What's Wrong With The NBN?

[ameerat42]

Quite a LOT!!! - That's why I am holding off getting connected as long as I can.

Listen to this and wp!, Pke!, go MD!,...
...or mve to New Zealand, where the internet is heaps better.

Four Corners NBN Story

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, OK then...
So we are not just being sold a pup, but quite apparently its droppings!!!
(Just a slight change in pronunciation.)

[Mary Anne]

I love NBN.. Why you ask.. Well there must be lots of people on it because my ADSL2 has never been faster

[ricktas]

and then..wait there is more. Samsung's 5G network is being installed on the Gold Coast so it is ready for the Commonwealth Games next year.

Optus have been testing the 5G and getting speeds of over 1GB. .. you know.. about 10 times faster than our NBN. Optus have also said they will introduce a 100G/month 5G plan for $70.00.

So once the 5G mobile network rolls on out across Australia, and we see plans of 100gb/month and more at reasonable $. People will ditch the NBN and use the mobile network connectivity. Small box.. that you can take with you, and offers you 1GB speeds.

Saturday morning, meeting friends for breakfast and a business meeting. Don't bother with the dubious secuity of the cafe's wifi, just setup your phone as a hotspot and away you go on your tablet etc at blistering speeds and not an NBN in sight.

[ameerat42]

Well, this is good news... - of a sort.
I might just change my name to Ray... That's Who, Ray?

There was a clip of a 2010 Malcolm Turnbull, masquerading as a ?Comunications Minister,
trying to justify the retrograde step of sticking with copper with the NBN
(Hello, aliens! Please come and invade us, and give us a better network. Alas! No reply. Blame it on the slow internet speeds)

[Cage]

Agreed, 5G must be sending shock waves through NBN Co.

After 15 years of crap internet service I've enjoyed a decent service for the last two years.

However, I'm not real happy with Telstra as my two year initial deal has expired and my bundle has gone from $95.00 pm to $135.00 pm

[mpb]

Its what I said right at the beginning before they even started, by the time we get it, it will be obsolete. A waste of our money.
NBN not even in sight for us. Locals are ditching their fixed lines at a great rate and going to mobile only, and saving heaps. The inlaws are saving over $100 a month with no drop in service.
Once 5G is here NBN will be on deaths door, as long as the providers have enough capacity.

[mikew09]

I never understood why they dropped the fibre to the door and stayed with copper from termination of fibre to the home and more to the point, why they just didnt go wireless knowing that technology of wireless would soon catch up with fibre speeds - most the issues are with the copper and termination to the house, in my experience anyway. Out our way the NBN is delivered via fixed wireless and is very good, reliable, stable bandwidth etc. It is a far better connection than my previous ADSL2+ which constantly gave me grief with at least one reset on the router each day.

The bad stories is NBN fibre, the good story outcomes are NBN Fixed wireless but rarely if at all gets any publicity. As soon as I was advised our NBN was being delivered via a fixed wireless connection I jumped on board. I also struggle with how 4G or infact the new 5G can replace NBN in the short term with the current telco price gouging in place. I get an average speed of 20M/b on a 25 M/b plan (soon to move to 50M/b ) with one Terabyte of data at a cost of $65 a month. I work from home and average between 600 - 800 Gb of data each month. I would be lucky to get a 4G wireless hub with 2Gb of data for $95 a month, what would 800Gb cost me $$$$$$

Please correct me if I am wrong, but to date I cannot see a comparison to NBN and 4G / 5G with cost comparison unless people are prepared to spend a small fortune OR the Telco's stop screwing us and align the price for 4G / 5G wireless internet access. Interesting to see Rick's comments and one would hope that cheaper plans closer to what NBN SP's offer will come soon but I am still not convinced when there is money to be made by the Telco's and a presidence has been set for yrs around cost. There will be a market for sure but is a niche market at this time I think. I hope I am wrong as we are moving back to Tassie soon and would be so much easier to just buy a 5G hub with a phone plan ;-)

I was never convinced the fibre NBN would be a success and why not go fixed wireless across the board with the reality technology changes at a incredible pace. There was an argument that wireless due to the simple physics of radio waves could never attain NBN speeds, yea right.

