Mapping New Zealand's Broadband Infrastructure, by Sebastián Castro. A presentation given at APRICOT 2016’s Network Measurements session on 24 February 2016.

1. Mapping New Zealand’s
Broadband Infrastructure
Sebastian Castro, NZRS Ltd
APRICOT Auckland 2016

2. Some Background
2

3. February 22, 2016
• Formerly .nz Registry Services
• Provider of:
• critical Internet infrastructure, and;
• authoritative Internet data
• Operate the .nz namespace
• Registry functions
• DNS operations
• Operate public services
• NTP server network
• RPKI validator
• OpenPGP Key Server
NZRS
3

4. Telecommunications in New
Zealand
4

5. February 22, 2016
NZ Broadband Penetration
5Source: OECD Broadband Portal
Household sizes
AUS = 2.7
NZ = 2.7
US = 2.6

6. February 22, 2016
• 2004 TelecomNZ launches first home DSL service
256Kbps 10GB cap.
• 2005 - Government mandates Telecom must
wholesale an unbundled bitstream (not UCLL).
• 2006 Comprehensive review of
telecommunications, unbundled local loop,
structural separation of Telecom.
• 2008/2009 FTTH roll out announced to 75% of the
population via the Ultrafast Broadband Programme
(UFB)
Key Events
6

7. February 22, 2016
• 2011 Full separation of Telecom into wholesale and
retail.
• 2011 Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) rollout
begins. xDSL and fixed wireless to the remaining
25% (funded via industry levy).
• 2012 Fibre roll out begins
• 2014 Extension of UFB to 80% of population
announced via UFB2
• 2014 Extension and improvement of rural coverage
via RBI2 announced
Key Events
7

8. February 22, 2016
• Things changing
• Fibre deployment
• Copper cabinet upgrades
• New cellular towers
• New copper cabinets
• Cellular upgrades
• Aggressive wireless deployment by 20-30
regional wireless networks
Information Flux
8

9. February 22, 2016
• Fibre
• Wireless
• Cable - HFC
• ADSL
• VDSL
• Cellular
Infrastructure Competition
9

10. February 22, 2016
Connection and Usage Growth
10Source: Chorus Market and Insight
Large ISPs
market fibre
plans
Netflix and
Lightbox
offers in the
market

11. February 22, 2016
Changes in Rural Broadband
11Source: Chorus

12. February 22, 2016
• We’ve pulled together a number of geospatial and
temporal-spatial data from networks within New
Zealand
• Collected some
• Created some
• Curate some
• Augment with other data
• 100 + layers
• 20-30 used in the National Broadband Map
Broadband Mapping
12

13. February 22, 2016
• Consumer focussed broadband availability tool
• A data service
• Opportunities for research
• Technical
• Policy
What do we do with this data?
13

14. National Broadband Map
broadbandmap.nz
14

15. February 22, 2016 15

16. February 22, 2016
Visually Represent Broadband
Coverage and Timing
16

17. February 22, 2016
Also provide more meaningful
textual Information…
17

18. February 22, 2016 18

19. February 22, 2016
• Released July 23 2015
• New Zealand is small country
• 60,000 visits in the first two hours
• 173,000 visits to the site since launch
• Lead tech story on major news sites
• ~4500 visits during December 2015
• ~5500 visits during January 2016
Some interest
19

20. February 22, 2016 20

21. February 22, 2016
• AddressFinder
• Geocoding of addresses
• Koordinates
• Vector query
• Web Map Tile Services (WMTS)
• NZRS
• Augments Koordinates Data with stuff we know
Various Services
21

22. February 22, 2016
• Converts an address to
an XY coordinate
• Based off of
authoritative NZ
address data
• Accessed via a
javascript widget
Address Finder
22

23. February 22, 2016
• Given a particular
coordinate, find if
intersects a network
we hold data on
• Data service:
https://data.nzrs.net.nz
Point in Polygon Query
23

