Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: The Internet in New Zealand

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  • Russell Brown,

    Connected ...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • Sacha,

    I am interested in who the 17% of non-connected New Zealanders are. Digital divide still alive and well.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    I am interested in who the 17% of non-connected New Zealanders are. Digital divide still alive and well.

    Debatable. The WIP report has a bit on that, and the number of users who cite cost as a barrier to internet use is actually very small. More than 40% of non-users simply say they're not interested.

    The big divide isn't around income or ethnicity, but age. Old folks are much less likely to use the internet than young people.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • Stephen Judd,

    Apropos Telecom: my plan.

    Apropos the DIA filter: I would like a little more focus on the (in my view badly misnamed) Independent Reference Group. As far as I can tell, the members of the group are chosen by the department. According to Barton's article, they will not even be able to see the list of banned sites -- they will merely get some sort of description of what was done from DIA. In what sense is this group independent?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    Apropos Telecom: my plan.

    A buy-back! Interesting!

    Would existing Telecom investors run for the door? Hold out for an above-market price?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • Stephen Judd,

    One thing Gattung said when she was interviewed on NatRad recently really intrigued me: that most NZers in her view wanted Telecom to be run like a public utility and would be happier if it were an SOE.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report

  • Andre Alessi,

    I started to go off on one of my usual "Telco companies in NZ lack the guts to be visionary" rants, but really, we've all heard it before.

    It is important to acknowledge that there is a level of progress in terms of network diversity that we would not have expected to see eight years ago, and that overall it's been good news for broadband consumers in New Zealand. But there still needs to be more and it needs to happen fast, and it needs to be driven by companies other than Telecom if we really want to see further change. At the moment the wholesale arrangement with Telecom is a crutch-it encourages small-to-medium "telcos" to on-sell Telecom's services without any innovation or network investment of their own, and it's certainly delayed other telcos from branching out into providing their own networks (be they LLU, fibre, parallel, etc) because they're much happier to go for the cheaper, easier option.

    It also restricts Telecom innovation, because why would they give up such a source of easy revenue, or shake up the status quo by introducing new products into a model that has to be "one size fits all"?

    If we want to see real network diversity in this country, and if we want genuine network build in "uneconomic" areas, operational separation needs to give way to true separation-Chorus needs to be sold off to be completely independent and preferably government-owned (with targets for network coverage by population and by school) while Telecom Wholesale needs to be dismantled and its core features passed on to Chorus.

    Full disclosure: I work for TelstraClear in a role that works closely with Telecom wholesale, and used to work for Telecom. Naturally my opinions are my own and not those of my company.

    Devonport, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 864 posts Report

  • Andre Alessi,

    One thing Gattung said when she was interviewed on NatRad recently really intrigued me: that most NZers in her view wanted Telecom to be run like a public utility and would be happier if it were an SOE.

    New Zealanders do have a really strong sense of ownership of Telecom to an almost irrational degree. I've had conversations with recent American immigrants who have refused to believe that Telecom isn't state owned, just because of the way we talk about it (and probably also driven by its perceived inefficiency and poor service, which can't possibly happen in the private sector.)

    Devonport, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 864 posts Report

  • Rich of Observationz,

    I think it's one of the great myths of capitalism that because our pension funds have a few thousand dollars each invested in corporations like Telecom, we have "ownership" of them in any real sense.

    There is no form of control over the business direction and no concept of balancing the interests of the shareholders as customers and owners.

    I'd suggest an entirely different model. The community take the firm over (for as little cash as possible) and vest it back to its employees and customers. Each employee / customer gets an equal share and an equal vote. Profits get split out in the same way.

    Same for every other big business. Companies can choose to remain traditionally structured, but if they do they'll be taxed into bankruptcy.

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report

  • 81stcolumn,

    "The real issue behind this is the children that are abused to make these images."

    Perhaps it is me, but I find this shit rather offensive given that a filter has no ability to prevent the instrumental abuse of children.