The first Telco to offer a plan close to cost / per speed / per data of NBN will rule the market for some time and the cost battles will begin - hopefully soon. Anyone up for starting a new Telco

- - - Updated - - -

I love NBN.. Why you ask.. Well there must be lots of people on it because my ADSL2 has never been faster

Hahaha, that was my theory too Mary Anne. I said to the wife we might hold off as the more that move to NBN the less contention I will have for bandwidth on ADSL2+. To my horror, it got much worse with more drop outs and outages than ever and I wondered if it wasn't just a ploy to get people to move to NBN - but as I said in my post further down, we have fixed wireless NBN with all the NBN benefits of speed etc at $10 a month less than my ADSL2+ connection bundle with Foxtel. Fixed wireless for us is very as is the comments for others in the area, fibre though, DAM.

If you are offered Fixed Wireless NBN, I wouldn't have concerns and maybe ask around to early subscribers near you, but fibre, I would not be jumping on board until I had too.

[Tannin]

Sorry guys, all this yammer about wireless becoming seriously competitive with fibre one day is nonsense. Any fool with enough money can build a high-speed wireless network, but ONLY provided that the overall data transfer for the area wireless network is small.

It is basic physics: For any given level of signal-processing technology, you can get almost as much data onto a wireless network as you can get onto a fixed-line. ONE fixed line. In any given local area (e.g., the coverage area served by a single tower) there is a physical limit to the amount of data you can transmit. Once you hit that limit, that's your lot old son. The network is full up, and with every extra user you add, with every extra movie someone watches, the entire local network slows down. If you need more ... there isn't any more.

This isn't money or technology or marketing babble, it is basic physics.

The same applies to a single fixed-line. It too has a limit. However, if you want more than that limit, you simply add a second line. And a third, and a 1045th if you need it. To do the same with wireless, you have to add a whole new universe. (This is probably quite expensive. So far as anybody knows, even God could only afford to make one of them.)

Can you get fast wireless? Sure you can.

Can you deliver wireless service to lots of people? Sure you can.

Can you do both at the same time? No. It isn't difficult, it isn't expensive, it is flat impossible.

But won't future signal processing technology be better? Of course it will. But signal processing is signal processing: any improvement you think up for wireless SP applies also to SP over fibre, and to some extent even copper. And demand always goes up. And up. And up. And no matter what SP technology you invent, fibre will always be more able to satisfy it than wireless. If you don't like it, find a different universe where the laws of physics don't apply.


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The problem we have here is that NBN Co is worried about competition from private wireless networks. This is a non-issue for the real NBN - it will always be able to be much faster and/or much cheaper than wireless (basic physics again). But three-quarters of the "new" NBN has been deliberately crippled by a daft penny-wise, pound-foolish decision to spend billions on outdated 20th-Century copper technology - and it is going to struggle to compete. It will all need replacing with proper fibre inside the next ten years - some of it already does - and the cost of that replacement program will be measured in the tens of billions.

[ameerat42]

But Tony. Haven't you heard of phased neutrinos?
A lot of people think it's all science friction, but that's not quite right

[mikew09]

Sorry guys, all this yammer about wireless becoming seriously competitive with fibre one day is nonsense. Any fool with enough money can build a high-speed wireless network, but ONLY provided that the overall data transfer for the area wireless network is small.

It is basic physics: For any given level of signal-processing technology, you can get almost as much data onto a wireless network as you can get onto a fixed-line. ONE fixed line. In any given local area (e.g., the coverage area served by a single tower) there is a physical limit to the amount of data you can transmit. Once you hit that limit, that's your lot old son. The network is full up, and with every extra user you add, with every extra movie someone watches, the entire local network slows down. If you need more ... there isn't any more.

This isn't money or technology or marketing babble, it is basic physics.

The same applies to a single fixed-line. It too has a limit. However, if you want more than that limit, you simply add a second line. And a third, and a 1045th if you need it. To do the same with wireless, you have to add a whole new universe. (This is probably quite expensive. So far as anybody knows, even God could only afford to make one of them.)

Can you get fast wireless? Sure you can.

Can you deliver wireless service to lots of people? Sure you can.

Can you do both at the same time? No. It isn't difficult, it isn't expensive, it is flat impossible.

