Tag: MyRepublic

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.

Article

Someone could be setting the cat amongst the pigeons in the Australian market

Singaporean Internet startup MyRepublic to launch in Australia | Mashable

How Telstra threat MyRepublic plans to win the NBN race in Australia | Fairfax (Sydney Morning Herald)

My Comments

What needs to happen with the status quo when it comes to Internet service quality and pricing is that a new competitor who offers better value for money shows up in the marketplace.

This has happened in France with Free.fr when they offered some really low prices for their telephony and Internet service and has whipped up a highly-competitive Internet service market where Internet and triple-play services are so keenly priced. In the USA, Google rolled out their Google Fiber service to cities like Kansas City, Provo and Austin with rock-bottom prices for Gigabit Internet service. This has stirred up established Baby Bells and cable companies in the area to lift their game when it came to Internet service quality and prices. In the UK, Gigaclear have cut in to BT’s established practices by offering to rural communities FTTH broadband services which have the same upload and download speeds at prices most home and small-business users can afford.

Now a new Singapore telco has come on the scene in the Asia-Pacific region to do expressly that. MyRepublic is intending to join the Australian Internet-service market by offering an all-you-can-eat 100Mbps service for AUD$80-90 per month in the main capital cities. They intend to link in to the NBN infrastructure to provide this service but are critical of the way NBN was changed towards a fibre-copper technology mix.

MyRepublic had reached other markets like New Zealand where they offered an all-you-can-eat 100Mbps service for NZ$79.99 over a 24-month contract and were focusing on offering a pure-play service that is independent of traditional telcos and cable-TV companies who are dependent on their other services.

Existing telcos, especially Telstra, are crying foul because they think that MyRepublic doesn’t have the infrastructure ready to provide Internet service of the same standard that they want to provide. What I see of this is that it shows that established providers will try to discredit competitive influence in order to make sure that the competitors can’t survive.

A question that may be worth raising is whether MyRepublic would have to capitulate towards offering multiple-play services with VoIP telephony and IP-based pay-TV especially in markets where multiple-play is the order of the day. It will also include whether these services will be keenly priced and offer increased value such as included calls or TV channels.