TelstraClear chokes as all-you-can-eat weekend kicks off

InternetNZ boss Vikram Kumar said his TelstraClear cable connection was "nearly unusable" last night.

Mr Kumar, who was monitoring social network chatter about the promotion, told NBR that broadband connections "near died for many people."

Early yesterday evening the InternetNZ chief executive quickly slid from anticipation of "#dataheaven" to sarcastically thanking TelstraClear for "munting" his account.

TelstraClear consumer head Steve Jackson responded that, "Our free broadband weekend is proving incredibly popular. As we predicted, the high numbers of people taking advantage of this possibility to make the most of their internet will inevitably slow speeds and create some congestion.

"We expect this to be intermittent as demand ebbs and flows and understand the frustrations this may cause for some. Our technicians continue to monitor the network 24/7 and we'll be considering all feedback in our review."

Key issue is that much of New Zealand'

A key issue is that much of New Zealand's internet traffic is cross-border, both from people accessing offshore sites, and domestic data that gets routed via LA due to the politics of "peering" traffic between providers.

Mr Dury added, "I recently upgraded my FX Networks/Unison Fibre connection from 10MB to 100MB and haven't noticed any speed improvement. I think that proves opening up international is key to improving the NZ internet experience.

Added industry commentator Lance Wiggs, "It shows just how much pent up demand there is from families and businesses for capacity, which is an possibility for ISPs which will only become greater as Ultrafast Broadband comes online."

Diplomatic tone

Applauded Pacific Fibre chief executive Mark Rushworth struck a diplomatic tone, telling NBR, "TelstraClear should be applauded for this innovated pricing special. It reminds me of the first $5 calling weekend Telecom offered in the early 90s. They had some initial capacity planning problems nevertheless it changed the nature of how people made national calls.

Nov 28: Our second largest internet service provider, TelstraClear, says it will allow unlimited internet use this weekend. Clients will be able to browse, downloaded video and if not surf the web without worrying about any data being counted toward their monthly cap.

Asked if this weekend was a test of the TelstraClear network's ability to deal with unlimited use, or a precursor to an all-you-can-eat plan, spokesman Gary Bowering told NBR, "It’s not a test. We’re confident that our network will cope then with the demands that may be placed on it. We’ve made no decisions on whether there will be furthermore unmetered weekends."

A nation pursuant to this agreement the thumb All-you-can-eat broadband plans are the norm in most countries, however a recent Statistics NZ survey of ISPs found that 99% of New Zealanders are on internet plans constrained by data caps. Historically, relatively expensive overseas data has been blamed.

The best network in NZ

The best network in NZ, I've moved houses and choose by whether they have a Telstra connection and they are dropping their top end plans by over 30% in a few days.

Will be interesting to see how slow the network will get over the weekend, sure it will however be more than 3g networks at least

Test of sorts of what a worst case scenario could be

it will be a test of sorts of what a worst case scenario could be. In substance if they in fact got rid of data caps altogether there is no way the network would be hammered as hard as it will be this weekend. However because it is just for a weekend, people will attempt to fill their boots with as much content as possible.

In all honesty if this speed is to be expected from a new Telstra unlimited plan I would prefer to chuck my PC in the bin and forget about internet altogether, running at 80kbps on yes a broadband package, what's the point in such a deal as unlimited when I could get dial-up at 56kbps for free.. share your views will be interesting if other people are experiencing such low speeds.

Yay! I can't download things. I can't update LoL. I can't get decent performance from online games. What is the point of a unmetered weekend if the internet doesn't even function?It's fantastic to see professionals using their paying clients as guinea pigs and cutting off their internet for nearly 2 and a half days.

Snap has done this on 2 occasions and it has not slowed down my connection, how can this cripple a big ISP like TelstraClear with their own network

As for TelstraClear, does this mean its network has in effect high contention levels? In other words, the shared bandwidth is oversold to a large degree?

It was predictable that this would happen. Telcos over-sell the internet pipes, because the public couldn't afford the real cost of permanent high speed.

The reality is that businesses that need guaranteed high speed with no data cap, for data links or inter-office connections are taking everything into consideration prepared to pay significant amounts per month. The illusion that 16 year old Johnny can download music at high speed at a fraction of the price of what a business pays is a marketing ploy. Some people always get excited by something in vain.

Telecom tried this with go large and it didn't work, Slingshot have it - and if you read their fine print you will find they throttle back connections to meet demand, and prioritise connection types1. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)2. Gaming3. Browsing4. Streaming5. Local traffic6. File sharing, including Peer-to-Peer

Double edged sword, stoked that they're trying new things, regret for those who are negatively impacted. Not a network guru by any means, nevertheless hazarding a guess, I think that the greater upload speed afforded by Cable plans is impacting on the performance in specific, high density cable areas.