But won't future signal processing technology be better? Of course it will. But signal processing is signal processing: any improvement you think up for wireless SP applies also to SP over fibre, and to some extent even copper. And demand always goes up. And up. And up. And no matter what SP technology you invent, fibre will always be more able to satisfy it than wireless. If you don't like it, find a different universe where the laws of physics don't apply.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



The problem we have here is that NBN Co is worried about competition from private wireless networks. This is a non-issue for the real NBN - it will always be able to be much faster and/or much cheaper than wireless (basic physics again). But three-quarters of the "new" NBN has been deliberately crippled by a daft penny-wise, pound-foolish decision to spend billions on outdated 20th-Century copper technology - and it is going to struggle to compete. It will all need replacing with proper fibre inside the next ten years - some of it already does - and the cost of that replacement program will be measured in the tens of billions.

So that makes good sense on why us rural foke are getting fixed wireless yet the estates not so far off are on fibre - we are maybe one house per 30 acres average or more so the number of fixed wireless connections is minimal even if all take on NBN.

We have had it maybe 6 months in the area I would say and I expect many have connected in view of the number of receiver disks we seen around the place. +1 for living in the country ;-)

[Mark L]

But Tony. Haven't you heard of phased neutrinos?

I haven't. Please explain.

[ameerat42]

Drop the "r" and presto!

[Kevvy]

A typically expedient political decision on behalf of Malcolm Turnbull.
The labor party decides to run fibre to the premises as it's roll out and so the liberal party dream up this doomed scheme of fibre to the node to save a little time and money.
So the liberal party play politics with a major infrastructure installation, and I can remember Malcoim Turnbull as communications minister touring around like a snake oil salesman selling this dead horse of an idea, and here we are.
A world class laughing stock with no vision or idea and upcoming years of playing catch up plus billions of dollars down the gurgler patching up a dinosaur piece of technology.
No matter what he says now this NBN disaster lays squarely at the feet of Malcom Turnbull

[ameerat42]

But... "blame the electorate", too

[blkmcs]

Given the increasingly hectic pace of the world today and burdened as we are with the requirement to respond instantly to anything and everything I think we should be grateful to Malcolm for ensuring that those of us lucky enough to live in the lucky country have ample opportunities to sit back and relax and maybe make another cup of tea while we wait for the next few seconds of that important YouTube video to load.

Mike

[ameerat42]

Sage advice, Mike. We just don't appreciate the benefits of our relaxed lifestyle, sometimes

[mikew09]

Reading so much about the NBN fibre makes me even more grateful I live in the country and have fixed wireless NBN, it has been very good to date - about to upgrade my plan to 50Mb - after a while once you get used to the blistering speeds of 23Mb, it starts to feel like my 5Mb ADSL2 connection but without the outages (mindset) Having said that, going back to ADSL would be like going from ADSL to modem - sort of
One of the few loving the NBN

[cupic]

The NBN is a nightmare and only getting worse ....so bad that it would need AU$100 billion to start again
The labor mob started off ok with FTTP.this is ideal as it would have lasted 100years +
BUT NO the Libs said they could do it better and cheaper ( Labor bill was only $AU 49 Billion )with FFTN Mutli Blab Blab Blab
Now nobody wants it now its so bad
Should have bit the bullet gone with FFTP and eventually would deliver 1Gbps like our Neighbours across the Ditch
Well Done NZ lightyears ahead of Us

[ameerat42]

You can say ↑↑that again!! ↓↓

The NBN is a nightmare and only getting worse ....so bad that it would need AU$100 billion to start again
The labor mob started off ok with FTTP.this is ideal as it would have lasted 100years +
BUT NO the Libs said they could do it better and cheaper ( Labor bill was only $AU 49 Billion )with FFTN Mutli Blab Blab Blab
Now nobody wants it now its so bad
Should have bit the bullet gone with FFTP and eventually would deliver 1Gbps like our Neighbours across the Ditch
Well Done NZ lightyears ahead of Us

[phild]

What Tannin said about wireless technology is correct, it may be possible to have gb speed for one or a handful of users but at the end of the day it is shared spectrum and bandwidth has to be divided amongst the users. I've heard the same "urban myth" claims applied to satellite technology as well.
As far as NBN goes the issues are mostly with the service providers, gigabit speeds can and are being offered on NBN FTTP both in Launceston and Hobart by a local service provider. If the fools in government, (who changed the direction of NBN with FTTN at no real cost saving) were sensible enough to admit their mistake and continue with a full rollout of fibre there's no real reason why we couldn't all be enjoying gigabit NBN in the not too distant future.