NBN - Good or Bad

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Aug 16, 2009
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Im in an Estate that is part NBN and the other part is OPENNetworks (another Fibre provider). We built in the OPENNetwork side as they were the only fibre company in the estate before NBN rolled out about 5 years after we built.

So we cannot get companies ...

Pretty sure that will be changing soon:
https://www.accc.gov.au/media-relea...ation-of-non-nbn-high-speed-internet-services

Prices/allowances should change to be in line with nbn and more providers should have access (whether they come is another thing). Downside is they'll be paying the internet tax of $7 whatever and removes any flexibility to manage pricing on their networks as they'll be stuck with the nbn cvc pricing too (my understanding).

Hopefully things improve for you!
 
Apr 10, 2015
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Pretty sure that will be changing soon:
https://www.accc.gov.au/media-relea...ation-of-non-nbn-high-speed-internet-services

Prices/allowances should change to be in line with nbn and more providers should have access (whether they come is another thing). Downside is they'll be paying the internet tax of $7 whatever and removes any flexibility to manage pricing on their networks as they'll be stuck with the nbn cvc pricing too (my understanding).

Hopefully things improve for you!

Thanks mate. OPENNetworks are trying to get a Telstra/Optus to join on but they wont.

Fuzenet wont talk as I dont have a netgear router that they provided (it dropped out frequently) even though an aussie tech support of theirs recommended Linksys as a more reliable router. Over the last 2 weeks we have a frequent drop outs every couple of hours, albeit they only dropped out for 2 minutes then came on.

Thinking of telling them if they want to refuse to help, I'll move companies to Internode and do a tax claim as I use my internet at home for work so can claim a higher portion.
 
Thanks mate. OPENNetworks are trying to get a Telstra/Optus to join on but they wont.

Fuzenet wont talk as I dont have a netgear router that they provided (it dropped out frequently) even though an aussie tech support of theirs recommended Linksys as a more reliable router. Over the last 2 weeks we have a frequent drop outs every couple of hours, albeit they only dropped out for 2 minutes then came on.

Thinking of telling them if they want to refuse to help, I'll move companies to Internode and do a tax claim as I use my internet at home for work so can claim a higher portion.

FYI I claim 50% of net for work. Though I do work from home alot
 

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Apr 10, 2007
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Anyone have experience with MyRepublic and their $60/month up to 100MB NBN plan? An IT guy i was talking to was very evangelical about them - he's getting 63MB download and is very pleased. I have read a few issues online with them though.
 
Aug 16, 2009
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Anyone have experience with MyRepublic and their $60/month up to 100MB NBN plan? An IT guy i was talking to was very evangelical about them - he's getting 63MB download and is very pleased. I have read a few issues online with them though.

There's mixed reviews on Myrepublic on whirlpool but the pricing is very competitive. I loved the way their CEO has been challenging the narrative and hope that translates into a solid performance. The interesting thing about the nbn is that a provider can be awesome in one location but crap in another (due to CVC having to be purchased at each POI).

My personal philosophy is to stay away from unlimited providers on the nbn and I'm happy to pay a slight premium for that privilege as long as I can minimise peak time congestion. The extra $20-30/mth is something that I feel I get value for but that's going to be the case for a lot of people.

Thanks mate. OPENNetworks are trying to get a Telstra/Optus to join on but they wont.

Fuzenet wont talk as I dont have a netgear router that they provided (it dropped out frequently)

Have you gotten rid of the router? If not then let them do the testing with it. A fibre connection should be rock solid and not drop out unless there's a problem with the hardware. If someone from there team recommended the linksys and it's of appropriate spec then threaten them with a TIO complaint if you're not getting what you've paid for. The TIO is the only real tool that we have as customers that can fix problems other than leaving to another ISP.

https://www.tio.com.au/
 
Apr 10, 2015
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There's mixed reviews on Myrepublic on whirlpool but the pricing is very competitive. I loved the way their CEO has been challenging the narrative and hope that translates into a solid performance. The interesting thing about the nbn is that a provider can be awesome in one location but crap in another (due to CVC having to be purchased at each POI).

