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Forum Index : Other Stuff : NBN Co, what a mess.
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
As a general rule I frown upon members bad mouthing any business or political party. But this is also my forum, so here goes. The Australian form members will relate to this more, but for our international readers, NBN Co is the company responsible for rolling out high speed broadband to the whole country, they are a wholesaler, Labor is our left wing side of politics, LNP is our right wing, and currently in power. NBN Co is sooo bad! What started as a grand vision for the country has been tuned into a national embarrassment and international joke by successive governments. The Labor party miss managed it from day one, with cost blowouts and time delays, and then the LNP took power and basically turned a bad thing into something much much worse. Telstra should have been responsible for the NBN, they already owned the cables and pits. Unfortunately a previous LNP government sold Telstra. So the new NBN Co would have to pay Telstra for the cables and pits, not cheap! There's your first mistake. Fibre to the premises is a good idea, but its expensive and will take years to roll out. The slow roll out means we end up with the haves and have nots, some businesses and homes get the NBN years before others, even in the same street. This affected rental and property prices. But at least once it's installed, the fibre optic cables should last many decades if not centuries, unlike the ageing copper wires it replaced. Upgrading the network speed means hardware changes at the exchange and premises, much like 20 years ago we once used a 2400bps modem and just replaced it with a 4800bps modem to improve our internet speed, the cable is left alone. Then we had a change of government and they promised to roll out the NBN for less cost and quicker. They started installing fibre to the node, a basically a box on the street, and that should give 25Mbps, which is more than enough according to one ex PM. This still used the copper cables into the premises. Great, many places were connected quicker, but it seams no real cost saving have been made. But true to the LNP promise, the NBN is rolled out quicker. As for the quality of the NBN, no promise was made about that. Neither was there any mention of the total cost over time. And we still had the have's and have not's, people preferring property with fibre to the premises, not node. By speeding up the roll out, other areas of NBN have suffered. Fault's take longer to fix, contractors are untrained, and communication between NBN Co and the re-sellers has suffered. I use Internode for my internet, on a wireless NBN connection. It works 99.9% of the time, but every now and then it drops out, so no internet or phone. Thankfully I have some mobile phone service, if I hold my head right and stand in the bathroom. So I call Internode, they raise a ticket and we do a heap of tests to prove its not the modem , and they log a fault with NBN Co. Internode never hear back, NBN dont bother advising the re-sellers when faults are cleared. Internode rely on me to keep testing my connection to see if its fixed before they can close the ticket. Even communication within NBN is hopeless, once a NBN contractor showed up a week after the fault was fixed, to fix it! He left shaking his head. Just recently my service went down 3 days in a row, for most of the day. Logged a ticket with Internode who logged a fault with NBN. After day 3 they dug deeper and discovered NBN Co were doing some equipment upgrades "in the area" a week early, and suspect its actually upgrade work, not a fault. NBN Co dont advise re-sellers of upgrade work or outages, and when the re-seller logs a fault, NBN Co dont respond. I can tell talking to the Internode operators they have had a gut full of dealing with NBN Co. But at lease the roll out is quicker  Cost on the other hand, will be much more under the LNP plan than the Labor plan. By installing fibre to the node, the roll out is quicker, costs are about the same, the election promise is kept. But in 20 years, when 25Mbps is no longer good enough for you, and your mate across the street who was lucky enough to get fiber to the premises is using 150Mbps, the government will have to upgrade the fibre to the node to fibre to the premises. So the little money they save now, will need to be spent in the future, and it will cost much more. So long term, the LNP plan is much more expensive. So much for the LNP being good economic managers. What happens when Labor get back in at the next election ( come on, we all know its going to happen ). Will they resume fibre to the premises? If they do, how is that fair on those people who ended up with fibre to the node? Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| Alastair Senior Member  Joined: 03/04/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 161 |