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report

  • giovanni tiso,

    Perhaps it is me, but I find this shit rather offensive given that a filter has no ability to prevent the instrumental abuse of children.

    I think the argument is that if you reduce access to those images, you'll also limit their production. It doesn't strike me as unreasonable.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • Andre Alessi,

    The tricky thing with that, Rich, is how you define a "decision". Can people vote several times a day? Will they have the interest and the awareness to do so constructively? If not, and you restrict votes to "big picture" questions, you run the risk of the details not matching up with the broad stroke statements when they're interpreted by people on the ground.

    A company like Telecom could be well run for the public good, but it really does require specialist management at the operational level to make that happen. The TSO hasn't been a complete failure at providing rural customers services they need, but it could be so much better if it had just been revised yearly to take into account changes in technology instead of just costs.

    Devonport, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 864 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    At the moment the wholesale arrangement with Telecom is a crutch-it encourages small-to-medium "telcos" to on-sell Telecom's services without any innovation or network investment of their own, and it's certainly delayed other telcos from branching out into providing their own networks (be they LLU, fibre, parallel, etc) because they're much happier to go for the cheaper, easier option.

    It's not a simple issue. Cabinetisation effectively stopped Vodafone, Orcon etc from investing to take advantage of LLU -- but the impact for consumers has been extremely positive, especially where I live.

    I switched my voice and internet account from Voda to Telecom late last year so I could try out all the TiVo features, and even though I'm not enthused about TiVo I'm not inclined to switch back if it means dropping back from 10Mbit/s to the 6Mbit/s I was getting.

    But I'm damned if I know exactly why my Telecom connection performs so much better than the wholesaled version of the same connection I was getting from Vodafone -- whether it's because Telecom is provisioning accounts better, or because Voda didn't get a level playing field.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • Thomas Beagle,

    Stephen - I'm working on an article about the Independent Reference Group.

    Yes, you are correct that the members are basically picked by the DIA. Personally I'm still astounded that Steve O'Brien, the manager of the Censorship Compliance Unit, is on the oversight group that is meant to be overseeing him!

    In the latest change to the Code of Practice the role of the IRG changed a little bit. They will now be able to see the list of sites that are added/removed each month. This is an important concession by the DIA and, while I'm still not very happy about their independence, is at least a start to providing some form of oversight.

    Finally - http://stopthefilter.org.nz

    New Zealand • Since Nov 2007 • 50 posts Report

  • 81stcolumn,

    @Gio

    I really cannot imagine that the antics of NZ will influence the market for this stuff.

    In light of the ongoing scandals in churches etc. this might serve as a distraction.

    It also contributes to the illusion of doing something useful.

    The best form of prevention is prevention discuss -

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report

  • 81stcolumn,

    whether it's because Telecom is provisioning accounts better, or because Voda didn't get a level playing field.

    Hmmmm. food for thought here. Lines in my locale have detriorated significantly since my move to Orcon. I'm now down to 2.7 Mbs from 3.7 in a year with three line failures. An Orcon manager as good as admitted that there were no good lines left in my area.

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Digital divide still alive and well.

    this is the one I know, is there another?
    LL&P :- )

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Rich of Observationz,

    Can people vote several times a day?

    I doubt they'd want to. They'd vote something like once a year for senior management and supervisory roles and on broad policy mandates.

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report

  • Rich of Observationz,

    Digital divide still alive and well.

    Maybe part of this is the way the medium dominates the message.

    If you have a group discuss the internet, chances are they'll probably include people who know how TCP/IP works and the details of HTML.

    A group discussing television will most likely not include anyone who knows about quadrature modulation or white balance. In 1937, it would have done, but now, it's about what's delivered, not how it gets there.

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report

  • Andre Alessi,

    It's not a simple issue. Cabinetisation effectively stopped Vodafone, Orcon etc from investing to take advantage of LLU -- but the impact for consumers has been extremely positive, especially where I live.

