[H-GEN] Bigpond Advance (cable)

[David Jericho]

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On Thu, Mar 30, 2000 at 12:59:58PM +1000, Byron Ellacott wrote:
> > 2. Why would an organisation want BPA over 128K ISDN?
> 
> Those timed calls get expensive.  OnRamp 2 (I *think* that's what you'd
> need) has a $50/month line rental, calls during office hours are 20c for
> the first three minutes and 3c/min afterwards, so if you keep the
> connection 40 hours a week you're looking at $72.55 per week in calls.

Or you could elect go for the flat rate of $225/month per B-channel and then
the monthly rental of $35 iirc. One of the added advantages is you can make as
many calls to anywhere in Australia for as long as you want under that plan.

> ISDN also has traffic charges; these are at (iirc) the standard 19c/mb
> Telstra like to charge.  BPA has traffic charges, at the higher 24c/mb
> (except on Freedom, which I don't believe can be used for commercial
> operations) with variable amounts of free quota depending on your monthy
> fee.

You might want to investigate groups like Connect.com.au, and Optus. Optus
iirc want to backchannel charge you even if you are a content provider.
Connect don't, but you do have a minimum monthly charge of $800/month, with $800
worth of traffic free. That's for a 128k BRI. Connect.com.au has a very
complicated charging scheme, 10c here, 12c there, 15 there and blah...

> > 4. Are there latency issues?
> 
> Not on the Business plan.  On the freedom plan, latency is marginally
> higher, but as with ISDN, it's a digital connection.  Most of the latency
> with a modem is the actual modulation/demodulation.  ``Cable modem'' is a
> misnomer.

ISDN line is about 30 ms from your end to your upstream router. But if you go
ISDN, you have to buy a decent ISDN unit. A lot of products are only half
duplex. A good unit, such as a Cisco is pricey.

> > 6. IPs: How does this work?  I saw someone say that its dhcp?  Is it
> > possible to get a fixed IP subnet?

Telstra will give you a /27, or a 32 ip subnet with a ISDN connection.

If you're just looking at content hosting, it might be cheaper to put a
machine in someones machine room, then use your cable modem or the like to do
site updates if you're really wanting fast access at home.

-- 
David Jericho, Senior Systems Adminstrator
Webmatch Interactive Marketing


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