This is a copy of an earlier post on a different thread. ************************* We built a new house south of Sydney in 2016 and moved in during November. Prior to the house being completed I signed up for a package deal - landline, mobile, nbn and Foxtel with Telstra. The Foxtel satellite dish was installed and commissioned within 2 weeks. Telstra/NBN would not connect the house until we were in residence, multiple excuses/reasons. Once I advised them we were in residence they then said the first appointment for a technician to come and connect was 6 weeks. I complained. 6 weeks was the answer. Why I asked, the house is wired, the wire from the new node about 800m away is in place - I had watched them laying the cable and putting the box in on our daily dog walks. 6 weeks repeated. On the agreed day a 7am phone call to say he would be late. Eventually arrived the next morning full of apologies. Nice chap and after giving him a cup of coffee and chatting he admitted that he was a subbie, too many connections being put on his list each day. He tested the performance of the copper to the house and said that even though the short run to the house was new, the cable back to the node was old copper and bad. He offered to connect us but recommended that he report the cable faulty and have it replaced as we would not get good performance and have faults. He knew the area and apparently the phone lines were all installed about 30+ years ago. He explained that even though he is fully qualified he cannot touch the street cable without approval from NBN who now control it. They won't do it by phone it has to be done with forms. 4 weeks later another chap turned up without warning and ran a new cable back to the node in very short time. No he can't connect it to the house as that is not his job. He will advise his boss that the work is complete and ready for connection. 2 weeks later the original 'specialist' returned up and in 15 minutes we had nbn and phone. He tested the line and reckoned we could get ~50 download but that was the VDSL limit of the wire back to the node. Since connection our service has been fault free (fingers crossed). I signed up for 25/5 which I have verified numerous times. I do see a slight slow down if I am using it around school come home time when all the kids get on line, but never serious. So my judgement is that administration and demarcation and the limited availability of quality subbies is the problem. I was lucky to get a good local. Other folk in the same street who are connected by old copper are having problems. This will get worse as old copper does not like being disturbed. *************** In short the original idea was good but after the intervention of politics it will need replacing before it is finished. Cheers, Alastair |
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TassyJim Guru  Joined: 07/08/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6098 |
When all this was in the early days, one former senator (the one who recently discovered he was a pom and had to resign) told me "If you want better internet, just move house" In that same conversation, he complained that his TV reception was no good... My fixed wireless is reasonable reliable but I do suffer from congestion. It's not as bad as most but will only get worse before there's an upgrade. I'd like the NBN bosses to get paid a percentage of their salary, based on fixed wireless congestion figures. See how they like getting 10% of what they contracted for. Circumstances might require a move sooner than I like and trying to find a house around here with good internet will be a challenge. Jim VK7JH MMedit MMBasic Help |
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BobD Guru Joined: 07/12/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 935 |
I have fibre to the house. It was installed a bit over 3 years back. Installation was easy. The guy had to run the fibre in from across the street. It was an easy job as there was a conduit all the way into the bedroom cupboard. I run 25 x 5 megabits per second. I had a free trial of 100/40 megabits. At the end of the trial I went back to 25/5 megabits. That was adequate for my use. I can download a full windows installation ISO in about 20 minutes. That used to take me all day about 12 years back when I had adsl1. Fibre to the house has one big advantage. Because there are 4 channels available, I can get a new service up and running before I cancel the old one. I did that a couple of years back when I changed from Internode after they were sold to TPG. The service has been ultra reliable with no failure downtime. I get the occasional 5 minutes of downtime at about 1:00am. They are probably doing network changes. I run VoIP for my landline. I have been using that same service (MyNetFone) for a number of years, way back when I was on adsl1. The VoIP adapter has very simple needs. Just plug it into a spare Ethernet port and it's up and running in seconds. |
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Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1344 |
