Clear-Telecom wrangle causes net congestion

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Internet users are again suffering from a disagreement between Telecom New Zealand and Clear Communications, this time concerning an internet gateway between the two carriers.

John Ewen, of Auckland-based ISP Intercom, told the Business Herald that several users had complained of delays when accessing the Regency Duty Free site (at www.regency.co.nz), which Intercom arranged to be hosted on a Clear server. Other users accessing the site at the same time suffered no problems.

"Now and again we get someone complaining that the Regency site is diabolically slow."

Mr Ewen said that by using the Dos Tracert utility program, which is available on all Windows computers, he had been able to identify the source of the trouble.

"It turns out that the perceived slowness of the websites is not due to the servers, but is caused by the gateway between the Clear and Telecom networks," said Mr Ewen.

"The gateway becomes saturated at certain times during the day and slows down many users who are dialled into one network but accessing servers on the other."

Peter Mott, at web-hosting company 2day.com, said the severity of delays varied but they were occurring mostly during peak business hours.

"I don't know what's happening at night but we specialise in business website hosting. It's hitting all the people who matter most to us."

Clear spokesman Ross Inglis said the problem related to a "peering circuit" between Clear and Netgate, Telecom's wholesale operation.

"Clear has on a number of occasions over the past two years sought agreement from Telecom to increase the capacity of this peering circuit, for the mutual benefit of both Clear and Telecom customers. Telecom has not yet agreed to this."

In the meantime, Mr Inglis said Clear has set up direct peering agreements with large Telecom-connected ISPs such as Xtra, Ihug and Iconz to bypass the congested peering circuit. "Clear regrets the inconvenience to [Intercom and 2day.com] and continues to pursue a solution with Telecom," said Mr Inglis.

Telecom spokeswoman Linda Sanders said Clear had indicated that it wanted Telecom to install more circuits, but the company had not specified how many were required.

However, she said that Telecom was "actively working with its customers to increase peering arrangements."