21 February 2005
Anyway, further to this week's discussion about telco sillybuggers. If you want an illustration of what Telecom's de-peering (and, any moment now, TelstraClear's) actually means, take a look at this traceroute from a Telecom JetStream connection to a server connected to the Wellington Internet Exchange:
1 <10> 47 ms xxx-xxx-xxx-1.jetstream.xtra.co.nz [xxx.xxx.xxx.x]
3 31 ms 47 ms 47 ms 210.55.205.249
4 63 ms 62 ms 47 ms fid-int.tkbr4.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.245.198]
5 63 ms 62 ms 63 ms vlan-283.tkbr4.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.245.197]
6 46 ms 47 ms 62 ms ge1-0-0-3.tkbr1.tkbr1.global-gateway.net.nz [202.37.245.138]
7 78 ms 94 ms 94 ms ATM9-0-0-50.sn1.optus.net.au [202.139.128.97]
8 219 ms 219 ms 218 ms SPRINT.sn1.optus.net.au [202.139.18.38]
9 219 ms 219 ms 218 ms sl-bb20-syd-14-0.sprintlink.net [203.222.32.37]
10 235 ms 250 ms 250 ms sl-gw1-auk-5-0-0.sprintlink.net [203.222.33.23]
11 93 ms 94 ms 110 ms 203.222.63.186
12 94 ms 93 ms 94 ms 203-109-156-97.ihug.net [203.109.156.97]
13 93 ms 110 ms 109 ms tig-nz-akl-dr-3.ihug.net [203.109.156.157]
14 110 ms 109 ms 141 ms atm-6-0-1-tig-nz-wlg-1.ihug.net [203.109.156.30]
15 Request timed out.
16 125 ms 109 ms 109 ms xx.xx.co.nz [xxx.x.xx.xx]
For non-technical readers, let me explain: because Telecom de-peered from the exchange, all traffic between the two points (physically about a kilometre apart in Wellington city) goes via Australia. And, so far as I can tell, whoever runs the target server will be paying international transit rates.
There are various other niceties of local peering relationships that I won't go into here, in part because I struggle to get my own head around them. But if you want to know more, there are video presentations on the topic by Bill Norton and Joe Abley from the 2005 NZNOG conference.
What it comes down to is this: Telecom's position last year was that better broadband services would have to wait on better broadband content, to drive demand. Unfortunately, Telecom's practices make providing broadband content in New Zealand look like a mug's game.