24. February 22, 2016
• Multiple networks are
available at different
points
• Aggregated at the
National Broadband
Map by technology
• ADSL
• VDSL
• Fibre
• Wireless
• Cable (HFC)
Lots of Networks to Query
24

25. February 22, 2016
• From this we can
display what is
available and;
Networks Available Returned
25
• We can tell leaflet.js to
pull tiles in from the tile
service

26. February 22, 2016
Map Tile
26

27. Sourcing the Data
27

28. February 22, 2016
• Over 20 providers of data
• Data is coverage area, not statistical areas
• We work with the providers to understand the data,
and;
• Help them generate the data if required
The Data
28

29. February 22, 2016
• Ask nicely.
• Don’t misrepresent the providers.
• Long game
• It took a good year to get most of them
• Launching broadbandmap.nz increased
enthusiasm to participate.
• Support from industry is very important
How do we get the data?
29

30. February 22, 2016
• We have helped improve some suppliers data from
issues we notice.
• Lots of eyeballs means a bit more motivation to get
things right from some providers.
• We get better data as a result.
• This will only continue.
Feedback Loops
30

31. Wireless Propagation Data
31

32. February 22, 2016
• There are a number of wireless networks in New
Zealand.
• Of size 20-30 is a reasonable estimate
• Typically filling a rural and remote niche and
specific applications
• Smaller operations
• Know their networks well
• Communicating coverage has been problematic
• Where coverage does exist it is often in non GIS
formats
Wireless Networks in NZ
32

33. February 22, 2016
• Converting images geo-referenced with KML to
Shapefiles, useful for outputs from:
• RadioMobile
• TowerCoverage.com
• Generating coverage using elevation data and
Longley Rice Prediction Model.
• Wavetrace
A couple of approaches we took
33

34. Wavetrace
Longley-Rice based coverage prediction
34

35. February 22, 2016
• Digital elevation model*
• Network details*
• Latitude*
• Longitude*
• Antenna height above ground level*
• Frequency (MHz)*
• Power (EIRP)*
• Polarisation
• Bearing
• Horizontal beam width
• Vertical beam width
• Antenna downtilt
• Clutter**
• Receive antenna height above ground level**
INPUTS
35
* Mandatory input
** Constant at present
https://github.com/NZRS/wavetrace

36. February 22, 2016
Wavetrace Output Coverage
36

37. Analysis Examples
37

38. February 22, 2016
• Finding broadband and broadband blackspots
• Identifying underserved customers
• Informing public policy
• Quantifying availability by bandwidth and
technology
Identifying True Extent of Service
38

39. February 22, 2016
• You can style geographic data with a simple styling
language - CartoCSS
• It’s supported by many applications and services
• As we have coverage we can style where we don’t
have coverage (broadband blockspots)
Visual Representation
39

40. February 22, 2016 40
Broadband Blockspot Styling Using
CartoCSS

41. February 22, 2016
• In Taranaki -
addresses with
wireless but no 5 Mbps
+ copper based service
• How
• Coverage data from
NZRS
• Address points from
LINZ
• PostGIS
Underserved customers
41

42. February 22, 2016
• The data service was used by regional authorities
in New Zealand to respond to central government
funding initiatives.
• Specifically in response to central government
funding for FTTH deployment (UFB) and rural
broadband extension (RBI).
• Network coverage could be integrated into their
GIS systems.
• Maps for public consultation could be produced.
• Network providers could be identified.
Public Policy Example
42

43. February 22, 2016
• From raw data to user friendly application there is a
lot of work.
• Collaboration, Collaboration, Collaboration - its all
about working with people.
• The data allows analysis and this analysis is not yet
fully tapped.
Conclusion
43

44. Contact:
https://www.broadbandmap.nz
bbmap@nzrs.net.nz
/broadbandmapnz/
@BroadbandMapNZ
Questions/Comments?
Thanks for your time
44