MyRepublic launches an NBN Internet plan to game on with
Article
An Internet service provider offers a next-generation broadband service fit for owners of these “gaming rigs”
MyRepublic Says Its Gamer NBN Plan Is Actually For Gamers | Gizmodo
Previous Coverage
A Singapore telco sets the cat amongst the Australian pigeons
From the horse’s mouth
MyRepublic
Personal Internet Services product page
My Comments
Singapore-based ISP MyRepublic launched last week an “all-you-can-eat” single-tier high-performance plan on to the NBN with the goal to offer something more than what Telstra, Optus and co can offer on the same infrastructure. But there is a gaming-optimised variant of that plan that isn’t a “gaming” plan by name only.
Here, they are asking AUD$59.99 per month for this level of service and will have it available across all NBN connection types. As well, they are offering a discount on a PlayStation 4 console for the first 500 subscribers to sign up.
This plan, with a bandwidth of 100 Mbps download and 40 Mbps upload, is associated with a network that provides optimised network latency for real-time gaming and an optimised path to the popular game servers. This is important for “massive multiplayer online” games which exchange a lot of real-time data as each player plays their moves in the games.
MyRepublic started out as a specialist gaming ISP who understands what online multi-machine multi-player gaming is all about including the requirement for game-server and connection reliability. They had found that gamers aren’t readily understood by established ISPs and want to focus on this vertical market. For example, issues that face games enthusiasts would include server availability and reliability along with data latency between their machine and these servers.
They also create a gaming hotline so that gaming-related questions can be answered by those who are knowledgeable on these topics. As well, MyRepublic also partner with gaming-hardware vendors like Razer and SteelSeries, especially as they realise that more of their customers use Windows-based regular computers (think “gaming rigs”) rather than consoles for gaming.
An issue that could be raised concerning the development of online games is whether to support an edge-computing approach where multiple local servers can effectively become one large server. It can include redundancy / fail-safe operation along with the ability to handle many players including having particular machines process locally-generated game data.
Of course, they are also pushing the competition agenda when it comes to retail Internet services especially in the context of value for money. Here, they want to underscore an above-average performance expectation for next-generation broadband Internet service with this being offered at a reasonable price.
MyRepublic could also take advantage of the recent infrastructure-level market liberalisation with the likes of TPG and DGTek laying down competing broadband infrastructures at particular neighbourhoods and buildings and offering them to competing retail providers. Here, they could do things like offering symmetrical broadband services including Gigabit-level services to the same level as some European services.
Once there is a sustainable amount of infrastructure-level competition taking place, including the ability for retail ISPs to offer their services across multiple infrastructures, it could lead to Internet service value being raised for home and small business.