The data caps

The data caps and costs are a way of Telcos subsidising the capital cost of new pipes. I have often wondered if the Telcos had to compete with no data caps and lower contention rates whether it would force them to tidy up their act and run more efficient businesses.

The contention will mosy likely vary depending on location or type of service because the first botteneck is the local switch, and the pipe feeding into the area and spreading out through the network.

The fact remains that no one is willing to invest in NZ. The cost of fibre has dropped substantially. I don't blame investors but, SXC can easily upgrade their equipments relative cheaply and give unlimited data to every child/woman/man/sheep/cow in NZ. Like as not kiwis can set up a public link to Australia(small cost, no more than 100m) and have same type of internet plans.

The network cannot handle the speed

Slow slow slow! Why provide this service if the network cannot handle the speed. I have been a Telstra customer for 8 months and has super fast internet and I pay for the full deal. This morning it grounded to a halt 1.33 Mbps should be 10!

I am wholly unimpressed with Telstra Clear's free weekend. it's totally screwed my performance to the point where internet is un-usable. Worse than I used to get with dial-up!

their pricing is what's usually protecting their over-subscribed network, through lower demand. this weekend's elimination of the control by pricing has revealed the emperors clothes. I've rarely had occasion to consider changing from TC Cable Modem.... now I shall be keeping an eye out for better research.

Game server in germany

My ping has doubled on a game server in germany. I cant even play it! I am so unhappy so i rang telstra and they are unsure whether there will be any more 'free weekends' in future. Imagine how angry you'd be on another company and they telstra fucks your internet like this / Jesus christ i'm angry, just gotta wait til 12 pm sunday so i can play again. Fuck you NZ

My parents got me round to fix their computer today cause "nothing is working" what they as a matter of fact meant was the Internet was unusable due to a crappy marketing exercise. Speedtests showed less than 1mb download speed and timeouts on upload -

They could care less about unlimited data, they are happy with that they pay for as long as it works as I would imagine the vast majority are its only the bittorenters who win out of this. Nice way to lose some clients who pay full price just in time and never hit their cap - so conclusively are overpaying and replacing them with data leeches who thrash your network. Sounds like a solid business plan.

Thanks in vain TelstraClear. This is a nightmare. Internet speed is so bad there is no point using it. I am gutted. Don't know who is benefitting from this - however it isn't your decent clients that pay for a high usage plan.

Lot for ruining the internet for a weekend

Gaming is currantly impossible thanks a lot for ruining the internet for a weekend, hope the extra cash you get from all the warnings you will send out is worth it.I'm 90% sure to quote star wars 'it's a trap'.

I work at a small net cafe up in hamilton and our internet is a nightmare for the moment. Latency of 600ms+ on games just as LoL and WoW, web browsing is slow and Youtube videos load so slow on anything other than 360p.

I will be patient this weekend but if they try and do this again I will be leaving Telstra Clear. I don't care if I am on a contract I signed up for useable internet 7/7 days a week, not 5/7 days a week and they won't be getting any fees out of me for providing a terrible service.

2 day credit from Telstraclear customer service

Demand a 2 day credit from Telstraclear customer service. Take screenshots while the weekend to verify your claims, and email them to Telstra should the need arise.This is a self-inflicted network issue. Any network technician should have seen this coming, that's why they have quotas in the first instance - to restrict usage per customer over a fixed period to restrict network traffic to levels their network can support. I honestly do not know what they were thinking.Steve Jackson: calling this "popular" is like calling the flu popular at winter.

Remember when TC ran a billboard campaign that was like an open letter to Stephen Joyce that they already had an ultra fast broadband network.Is this what they meant ?

I cannot download anything, lucky to get 10kb/s on offshore downloads. So then played TC, Internet buggered for an entire weekend.

I live in Christchurch and mostly I get around 15megs. Today I'm getting between 3 and 4megs. I rang telstar and the customer services person said I would have to endure it until the end of the free weekend. What! Unbelieveable I'm making a written complaint to telstra and am quoting their - Committment to you - policy which this weekend has breached. A complaint can as well be made to the Telecommunication Disputes Resolution company. Telstra have compromised quality in the hope to attain more sales. I think the term is zero pricing strategy. This is unprofessional and unethical. Shame on you Telstra! If they were doing it for ethical reasons they would have said.