[AusNOG] The digital divide

Fri Oct 24 14:03:21 EST 2014

In defence of the developing world, I have 30M/5M fibre in Chiang Mai,
Thailand's rural second city.

I'm about 8kms from the city centre so it's not a CBD perk. I get the full
30Mbps downstream and pretty much the 5Mbps upstream. I make 10cent calls
to Australia and the MOS is so good that you can't pick it from a local
call.

I never saw any cable get laid in or above ground but then they recently
added a centimetre or three to the kilometre of road out front and they
were done the same day. RTT was ~130ms but I just had a look and I'm
getting 90ms to 139.130.4.4

Of course there's the flip side which is that there's about one outage a
month of half-a-day and half the time no-one seems to know about it (sit it
out). Also, most good things here go to crap eventually (so you move).

I'm paying a steep $150/mth whereas previously, I had good and free
connectivity via WiFi/aDSL to the same provider but it's a lot better than
having to fire up the GSM network when you need to make a 'business grade'
call (and good luck with GSM anyway).

Free WiFi is available everywhere and 'sane grade' connectivity can be had
if you do your homework. My 3G coverage is good $20/mth with included calls
and 4GB cap. A long neck beer is $1.50 (50 baht).

When I go to Melbourne, the meter goes on from the moment I arrive until
right down to the departure lounge. Hotels in the CDB charge 1990's rates
for internet access that seems to be commonly compromised by some NZ mob
who claim to be offering premium access for movie directors wanting to
upload (movies?) with the scum (the $200 per nighters) dropping >5% of
packets. It's rubbish and yet another reason to get out of the hotel. And I
did say 'hotels' plural.

Everything thereafter in this 'First World' is screw-you exploitation
(because you're not contracted down to a screw-you contract). Exetel
disappointed me because I forgot that I had only a couple of hundred MB of
data (try that overnight on OS X) and AmaySim seems the only provider that
can accommodate 'non contractees'.

So anyway, I know which side of the digital divide I want to live on.

As an aside, the Chinese are (allegedly) funding extensive fibre rollouts
in Laos (at some recent point, the world's poorest country). Not sure if
this is it

http://www.vientianetimes.org.la/FreeContent/freeCont_Nationwide%20fibre.htm

Regards,

traceroute to 139.130.4.4 (139.130.4.4), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets
 1  192.168.1.1  1.911 ms  0.656 ms  0.592 ms
 2  110.77.157.1  5.924 ms  8.450 ms  8.247 ms
 3  110.77.255.201  17.619 ms  16.264 ms  16.446 ms
 4  110.77.255.33  16.435 ms  16.476 ms  16.164 ms
 5  122.155.226.37  19.190 ms  16.129 ms  15.920 ms
 6  61.19.7.145  14.280 ms  16.229 ms  16.371 ms
 7  61.19.7.162  16.328 ms  16.010 ms  16.303 ms
 8  61.19.9.130  29.231 ms  32.222 ms  32.189 ms
 9  202.126.173.249  52.637 ms  46.839 ms  48.772 ms
10  202.84.180.157  47.095 ms  63.132 ms  52.989 ms
11  202.84.141.153  94.281 ms  100.814 ms  91.853 ms
12  203.50.13.229  98.180 ms  96.032 ms  95.782 ms
13  139.130.4.4  95.298 ms  97.464 ms  95.997 ms

On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 12:23 PM, Alex Samad - Yieldbroker <
Alex.Samad at yieldbroker.com> wrote:

> Hi
>
> In Slashdot
>
> http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/10/22/2140207/will-fiber-to-the-home-create-a-new-digital-divide
>
> The article
>
> http://www.networkcomputing.com/networking/fiber-networks-and-the-new-digital-divide/a/d-id/1316829
>
>
> The opening line
> "Three months ago, my wife and I moved to a new apartment in Barcelona. A
> week after our telephone line and DSL service were installed, our ISP
> offered us fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service without additional cost."
>
>
> "FTTH connections are currently booming in countries such as Portugal and
> Spain. In Spain, Telefónica will reach 10 million households this year.
> Jazztel, recently acquired by the French operator Orange, will reach 3
> million more users at the end of the year. Portugal's main operator,
> Portugal Telecom (PT), had more than 1.3 million homes connected at the end
> of 2013, with plans to reach 2.5 million this year."
>
> Can any remember which telco Malcom bought into.. I remember at the time
> it was touted as removing FTTN and moving towards FTTH.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> AusNOG mailing list
> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
>

-- 

Alastair Waddell

Legion Internet

Australia
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