Consider VDSL for Cloud Computing

Consider VDSL for Cloud Computing

There are four major broadband products available in New Zealand, ADSL1, VDSL1, Cable and Fibre. The products that are available in most locations are ADSL2+ or VDSL. SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) demands are best met with a high speed upload link to enable cloud use with reasonable response times. ADSL2+ upload is very slow for office purposes. TrueNet September upload speed analysis shows VDSL is very worth considering.

Upload Speed

Upload speeds are important factors when operating a SOHO, especially as the use of cloud computing increases. Cloud computing is a term that covers a lot of ordinary activities most NZ offices engage in today. Xero, iCloud, Google Docs and Dropbox are common uses of cloud computing.

Simply saving files to another site is also uploading. Offices use this when off-site staff need to work on large files remotely, every save may require an upload. Placing photos and video on sites like Youtube, Facebook and Linkedin requires an upload, which at less than 1Mb/s may take 10 times as long on ADSL2+ as it does on VDSL, cable or fibre.

Technologies

The most common technology sold as broadband is ADSL2+ (a DSL variant). VDSL while available is sold by few ISPs. Cable is limited to the overhead wired areas of Wellington and Christchurch. Fibre is being supplied by a government subsidy in a limited number of suburbs this year, see here for details

Many SOHO will not have access to fibre within the typical length of a contract for VDSL (12 months). SOHO companies may want to review the options for higher speed uploads, which are available immediately.

VDSL availablility

68% of TrueNet probes are within 1km of the nearest DSLAM2, the expected maximum distance from a DSLAM for VDSL to work. TrueNet has 350 probes, with a random distribution of distances, suggesting that 2/3rds of connections are within VDSL range.

Not all ISPs offer VDSL, check your ISP for options, or consider the suppliers of our volunteers VDSL in the chart below.

Upload speeds

As can be seen from our sample of upload speeds, ADSL2+ is a very poor performer, coming in slowest, independent of ISP. With Cable and Fibre services limited to a very small percentage of households, VDSL is a very good option, at 5Mb/s average, delivering significantly better than TelstraClear's 2Mb/s cable product, and the meagre 1Mb/s of ADSL2+.

TrueNet is measuring 16 VDSL connections making the results quite reliable, but our Fibre connections number just 4, so are limited to being used as a guide for comparing with other technologies. Most fibre services are sold as 10Mb/s upload and we would expect them to deliver about 9Mb/s.

Note that for some ISPs and product combinations, we have only one probe, we normally omit these probes from our reporting, but given the interest in which option would be best for SOHO we have included them in this report. Normally the speeds we report are averages over all the relevant probes, in the cases where there is only one probe it will be the September average for that one probe.

1ADSL1, ADSL2+ and VDSL: broadband connection products supplied over normal telephone lines. They are different generations of digital technologies that enhance the line to increase the digital speed of the line. In New Zealand, ADSL1 (7Mb/s max) is almost all replaced and usually only available in some rural areas, ADSL2+ (24Mb/s) is the standard broadband product and VDSL (50Mb/s) is the next generation with higher speeds again. The very big difference in upload speeds of these technologies is often ignored. ADSL1 upload is usually ~0.13Mb/s, ADSL2+ ~1Mb/s and VDSL is being provided as ~10Mb/s, although can go as high as 50Mb/s.

2 DSLAM: The exchange equipment required to connect broadband to a consumer's modem over normal telephone lines.

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