In message
On Wed, 30 Jun 2004, Matthew Poole wrote: Which is doubly frustrating, since it means that nobody who wants anything faster than a 128k connection in the vast majority of the country has any chance to use peered traffic - Cable=Paradise=TelstraClear, and Jetstream fullrate or Jetstream Surf=Telecom.
FWIW, it is possible to reach the (WIX-based) ftp.citylink.co.nz server from Paradise/TelstraClear cable: -=- cut here -=- ewen(a)basilica:~ $ ftp ftp.citylink.co.nz Connected to ftp.citylink.co.nz. 220 (vsFTPd 1.2.1) Name (ftp.citylink.co.nz:ewen): anonymous 331 Please specify the password. Password: 230 Login successful. Remote system type is UNIX. Using binary mode to transfer files. ftp> ls 200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV. 150 Here comes the directory listing. -rw-r--r-- 1 1004 1004 53894917 Jun 15 2003 OOo_1.0.3.1_Win32Intel_install.zip lrwxrwxrwx 1 1004 1004 7 May 26 09:44 OpenBSD -> openbsd drwxr-xr-x 12 1004 1004 1032 Jun 29 11:19 backports drwxr-xr-x 9 1004 1004 512 Jun 28 19:33 debian drwxr-xr-x 6 1004 1004 264 Nov 20 2003 debian-non-US drwxr-xr-x 5 1004 1004 192 Jun 29 16:02 debian-security [....] -=- cut here -=- So if you do have a choice between Paradise/TelstraClear cable and Jetstream and reaching the Citylink FTP server is important to you, you may wish to take that into account. Providers of high volume free content (such as the Citylink FTP server) are left in a somewhat difficult position -- either they do something like this (ie offer it on WIX for anyone who can reach WIX), or they somehow try to find enough money to pay for big enough links to reach everyone, or they just give up and don't offer anything at all. Given how popular ftp.citylink.co.nz probably is, and how much traffic that likely involves, I doubt that (after paying for all the mirroring costs, admin time, etc) Citylink's generosity can extend to paying for "domestic transit" links to all the people who might want to use it. Offering it free on WIX to anyone that can reach it seems like the next best thing to me. The "the content is here, come and get it" incentive is just an added bonus over the link cost savings. And I for one am pleased they chose to continue offering the FTP site even if access is not as NZ wide as it was before. Downloading at 2Mbps (Paradise cable) or 100Mbps (WIX) sure beats slower international downloads. Ewen