Things I am interested in…

Epitiro, a UK-based international internet measurement company, has recently surveyed the broadband speed of the five foremost ISPs in New Zealand.  What doesn’t surprise me very much is that the state telco ISP (NZ Telecom’s Xtra) is not first second, or third.  It is interesting that British Telecom repeatedly comes number one in the same survey carried out in the UK.

Epitiro press release here.

NZ responses here and here.

I have not been able to yet find a response from Xtra…

Outrageous Fortune

Dad and Katherine (my niece)
Originally uploaded by aturbott.

Here is a picture of my dad holding up my niece Katherine, with the big mouth!

My nephew and niece
Together for the last time in a while.

Rowan has since made to arduous trip to Dubai with his mother, to join my brother already there.

Katherine remains here at home.

P.S.  Rowan can pull himself up to stand against things, and is nearly walking…

My niece, looking somewhat bemused…

For quite some time I have suspected that my ISP (Telecom NZ) has been shaping traffic - specifically, my traffic.

 I did some googling (keywords: telecom, “traffic shaping”, policy; limited to New Zealand websites) and came up with this interesting local discussion from the end of last year.

There were many other links, which, in summary, stated that Telecom has been traffic shaping packets in the plan I currently use, from when it was first introduced in December last year.  Apparently they stopped doing this at the end of last month.

Have since found another interesting blog article here that gives more information…

Here is Telecom NZ’s official statement…

Here is a story about it in a local newspaper…

 I have not yet decided how I feel about this, or what to do.  I think I will investigate the NZ ISPs that do not massage their traffic, and quite likely transfer over to one of them.

References:

• Net neutrality
• Traffic shaping