We were on the nb sat for a few years up to the time of the nbn sat being launched and found out Telstra had finally put adsl on the exchange. So with having 2 sat dishs already and the low data cap on the nbn sat it was a no brainer to get the adsl. Well 8 times this year we have logged faults where we lost even the home phone. On one occasion the Filipino case manager said to me record this number and if you can find another provider use it to get out of the 2 year contract as Telstra won't ever upgrade your copper line and can't provide the service you are paying for. At best we can get around 5Mb as confirmed when I do a torrent but try and do a large download is pointless as it will drop off everytime. Telstra say if you can get 1.1Mb then your service is fine which only about double of what we had when we had IDSN. The nbn have already put a wifi tower up at Callington but 2 months later it still isn't turned on yet and the Kanmantoo wifi tower is being placed onthe Callington side so that will miss us. The was a fire at the exchange and reports are they only cleaned up the equipment and didn't replace it so of course now we are getting a sub standard service. Now as far as mobile reception goes they have said we are in a black spot and bad luck. Sometimes my mobile will ring in the house but I have to run outside and up the hill to my shed in the hope the call hasn't already dropped out. My daughter just got a phone today so she will soon learn just how bad it is. Regards Bryan |
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Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9306 |
Crikey. What horror stories...  Here in NZ, they are also trying to roll-out new fibre everywhere, and for the MOST part, that is taking place smoothly. A damn sight more smooth then you poor Aussies it would seem.  Check your Broadband speed with a speed test such as SPEEDTEST. I currently get 95.91Mbps download, and 18.37Mbps upload speed. I do have fibre to the house though, and fibre all the way down the street to wherever the hell it is fed from. No mix of fibre back-bones and copper to the house. @ Glenn - when you talk about 25kps and 150kps, do you mean 25kbps and 150kbps speed? If so, that is horribly slow for any kind of fibre connection.  Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Oops, yes, your right. I'll edit the original post. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| dwyer Guru Joined: 19/09/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 574 |
At the moment getting is 1.12 mbps and .88 mbps from internode and that from Telstra copper wire and been with internode over 6 years. Their customer service is excellent Thank Glenn  from Dwyer the bushman |
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| Pete Locke Senior Member Joined: 26/06/2013 Location: New ZealandPosts: 181 |
Just checked, and with standard copper ADSL broadband we have 17.5Mbps download and a whopping .97Mbps up load. Not bad for sleepy lil' Hokitika. Well, fast enough to stream online movies and such to the big screen  . The team is busy pushing the new fibre through town here at the moment.Cheers Pete'. |
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| joebog1 Senior Member Joined: 07/11/2015 Location: AustraliaPosts: 114 |
Speedtest!!!! IS there ANY point at all of talking to yourself through a loop? Speedtest is set up so that you just reflect yourself, meaning your own up and down loads. Try using a server for speed test that isnt in the bus shed on the corner of your street. Try Japan for instance. Perhaps Britain. OHH New Zealand has blisteringly fast internet. BUT when it gets to NO Bloody Network, it has the brakes applied ( called "Throttle" in Linux) Glenn, I think is stickin his tongue out at aussies ( I dont mind  )But it really is bad here. $79.95 per month Speedtest is STILL running about eight minutes after I started it, its STILL looking for the fartest server.AS Mungle Trumble states, Its the fartest internet in the world!! The Philippines has 100meg internet,with the cables hung on washing lines!!! Go figure!!! So Im still waiting for speedtest to load some 10 mins after clicking Grogsters link!!!! SSOOO!!! Go to settings at the top of speedtest screen. Select a server that ISNT connected at the bus shed. Run a speed test!! 25 megs ?? OK Im unfair, TRY 2.5 megs 2.5 megs??? Still unfair. try 250 k KAY KILOBITS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHH the blind man sees. SSOO I have done a cupla tests that ARE NOT a mirror!! One from Jakarta One from Wellington One from Lima After all  if I can see you why the bloody hell wood I need the internet? and the last snap New Delhi    They are screenshots of my four tests. To load up each server can take up to 10 minutes. The data is NOT real data at all but a simple noughts and ones tests. With best wishes Joe |
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| joebog1 Senior Member Joined: 07/11/2015 Location: AustraliaPosts: 114 |
I should have asked !!!! WHAT server in NZ are you using Glenn?? I will do a specific test to "your" server. Joe |
