Velocity Reviews - uk gets it

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LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Oftel said Monday it has ordered BT to cut
wholesale unmetered Internet access charges.

Prices for unmetered Internet access for consumers should come down as
a result, the telecoms regulator said.

http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/030721/0245000459_1.html

I was their recently. 25 pound for unlimited full speed ADSL.

They got it good already!

- Al

"bill" <b8@yes.co.nz> wrote in message
news:n54nhv03sgvra9bs0vfc0he1bf8u5f0c0s@4ax.com...
> LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Oftel said Monday it has ordered BT to cut
> wholesale unmetered Internet access charges.
>
> Prices for unmetered Internet access for consumers should come down as
> a result, the telecoms regulator said.
>
> http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/030721/0245000459_1.html

Al & Cay Grant allegedly said:

> I was their recently. 25 pound for unlimited full speed ADSL.
>
> They got it good already!
>
> - Al

A fibre link to Europe is 70kms long in 30-50 metres of water for 60m
people.

Our fibre links are 2,000 to 10,000 kms long in up to 7,000 metres of
water...for 4m people.

Of course ours is more expensive.

--
Steve

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 22:40:08 +1200, Steve wrote:

> Gary allegedly said:
>
>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 19:06:13 +1200, bill <b8@yes.co.nz> wrote:
>>
>>>LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Oftel said Monday it has ordered BT to cut
>>>wholesale unmetered Internet access charges.
>>>
>>>Prices for unmetered Internet access for consumers should come down as
>>>a result, the telecoms regulator said.
>>>
>>>http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/030721/0245000459_1.html
>>
>> I had some friends here from the UK recently, and they couldn't believe
>> how badly we have got it here. I am expanding my business into the UK
>> soon, and lack of good and cheap broadband in NZ is one of the main
>> reasons.
>
> We're 4 million people thousands of Ks from anywhere. We're lucky we
> even have broadband.
>
> Mind you...I live in the Wellington region and have several broadband
> suppliers to choose from.

so you can justify broadband prices because of this? The broadband prices
in NZ are artificially inflated by a certain telco, this "Distance" thing
is nonsense, a poor excuse. By your definition broadband prices will stay
like this for a long time (a few million years of continental shift, NZ isnt
moving any closer). The problem, has *always* been telecom, you can't put
the geographic spin on it as an excuse for extreme broadband prices.

"mdew" <not@home.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2003.07.21.11.57.55.711692@home.com...
> On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 22:40:08 +1200, Steve wrote:
>
> > Gary allegedly said:
> >
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 19:06:13 +1200, bill <b8@yes.co.nz> wrote:
> >>
> >>>LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Oftel said Monday it has ordered BT to cut
> >>>wholesale unmetered Internet access charges.
> >>>
> >>>Prices for unmetered Internet access for consumers should come down as
> >>>a result, the telecoms regulator said.
> >>>
> >>>http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/030721/0245000459_1.html
> >>
> >> I had some friends here from the UK recently, and they couldn't believe
> >> how badly we have got it here. I am expanding my business into the UK
> >> soon, and lack of good and cheap broadband in NZ is one of the main
> >> reasons.
> >
> > We're 4 million people thousands of Ks from anywhere. We're lucky we
> > even have broadband.
> >
> > Mind you...I live in the Wellington region and have several broadband
> > suppliers to choose from.
>
> so you can justify broadband prices because of this? The broadband prices
> in NZ are artificially inflated by a certain telco, this "Distance" thing
> is nonsense, a poor excuse. By your definition broadband prices will stay
> like this for a long time (a few million years of continental shift, NZ
isnt
> moving any closer). The problem, has *always* been telecom, you can't put
> the geographic spin on it as an excuse for extreme broadband prices.
>

Why not? Our Southern Cross cable is still costing us.

Cheers,
Nicholas Sherlock

Reply is inline.
mdew wrote
> > We're 4 million people thousands of Ks from anywhere. We're lucky we
> > even have broadband.
> >
> so you can justify broadband prices because of this?

It is fairly likely that this is the cause.

> The broadband prices
> in NZ are artificially inflated by a certain telco, this "Distance" thing
> is nonsense, a poor excuse.

If you can do it cheaper, go for it.

> By your definition broadband prices will stay
> like this for a long time (a few million years of continental shift, NZ isnt
> moving any closer).

As Kiwis start using more bandwidth economies of scale will kick in,
also prices do generally go down over time.

> The problem, has *always* been telecom, you can't put
> the geographic spin on it as an excuse for extreme broadband prices.

I don't argue that Telecom isn't a factor, but surely you must see
that taking information over a long piece of cable must cost them
something... if only to recover the costs of said cable.

