How's the NBN working for you?

[I @ M]

After years of two tins and a string internet we are not listed on the NBN roll out site as having anything planned for our tiny hamlet.
A month or so ago the NBN mob placed an ad in the local paper informing us of a public meeting to outline a proposed fixed wireless tower ( or two ) to serve this town. It so happens that where they advertised placing one of the towers is on a patch of land that we drive by almost daily and according to google earth is 390 metres away from our house. Despite there still being zilch on the NBN site about any connections in our area, when I drove down the road yesterday I noticed a new power cable dangling in the air on a pole and a freshly dug and filled in trench leading up the road to a pegged out area in the paddock where they said they wanted to build a wireless tower.
Despite their website being in total denial we may even have a bit of the NBN here sooner rather than later it seems.
Despite "only" being 25 down and 5 up it still has to be better than the current ( getting worse by the day ) connection.



Please feel free to share your connection results and views on the state of the 'net in your home.

[yummymummy]

How's it going here? I dunno.. I'll let you know when it gets here :-/

[ricktas]

Mine



Been told not to expect the NBN. Originally I was planned to get it in Dec 2013. They then chopped my suburb in half. Half have it, and the rest of us have been told there are no plans to connect us.

[Mark L]

... and the rest of us have been told there are no plans to connect us.

We were reasonably high on the original roll out and have been told the same while smaller towns close by seem to be getting it sooner than us ( I think).
While I didn't much like the previous government ( nor our current one) I think the original proposal for the NBN was one of their better ideas. Yes it costs money, but Netflix is just the start. And most will get NBN Slimline now.

[tandeejay]

While I didn't much like the previous government ( nor our current one) I think the original proposal for the NBN was one of their better ideas. Yes it costs money, but Netflix is just the start. And most will get NBN Slimline now.

Totally agree with you there.

IMO, Cloud storage is not viable for the average household without decent high speed internet. And once highspeed internet is available, it opens up so many more posibilities.

[ameerat42]

It's NOT NBN, but I typically get 30 down and about 1.5 up.
But that's not to praise the "DIS"service providers. My pet HAYTE!!! is the paucity of "service"
- oh, sorry! Their service provision is EXCELLENT in taking your money there - in non-metro areas.

OK, have POSSUM-weak service, but don't CHARGE LIKE A BULL for it!!

Anyway, the ultimate rationale is: NOBODY can ever use UNlimited internet, and as for "overseas calls", well,
who ya gonna call? Yer wouldn't get nuffin if it cost ISPs ANYthing. So we continue to PAY for what we DON'T get,
and generally think how great and clever and connected and... BOOF-headed we really are.

You're lucky, Andrew! You KNOW your getting CARP! The rest of us dream we're getting SALMON!

[MattNQ]

Well this is my supposed 100Mb/s download speed on NBN.
I did get to 95Mb/s download early on in the piece.



my PC is too slow to maximize even this speed anyway.
In all honesty, 20mb/s is more than enough for the average Joe.

NBN does drop out several times a week though. Not quite as bad as my old DSL.
But given the Telstra wifi router has worse coverage than the old one, can't get the TV to connect to wifi now.
Damn these first world problems...Might have to run some cable.

PS. Did I mention that we were the first "overhead cabling" trial group in Townsville
Hooray..our cables will get taken out in an average cyclone, so I will have to ring out on my mobile until the base station goes flat in 2 hrs

[ricktas]

PS. Did I mention that we were the first "overhead cabling" trial group in Townsville
Hooray..our cables will get taken out in an average cyclone, so I will have to ring out on my mobile until the base station goes flat in 2 hrs

Down here in the southern state, in the cities they dug up the streets and put the cabling underground, but in the country they have overhead cabling, not just though the towns and rural areas, but between them too. My mum's town has overhead cabling, and the cabling runs overhead between the towns. First bushfire anywhere along the cable path and out goes all the communication, except mobile phones.

The NBN is a great idea, implemented with as much farce as a British pantomime.

[phild]

My experience with NBN has been variable. At work we have NBN and normal use such as web browsing and email retrieval has been mostly unchanged, even at times dead slow (i.e. @ kid O clock = after school and early evening & holidays).

Large downloads and uploads however happen very quickly, files that used to take 20 minutes to download arrive in 4-5 minutes, a bonus for us as we download large software and firmware files.

