is less than that due to ethernet/ATM framing headers but that is no justification to claim that a DSL service can only provide 512kbps in uplink,
3. "Bhatia said there weren't enough residential applications to warrant higher speeds than those offered." - What a silly chicken and egg first cop out excuse. There will NEVER be any high speed uplink residential applications until ISP's actually start to provide high speed uplinks!
4. "There isn't that much stuff going upstream except in torrent applications," - Obviously because with slow uplinks no one could be currently bothered. I'd love to view the megapixel security video from my home remotely and directly access all the media and content from my home media server without waiting a day to get it.
5. ""The only application which uses significant upstream speeds is video conferencing which, in my experience, works very well at 384Kbps." - The only application eh? There are a long list of other applications if you bothered to discover what the internet can be used for. Also, don't insult our intelligence by claiming that videoconferencing only needs 384 kbps. With that speed you need to drastically cripple the quality and resolution of the video to such an extent that there is little benefit over a voice conversation. Thanks to DVD and digital TV we have come to expect SD at 720x576 resolution at full frame rates which needs 2 Mbps uplink even using the most advanced H.264 codec, let alone experiencing the delight of full HD which needs at least 7 Mbps. Most video cameras these days are now HD along with most new TV/Movie content so it is natural to expect that sort of video quality when having a video call/conference with others on a large display. Additionally a high speed uplink means you can directly stream in real time any stored media you have at home (to access the terabytes of content we have stored) or relay local TV and other video anywhere else on the internet with slingbox type devices.
That's not even beginning to list the large number of reasons why someone working from home might need a high speed uplink.
dave
With the rise in VoIP and other time sensitive applications in the home we not only need high speed uplinks but also wide spread support for QoS throughout in a next generation network. Providing UBR type services with little support for QoS is not going to help the huge growing demand for VoIP. If we're building a single national infrastructure then we can make this work.
Hubert Cumberdale
Guido Aben is right, Ravi Bhatia is wrong.
James
How about Skype HD video? How about wanting to have high quality VOIP calls and several computers online at the same time? How about me wanting to back up my important files once a week to an offsite network - I'd rather it take 15 minutes than 3 hours.
People don't use a lot of upstream bandwidth at the moment simply because it isn't there. Start providing it and I guarantee we'll use it - the ISP's just don't want to risk upsetting their precious profit margins, even though the technology is there.
jr
To Dave who posted at Sat 22/05/2010 - 19:14. I think you should calm down a bit. News articles tend to exaggerate people's words so we do not actually know what Bhatia meant exactly.
Most of everyone will not need such high upload speeds. The NBN will be shared by everyone and all providers will need to provide a fair slice of the speeds to as many people as possible for a fair/competitive price. By fair I mean actually distributing the speeds/bandwidth in a way that is relevant to the needs of every different sectors of the market. It would not make any business sense for residental users to have the full upload speeds available, even at a high price. Just because you may be earning a lot more than others around doesn't make you deserve the highest speeds possible. The disbtribution of speeds and bandwidth really should match the policies and models of businesses so that the end user experience do not suffer as a result of traffic congestion/contention . The problem with a lot of us non technical people is, they all tend to think that 30Mbps will be 30Mbps from point A to point B. It never was, still isn'tt and never will be. To be able to maintain full speeds from every combination of pairs of end points in a network infrastructure would mean even faster/expensive core networks, more powerful/expensive servers in datacentres...etc..etc....The costs add up and at the moment we all have the contruction costs to worry about let alone the maintenance/future upgrade costs.
Geographically, the contruction and maintenance of the NBN is a challenge compared to pretty much most other countries.
Also, too much bandwidth for too many users would mean that our international links will suffer as a lof of the contents that people access are overseas. ISP's have to pay a lot for the international links and this cost will only be further passed down to the end user.
Also you sound like you work in IT. Perhaps you are keen on setting up a business for users where you set up remote IP security and control of people's homes? You are driven by your own needs.