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 22:40:08 +1200, Steve <steve@nospam4me.org> wrote:

>Gary allegedly said:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 19:06:13 +1200, bill <b8@yes.co.nz> wrote:
>>
>>>LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Oftel said Monday it has ordered BT to cut
>>>wholesale unmetered Internet access charges.
>>>
>>>Prices for unmetered Internet access for consumers should come down as
>>>a result, the telecoms regulator said.
>>>
>>>http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/030721/0245000459_1.html
>>
>> I had some friends here from the UK recently, and they couldn't
>> believe how badly we have got it here. I am expanding my business into
>> the UK soon, and lack of good and cheap broadband in NZ is one of the
>> main reasons.
>
>We're 4 million people thousands of Ks from anywhere.
>We're lucky we even have broadband.
>
>Mind you...I live in the Wellington region and have several broadband
>suppliers to choose from.

Being only 4 million it's alot easyer for us all find a space in the band.
Brett

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 22:43:07 +1200, Steve wrote:

> A fibre link to Europe is 70kms long in 30-50 metres of water for 60m
> people.
>
> Our fibre links are 2,000 to 10,000 kms long in up to 7,000 metres of
> water...for 4m people.
>
> Of course ours is more expensive.

As I keep saying, this would be true if it wasn't for the factoid of
bandwidth being more than twice as expensive to ship from Auckland to
Wellington as it is to get it from Los Angeles to Auckland in the first
place.

Net access in the UK is cheap because the dominant telco is forced to
charge reasonable prices to ISPs to connect. It's a loss-making
proposition for most ISPs to provide jetstart, but it's a marjeting
disaster not to.

Dialup ISPs in the UK and NL (The countries I looked into) are able to
provide nationwide dialup at a caller cost of NZ2-3c/min and _still_ get a
cut from the telco for terminating the calls. Compare that with the 0873
version, where the telco charges minimum $2000/month + 1c/min to the ISP
and you start seeing why ISPs keep falling over.

mdew allegedly said:

>> We're 4 million people thousands of Ks from anywhere. We're lucky we
>> even have broadband.
>>
>> Mind you...I live in the Wellington region and have several broadband
>> suppliers to choose from.
>
> so you can justify broadband prices because of this?

Yeah - in past. Unit cost per person. It is absolutely CERTAIN that the cost
of the Southern Cross cable must be spread over far fewer heads in NZ and
AU than a (MUCH shorter) similar cable in the US, Europe - or between the
two.

North America and Europe have a combined population of 800-900M
people....yet the distance between them is half that of NZ to North America
or Asia.

Simply dividing the cost of laying the cable by the number of heads says we
will pay more.

I do agree that DOMESTIC traffic should be cheaper. On many broadband
services it is 10% of International traffic - if not free.

> The broadband prices
> in NZ are artificially inflated by a certain telco, this "Distance" thing
> is nonsense, a poor excuse. By your definition broadband prices will stay
> like this for a long time (a few million years of continental shift, NZ
> isnt moving any closer). The problem, has always been telecom, you can't
> put the geographic spin on it as an excuse for extreme broadband prices.

There is a better reason. If Telecom were to do what you say, they would end
up 10th the size they are today.

Who is going to invest in that? Are you going to sell your house for 1/10th
of what you paid for it?

I don't think so. You would try to add value and service instead. Another
reason we have epxensive service is that Telecom - when it was sold - was
left with the domestic network. That should NEVER have been done. It would
cost 10 times what Telecom was sold for to replace that network - even as
it was then.

So becasue no one can build an equivalent network, there is little in the
way of competition...and prices remain higher.

All of these are relevant. There is no ONE reason why we pay waht we do. But
certainly all these reasons are a product of where we live.

Far away and in small numbers.

--
Steve
--
"Naturally, the common people don't want war;
neither in Russia nor in England nor in America,
nor for that matter in Germany.
That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders
of the country who determine the policy and
it is always a simple matter to drag the people
along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist
dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist
dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is tell them
they are being attacked and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same way
in any country."
- Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshall

T.N.O. allegedly said:

>
> I don't argue that Telecom isn't a factor, but surely you must see
> that taking information over a long piece of cable must cost them
> something... if only to recover the costs of said cable.

They did recover the costs a couple oif years ago. They did it within 18
months of the lights going on.

Now it is only maintenance...and spare cpacity to meet growth. If they sell
the whole thing out for a song, they have no future capacity....and no cash
to build the next one when required if they priced it so low they didn't
include both profit and the NEXT cable (plus maintenance).

--
Steve