The race to 100 meg Internet (part 1)

In marketing & management vernacular this would be the familiar terms of 'early adopter', 'leading edge' and 'pioneer'. I particularly like 'pioneer' - it conjures the image of a hard man in a strange place, nearly alone, and making things work because they have to. The number 8 fencing wire myth of how New Zealand was made in particular resonates with the image. Ringing in my mind to this day although, is a quote I heard during studying at University, about why IBM were never pioneers in a research.

Man of firsts

I like to think I'm a man of firsts. Otherwise in carving out raw wilderness - my house has a wild enough section to keep me occupied for some time - at the time certainly in the area of innovation and communication services. That's Mobile, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), Internet, TVoverIP in short on, in common terms. And otherwise a pioneer - I look for help as much as the at once person - then undoubtedly someone focused on moving from the old to the new, in a very large way.

So the Governments' first announcements for UFB were interesting; Northpower and WEL. I worked on an early TCL project to use Northpower's fibre network, the first services of which went to market in November 2008. These guys are anyway focused on more fibre, so was an easy first win for the crown. The straightway was watching the announcements on bandwidth and the art of the possible, for residential and business clients. and the more mundane first products CFH has announced, all with a min bandwidth of 2.5CIR.

The 100/10 mb/s trial service that TCL is running

I recently joined the 100/10 mb/s trial service that TCL is running, for those with access to the HFC network. I changed from the Lightspeed40g 15/2 package, which most HFC clients got in the price change implemented on October 1. The data cap is set at 120gb, in short far I have used. 6GB. Some weeks prior I was asked what 100mb is in fact good for; what does it enable that the current speeds don't; and what are people likely to ask for? Being able to say 'I have tried; I have researched; I have discovered; I can comment' based on the real-world, in other words than the lab, is invaluable. To use a sporting metaphor, it's easy to read the theory on playing football, nevertheless at some point you need to get in the field and kick the ball.

So first things first: getting connected, which was easy. I replaced the old Motorola standup surfboard modem with the new Cisco DPC3010, which is a lay flat, and quite tiny by comparison. It comes with 1 GigE WAN port, USB2 data port and clearly the F-Connector to connect to the cable network. The unit is in an 'entertainment' cabinet now has about 20cm of ventilation above it - and it needs it. The heat from the unit is noticeable, like most Cisco gear I've ever used.

This unit is connected to a modern 802.11n wireless router. The router/switch equipment is HUGELY important when it comes to high speed internet - not least of which, the wireless device you use. The configuration of WIFI+Internet can't be ignored - and the way WIFI works doesn't easily matchup with how wired Internet works.

1/ My iTunes does download content faster. Purchased music just sounds better to me - the audio levels are balanced, the albums are complete, and the format works brilliantly for my iPod. Clearly, my 4-year old PC nevertheless takes an age to churn through what I've downloaded and present it to me - my 100mb internet hasn't made my computer any faster!

I'm keen to better see where this capability leads. A burst speed of 100mb in isolation is interesting however a little early - the Interweb's services are not scaled or dimensioned for a general population wanting to communicate at 100mb. Sustained speed and latency would be intriguing - watching Apple movie trailers at 1080p was as a matter of fact possible tonight.