Not everyone needs and should afford high symmetrical speeds. Not every household will have an IT guru like you thinking of every practical way to utitilize every drop of bandwidth. In fact you will get abusers/leechers.
The inherent problems like congestion will simply never allow the ideal speeds for everyone.
dave
To jr in reply to your post:
"It would not make any business sense for residental users to have the full upload speeds available, even at a high price"
- Excuse me? Why not? Is $100 from a residential customer worth less than $100 from a business customer? If a residential customer wants a symmetric 25/25 Mbps service then it should be available and priced cheaper than a 50/4 Mbps service because the 25/25 service uses less combined bandwidth. A 25/25 service will actually be far more useful to many than a 50/4 service.
Residential customers utilised symmetric dialup and ISDN services before the advent of ADSL and by moving to a symmetric capable fibre service there is no valid reason to continue providing asymmetric bandwidth profiles.
"Just because you may be earning a lot more than others around doesn't make you deserve the highest speeds possible. The distribution of speeds and bandwidth really should match the policies and models of businesses so that the end user experience do not suffer as a result of traffic congestion/contention"
- Exactly who are you to dictate what bandwidth people deserve? If anyone wants a gigabit symmetric service and they can afford it then they should have it!
The solution to congestion is to ensure that users pay for the amount of data they transfer including uploads. The same price for uplink data as downlink data ensures that each traffic direction is treated equally and doesn't discriminate against symmetric speeds.
"To be able to maintain full speeds from every combination of pairs of end points in a network infrastructure would mean even faster/expensive core networks"
- But the core routers don't have asymmetric bandwidth profiles, they are symmetric and so the end user access services should also be symmetric.
"Also, too much bandwidth for too many users would mean that our international links will suffer as a lof of the contents that people access are overseas."
- Many would disagree completely with that statement since a high uplink symmetric speed service encourages users to host content locally here in Australia. Universal high speed intra-national internet would substantially boost our local content distribution platforms and discriminate against usage of international hosts due to their inferior speeds and lower reliability due to potential international link failures.
High speed uplinks here in oz could potentially even reduce our international bandwidth requirements especially for P2P applications where local seeds have a higher bandwidth so clients source more data within Australia rather than externally.
dave
continuation of reply to jr:
"Not everyone needs and should afford high symmetrical speeds."
- I'm not advocating for high symmetric speeds, only 15/15 or 25/25 or 35/35 Mbps symmetric services for all users (not just businesses) so that we can take full advantage of internet access. Ultimately I see less demand for a 100/8 Mbps service than a 25/25 Mbps service so we should have the latter option. The mere fact other FTTP providers overseas offer 25/25 and 35/35 Mbps symmetric services to residential customers is a good indication of the demand.
"In fact you will get abusers/leechers."
- Not if uplink bandwidth is treated exactly the same as downlink bandwidth. If excess usage on uplink or downlink occurs then users will be throttled or charged excess usage fees. No one then will be abusing the network as we will all be paying for what we use. The current situation of free uploads on many asymmetric services is open to abuse since some users upload huge amounts of data and everyone else pays for that in higher overall charges.
D Newman
I get the impression that iprimus is just sticking with old pricing models, and thats about as deep as it goes.....Competition will open up things once things get settled in.
Scott Pearce
What a waste. It *must* be symmetric. Certain powers-that-be want to keep us all as dumb consumers, only able to download what they feed us - never producing our own *free* content for others.
Mike Graham
I would like to host some game servers because here in Tasmania we are too far away from the rest of the world to use their servers due to low ping speeds. Even Mainland Australian server ping times are too slow in most cases.
For this reason even 8/8 would be better for me than 50/4 and for all the other reasons symmetric is better. It looks like the iPrimus model would require me to pay for 100Mpps download just to get my 8Mbps upload.
I hope some other ISPs offer what I want.
Post new comment