ADSL and speed in the NZ Market
feature from: Dominion Post, Waikato Times, Christchurch Press JUNE 2007
Recently whilst speaking to some customers about the speed of their internet line I was amazed at their response to my question: “how fast does your Internet currently go?”. The answer I got was: “as fast as my line will go”.
The reason this amazed me was the complete consumer buy-in to the marketing guff. What I mean is, how fast is your line actually meant to go? And do you know?
Firstly, to find your current speed, go to speedtest.horizonpacific.com, click on begin and let the test run.
The test will give you two numbers, your download speed and your upload speed. Essentially your download speed is the speed at which you are able to browse the Internet and download things onto your screen or hard disk drive. Your upload speed is the speed at which you are able to upload things such as photos onto the Internet.
Most of us will be using ADSL technology meaning we access the Internet through copper lines terminated into our offices through phone jacks. The theoretical maximum speed for ADSL in New Zealand is around 8000k down and 800k up; as compared with the old dial up modems, whose maximum speed was 56k up and down. However, the speed you actually get will be significantly lower than 8000k/800k and this is primarily determined by:
· Your physical distance from an exchange;
· Your routing equipment in house;
· Your supplier’s amount of traffic or amount of accounts they have placed through their portion of the DSLAM.
The DSLAM is the point at the exchange that each connection must terminate through. Each supplier has apportioned amounts of space and the more users put through their portion the less quality you, the consumer get, while the supplier makes more money per account. You never get quality without price, which is why a lot of businesses are seeking to be removed from the same DSLAMs that share residential accounts. Commercial Internet suppliers tend to not offer residential supply which means the quality of Internet service is much higher.
A router is the device which routes data to its intended point of delivery. Routers can be software based, however in New Zealand they are generally hardware based. They are more often than not the first point Internet traffic will hit when entering a network, so it is important to have one with optimum security management and protection. For those still wondering what I’m talking about, it’s probably the box with the flashing lights plugged into the phone jack.
Your router should be considered a key functioning asset in your office. If you have been given one for free you can realistically expect its performance and capability to be significantly lower than that which you would pay $500 or more for, or a managed routing service of around $49 or more per month. A routing service is by far the best way to ensure the integrity of your network and maximisation of speed across it.
As far as other Internet connectivity options on the marketplace, there are wireless solutions, which can be unreliable, and fibre connections (i.e. CityLink) in the Wellington CBD. Fibre is brilliant as far as reliability goes and has far superior speed to ADSL - if you can afford the price tag then it is the best you can get. However for most SME operators ADSL is the chosen medium.
Don’t buy into the marketing guff and let suppliers hide behind ‘techspeak’. Commercial ADSL solutions will offer a higher quality Internet line for your business, increasing productivity and efficiency across your office. If you haven’t already done so, it is worth investigating your options.
Patrick Kershaw is a Business Partner for Horizon Pacific, a nationwide technology support provider specialising in assisting SME’s with all their technology requirements. For further information, go to www.horizonpacific.com