    It's not simple at all, and Vodafone and Orcon both deserve bouquets for the massive amount of early behind the scenes work they did to get LLU rolling at a practical level. That not only increased confidence for other telcos that they could do the same, it also forced Telecom to refine its LLU agreement process to smooth out a lot of the kinks that trip new players up.

    I'm thinking more of the smaller telcos that aren't about providing network investment at all-they can get 300 or 1,000 lines and sell them to end customers fractionally cheaper than Telecom Retail (by bundling toll calling or broadband usage, etc.) There's been a proliferation of these companies over the last few years, mainly targeting SMEs in specific areas, and they're the most conservative element of the industry. They're parasitic on the relative product stability of the last few years, and as a result they're making it harder for wholesale arrangements with Telecom to move to new technologies. The big companies that are already set up for LLU can make the jump, but the rest have no reason to.

    But I'm damned if I know exactly why my Telecom connection performs so much better than the wholesaled version of the same connection I was getting from Vodafone -- whether it's because Telecom is provisioning accounts better, or because Voda didn't get a level playing field.

    One of the eternal mysteries of the wholesale arrangement-I've seen it go the other way too, and there's absolutely no rhyme or reason to it. It's almost certainly the result of back-end configuration randomness (e.g. they move you to a different port when you reassigned that happened to be on a network element with a higher contention ratio, for example, or a mis-configured profile) but because of the way operational separation works at a practical level, the people who could actually figure it out and fix it, Chorus, have no direct relationship with the people you pay your bills to. There's a lot of "double blinds" to the current set up that prevents any one person or company in the process from being able to see the entire picture.

    Devonport, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 864 posts Report

  • Sacha,

    The big divide isn't around income or ethnicity, but age. Old folks are much less likely to use the internet than young people.

    The report concludes that wealth is a factor in access and usage of broadband services, which is hardly surprising. It seems to show the second strongest correlation after age at first glance (eg: Fig 65).

    However, one of the remaining fundamental divides is around disability - not that they bother measuring that. The word is not mentioned once in the WIP report.

    We know that disability is strongly associated with age and with poverty (so the report's noted disadvantages apply). We also know the nature of digital barriers, about sites and services which exclude some people through inadequate design. Clearly still early days getting publicly-funded research to address that.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Robbie Siataga,

    I can't live without my interwebz... How else could i learn to do this and still keep up with the beats ?

    just watch out world when i start rockin broadband. Only trouble is, it's making me even more anti social than i already was...

    ...and i bet i'm not alone :)

    Since Feb 2010 • 259 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    Irony: that fast Telecom DSL connection is running like a dog with three legs today.

    Just as well I have redundancy. Wired Country is going nicely.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • Steve Barnes,

    I put a proposal to Auckland City Council a few years back about running FTTH through the sewers, you can guess the response "Too Hard, too dangerous for teh workers, blahh blahh blahh" I was Not the first to come up with this concept.
    But I digress. I recently changed from Vodafun (oh yes, it's so much fun and young and groovy and nauseatingly aimed at teh yoof) to Telecom, who I had been bagging for years. Why change?. Well even though Telecom is not "Wholly" owned by NZ it has, I believe, a greater interest in NZ than Voda. has and as has been pointed out before, by Andre,
    "recent American immigrants who have refused to believe that Telecom isn't state owned", I would suggest they are not alone in that opinion. I changed for the "greater good of New Zealand"
    I doubt if I am alone in the sentiment that Telecom is ours regardless of who the shareholders are and as such we should buy it back.
    As to how we buy it back it doesn't really matter but I would love the irony of a people driven hostile takeover bid and an exchange of some shares in National Provident for instance.
    ;-)

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    I put a proposal to Auckland City Council a few years back about running FTTH through the sewers, you can guess the response "Too Hard, too dangerous for teh workers, blahh blahh blahh" I was Not the first to come up with this concept.

    What bugs me is that nearly every footpath between Queen Street and my house been dug up and replaced in the past three years -- and no one has appeared to realise that ducting would be an excellent investment.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

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