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| Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
I'm in Australia Joe. Just west of Toowoomba, Queensland. The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| joebog1 Senior Member Joined: 07/11/2015 Location: AustraliaPosts: 114 |
OOPS Sorry  Gizmo,Im south west of Mareeba about 45 nautical miles from Cairns. I am trying to buy in Texas, a lil south west of you. Apologies for stuff up. That DOES NOT change the screen shots however!! Dont most of us use the internet because places of interesting data are far away?? My only very small claim to fame is having worked at CSIRO Division of Radiophysics during development of Chaparral feed horn. It was the breakthrough that enables Internet and mobile phones work. Connects co-ax direct to horn without need for waveguide, in its simplest form. Maybe why I am so pi$$ed off with Trumbles Bumbles. Joe |
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| BobD Guru Joined: 07/12/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 935 |
If you're on NBN with a wireless connection then this short video may interest you. Unfortunately, the video comes with the mandatory 10 seconds of adverts up front. http://www.zdnet.com/video/nbn-is-the-new-taste-sensation-for-cockatoos/ |
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| joebog1 Senior Member Joined: 07/11/2015 Location: AustraliaPosts: 114 |
I have satellite!! Or dialup, only choices where I live. preddy good huh ? Yeah saw that on ABC news last night. I guess the green cable reminds them of green food!! Which is about the same as the drought here.. Joe p.s. that video doesnt load!!! Wotts new ? |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9306 |
You have a very good point about those screenshots, Joe. By default, the website seems to select the closest server based on the smallest ping time, but - as you say - that is kinda useless, as you are effectively testing the speed from your house to the end of the street, if you don't mind me paraphrasing you for a moment.  In my test case, the ping was to the Dunedin server, which is about 20-25km away from me, but I am now going to try some of those other areas of the world - I will try a connection to Australia.  EDIT: I am getting a good result from NZ to Australia - Adelaide and Telstra:  Do I need to try another server in Australia to test this better? EDIT: New Zealand to New Delhi - Not fantastic speed, but still pretty good if you ask me based on the infrastructure they have there....  Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| joebog1 Senior Member Joined: 07/11/2015 Location: AustraliaPosts: 114 |
I think you have only proven the point of this thread!! Australian internet sucks!!!! Todays announcement is that new installs for the NBN will be to business premises. Wonder if that gets to parliament??? considering DumDum Trumble has lost another member due to being a pommie ha ha ha ha ha  Joe |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9306 |
Oh, I see what you did there! Very clever.  Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| George65 Guru Joined: 18/09/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 308 |
There is an aspect to this I don't see mentioned here but I think is absolutely ridiculous and in line with the whole farce this NBN has become. Recently, I and a Neighbor where I was moved house. We were both on optus cable. Got really fast speeds on the $95 premium speed deal we were that was with phone to anywhere in the country and TV. With minor and infrequent interruptions, all was great. Moving I find optus cable is not available and never will be. not allowed to put in that old tech by the gubbermint any more. ONLY option is NBN. Neighbor finds at his new place, optus cable IS available but all new connections HAVE to be to NBN by law. Like me, he finds all he can get is 25mbs instead of the 100 we WERE getting 95% of the time in our old street. I go into telstra and ask about speed upgrade. No, not in the area yet. Not going to be for some time. OK, no choice, have to get slow arse NBN. As well as 1/4 the speed, I find out it's going to be about 20% Higher cost. Tell girl in telstra shop that can't be right. Talk to manager, yep, it is. I tell them, does paying 20% more for 75% less seem to you in any way to make any effing sense? NO, but we get this complaint at least 3 times a day and there is nothing we can do. It's gubbermint mandated. Any new connection from any provider HAS to be through NBN and there is nothing we can do. I say you (NBN) are telling me no more cable because it's old tech but the new tech is 75% slower? By this time my head is spinning things WTF am I missing and where have they put the candid camera because this can't be real. I go to optus, say I want to reconnect to them with cable, get the same story. Their only option for me NBN is the same price as telstra. Same as previous poster, have to wait weeks for them to come out to connect after mrs handles numerous phone calls and stuffing around. NBN bloke turns up and he's