At home I've seen a decline in my ADSL performance as the NBN network is progressively rolled out, that's also the experience I seem to hear from our customers, ultimately bandwidth is shared and faster speeds on NBN seem to have come at the expense of slower connections for other users.

I work in the Communications industry (mostly telephony) and spend time sorting out the problems left after NBN cutover. Dodgy workmanship, lack of knowledge by installers, carriers and those implementing cutovers on behalf of the carriers are all issues.
We have had one major carrier turn up to recover copper connections that are not able to be converted to NBN, disconnecting clients for days or even a week or more before restoration.

We have also had some customers told by their carriers that phone system replacement is necessary in some cases at costs of many thousands of dolars. There are solutions for cutover of lines to NBN for virtually any existing systems, making the customer change is simply scamming.

The basic concept of NBN is a good one, but believing that they could roll out in a few years what took a hundred years with copper was simply stupid and shows how little understanding the government and their advisers have.

[Mary Anne]

I always thought National was all over though apparently its not, our area is not on the NBN list either !!

WOW !! Its so fast this morning on ADSL..
Many evenings my download speed is slower than yours Andrew and I cannot even open a page.

[ameerat42]

National is only "notional" in this context, M A

[Mary Anne]

National is only "notional" in this context, M A

Guess you are right there Am

[CathyC]

interesting hubby is desperately waiting for NBN I don't think are doing too bad for what we use the net for
(I hope I have done the link right)

[landyvlad]

I'm in a similar situation as ricktas. The map of NBN roll out shows areas all around us either with it, in the process of getting it, or rollout planned whereas the part of the suburb I'm in... nothing. I mean WHAT THE?

[arthurking83]

Cable isn't always what it's cracked up to be.
Damned expensive by comparison to many other broadband services, and for that money you'd expect decent services.

This is what I usually get:



but in many instances I only get 2Mbps!! .. and probably due to network congestion .. damned idiots all watching netflix or whatever at the same time.

[MrQ]

Cable isn't always what it's cracked up to be ... but in many instances I only get 2Mbps!!

I'm also on Optus cable - and it has been fantastic over the past 15 years. The last couple of months have been a different story. I think they totally oversold the service with their recent "unlimited everything" plans and network congestion is taking a heavy toll. Like you, I usually get 80+ Mb/s but currently am lucky to get 2 Mb/s in the afternoons/evenings. Hopefully they'll sort it out soon.

[arthurking83]

..... Hopefully they'll sort it out soon.

Take a deep breath ... and let is out ASAP! .. I ain't holding my breath.

What modem did they give you.
For the first 15years, I had the crappy old Motorola SB4100.
Very late '13 - early '14, I upped my data allowance plan and with that they sent me a Cisco modem/router, against my request .. even tho they asked me which type do I want.

With that change of modem, I went from a maximum of 20mb/s to just over the 100 mark as shown. That old motorola modem was a piece of junk!

[MrQ]

What modem did they give you.

I have one of their latest Netgear modems now. This is the third one I've had from them over the years, and yes, they've all provided a speed bump. 80Mb/s was fine - and acceptable on a 100Mb/s max speed plan when you remember cable bandwidth gets shared. 2Mb/s on the other hand ...

I'd be happy to get the 30 Mb/s I was getting before they upgraded my speed

[Kym]

Cable isn't always what it's cracked up to be.
Damned expensive by comparison to many other broadband services, and for that money you'd expect decent services.

This is what I usually get:

<snip>
but in many instances I only get 2Mbps!! .. and probably due to network congestion .. damned idiots all watching netflix or whatever at the same time.

Cable upload sucks. I run a server from home and also upload stuff (a copy of the site software source etc.) to the AP site. Site maintenance etc.

[Cage]

After download speeds of around 16Kb/s (yes, you read it right) Telstra whacked in a 4G tower 400m away from my place and I moved into the 20th century.



It often hits 35Mb/s download when there are no kids on-line, and if I put up an external aerial higher than the corrugated iron roof on the house next door it could be much faster. But hey, after 1 Mb per minute download speeds I think I'm in cyber heaven.

I've just booked in to have the NBN box installed as our FTTP switch-on is imminent. Yep, in my little country town we are getting FTTP. I'll wait and see just what the real life speeds are like before I sign up. I may actually then move into the 21st century.