TelstraClear 100Mbps trial so far

I am lucky to have been selected as one of the first people testing TelstraClear's new 100 Mbps-capable cable network. The telco has upgraded its cable network to support the DOCSIS 3 standard, giving users access to 100 Mbps download speeds, and 10 Mbps upload speeds.

Installation in itself is easy, since the entire network is nevertheless DOCSIS 3 capable. A simple modem swap and we are ready to go. My first modem was a Motorola, which is being replaced today with a Cisco model. All the screenshots are in a word based on the Motorola modem. Clearly you have to put a bit of investment here. My current router is a Cisco Small Business Pro SRP 521W. This router supports two VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) lines, and WiFi 802.11n. I am noting this because when you get access to a faster network your router will be an important piece of the puzzle. How many packets can it process? How reliable is it?

Also we have two gigabit switches in our home network, and all our PCs are either ethernet gigabit capable or 802.11n capable.

Interesting, right? A speedtest to Christchurch gives me better results than one to Wellington, where I live. That's because of peering. It's important to note, what you get is a line speed. Final results will depend on how packets are routed, the capacity on the target server providing the content you want, etc. Clearly this is limiting now only uses portion of the bandwidth available.

TrueNet device installed here

As part of my testing I agreed to have a TrueNet device installed here. TrueNet tests your broadband connection on random intervals, reporting individual and aggregate information. This is my speeds on the first few days:

Right, so what do I use all this speed for? We already used a large plan with TelstraClear previously. We have two adults working from home. We consume a large amount of online content, including for the time being two or more video rentals from iTunes. I have an online backup account, using about 130 GB and about 1GB uploads daily, mainly documents updates, Outlook PST files updates, photos and home videos taken with Flip MinoHD. We as well have two VoIP lines here.

On average we use about 100 GB a month. Count those 300 MB Apple mac updates, 100 MB Windows updates, MSDN downloads, a few LiveMeeting events every month, a few Skype video calls and you have a good idea of how much we use.

The big question for me

The big question for me but is how TelstraClear can make this a more compelling proposition. Price clearly is going to be of impact. In broadband world "you get what you pay for" is very true and during the existing 25 Mbps cable service is not cheap, it's of the highest quality. Other things are value added services. I'd as a matter of fact like the option of moving my online backup to a local service. Obvious reason would be possible upload speed increase. Even better if TelstraClear provided a bundled service with non-metered traffic for this service. Or maybe TelstraClear could join forces with Microsoft and offer a hosted communications services.