brilliant. Polite, knowledgeable, helpful to a fault and incredulous of the situation. Lives locally and also can't get decent speed because whatever isn't yet installed where he is. We were told he was supposed to come out and run lines and get a load of malarkey that they may have to dig up lawn etc.Mrs tells them over and over, had a phone line here before, place is nearly 20 years old, this was the number. Still have to send the guy out to install the lines then the guy to connect them will be out a week later. Banging our heads on the brick wall well and truly now. Guy that's here does some tests, says you have 2 lines, one is crap, the other is perfect but what I'll do is go to the box a couple of streets away and change faulty line to another connection and see what happens. Line comes good so now if I want a 2nd number, no probs. We have been sent the modem pack already so guy gets it and sets it all up. 10 min job if that. shows me it's working, sets up my and daughters phones and my laptop to connect. Brilliant guy. I ask what other guy is coming for in a weeks time? Supposedly to do what I just did, connect it so it works. Plugging the thing in and putting in the account and password on the card? Yep. But it's a self install setup! Yep. OK, so what were you here for? To put the lines in. But we told them repeatedly there was a phone here. Yep! Standard procedure. I do this on every established property we hook up. They send me out every time and unless it is a newly built property, this is what I do so it's not a complete waste of time and people don't have to wait for nothing. Mind you, I get told every week by my boss I'm not supposed to be doing the other guys Job. I'll cancel next weeks guy. I ask about speed pack. Guy says let me look into that. Goes out, plays with his gadgets and says its not here yet but will be by Christmas they say so bank on march. What speed you after? Fastest. Don't bother. I have checked the lines, the fastest you can possibly get is 50 and I reckon you'll get about 40 so if you pay for the hundred you'll be wasting money. I say when will the 100 become viable? He gives me a blank look and says, probably when we are down at the end of the road. ( Big retirement Village) Today I am in local shopping centre and there is a big prominent booth with NBN is here! on it and a sign about fast speeds now available. Hmm, Go over, give them my address, nope, not yet. Ask some questions and get some suspect answers and I go into hostile customer mode. Where exactly in the local area is the high speed available? Turns out, not anywhere near here or anywhere in the local council area nor the 2 adjoining ones. Farce. Absolute Farce! All this crap about how wonderful the new NBN is yet the old tech leaves it for dead. Get loads more dropouts and the connection just going dead although appearing to be connected than ever with optus. Have to reboot the modem every few days if not more to reconnect. And as for being forced onto NBN and can't connect to anything else once you disconnect from any other service... How the heck does that work? In any other business that would be highly illegal. Former neighbour is Forced onto a crappy slow and unreliable service ( his seems worse than mine) and has to pay more for it than the perfectly good optus line that runs past his front door and the neighbors either side get because they have remained connected. Seriously, You couldn't make this up. |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9306 |
Wow.....  Started reading that, and could not stop - it would make a good drama if it was not for the fact it was real. I'm really amazed that you are FORCED to use NBN, when they are OBVIOUSLY rather bad service. To me, that is unethical and more then just a little bit scary. Here in NZ, Crown Fibre are the Government company overseeing the rollout of fibre, but the individual still has full control over which service provider they want to use. Crown Fibre funds ALL the tellco's here for any new fibre connection, so you can use Telecom(Spark), Vodafone, TrustPower, Clear, MyRepublic....any of them - they all offer fibre connections, and you are not forced to use just one supplier.  Initially, I was on Telcom(Spark) for the new connection, then TrustPower came along and offered a better deal, so I switched to them - no fuss, no problem.Something needs to be done about the NBN thing over there based on what I have been reading from a New Zealander's point of view - that stuff is absolutely crazy, and REALLY quite shocking! Forcing you to use NBN is somewhat similar to Microsoft tactics with new computers - forcing you to use Windows. But even with new computers, if you know what you are doing, you can usually kill windows and put Linux or whatever on the machine, you are not permanently locked into using Windows forever.  Wow, guys..... If enough people complain about the situation over there, do you think anything could change? Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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