My personal philosophy is to stay away from unlimited providers on the nbn and I'm happy to pay a slight premium for that privilege as long as I can minimise peak time congestion. The extra $20-30/mth is something that I feel I get value for but that's going to be the case for a lot of people.



Have you gotten rid of the router? If not then let them do the testing with it. A fibre connection should be rock solid and not drop out unless there's a problem with the hardware. If someone from there team recommended the linksys and it's of appropriate spec then threaten them with a TIO complaint if you're not getting what you've paid for. The TIO is the only real tool that we have as customers that can fix problems other than leaving to another ISP.

https://www.tio.com.au/

After having computer on with the ethernet cable plugged straight into the data point (not router, they identified drop outs yesterday and logged it with Open Networks.

Called this morning after not receiving a call back and they want me to do ping tests today to see if its from their end or the router.. after not having it in all day.:huh:

Forget that yesterday they said they will contact OPENnetwork.. the fact that the router wasnt in when these drop outs occured and now they want me to ping test to see if it's the router..:rolleyes: I dont have time to sit at a computer all day to track this as I have 2 kids under 4 and a wife to worry about.
 
Apr 10, 2015
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UPDATE: BATTLE WITH FUZENET

After calling them back with ping test results, they want me to purchase another ethernet cable, thinking the one I have is Faulty (hardly used as I use wifi). I explained that I refuse to as the ethernet cable works fine when there is no drop out as its plugged into the data point.

I also explained that I am getting annoyed that everytime I call, they tell me a different thing. Either call OPENNetworks, sort the drop out out, or I go with another provider.

They said "A new cable is $5 we believe its faulty"

I said, I used the yellow data cable from the router and my blue one. You said its the router even if its not plugged in, now your saying its the ethernet cable.

Worst company ever. Only 1 star on Productreview.
 
I live in WA and its an absolute joke that many country towns have it before I do and I live within 5kms of the CBD.
I live in Karratha in the Pilbara and have FTTH. It's great.
 
UPDATE: BATTLE WITH FUZENET

After calling them back with ping test results, they want me to purchase another ethernet cable, thinking the one I have is Faulty (hardly used as I use wifi). I explained that I refuse to as the ethernet cable works fine when there is no drop out as its plugged into the data point.

I also explained that I am getting annoyed that everytime I call, they tell me a different thing. Either call OPENNetworks, sort the drop out out, or I go with another provider.

They said "A new cable is $5 we believe its faulty"

I said, I used the yellow data cable from the router and my blue one. You said its the router even if its not plugged in, now your saying its the ethernet cable.

Worst company ever. Only 1 star on Productreview.

Tell them you've put a new cable on, they wont know the difference
 

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I live in WA and its an absolute joke that many country towns have it before I do and I live within 5kms of the CBD.

One of the main reasons of having a government mandated internet service has been to reach rural areas that private companies wouldn't care about.

There are definitely frustrations with the NBN, particularly since the Libs took over it, but I don't see how you "deserve" to have it before the many country towns. In fact, places in the CBD likely had better internet before the NBN and hence the country towns are really the ones that deserve first access.
 
Jul 19, 2008
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One of the main reasons of having a government mandated internet service has been to reach rural areas that private companies wouldn't care about.

There are definitely frustrations with the NBN, particularly since the Libs took over it, but I don't see how you "deserve" to have it before the many country towns. In fact, places in the CBD likely had better internet before the NBN and hence the country towns are really the ones that deserve first access.
Why should a small town of say 500 people get NBN before a suburb of 5000?
 
Why should a small town of say 500 people get NBN before a suburb of 5000?

Because that small town likely had much worse Internet beforehand and the upgrade will mean more. Heck, some people in inner city suburbs are complaining because they are downgrading from their cable connection.
 
So the white NBN box was installed seemlessly at my folks house several months ago but they didn't get around to doing anything and I was out of the country.

I come back and call up TPG on the 12th of July asking for NBN. They make an appointment for the 18th of July between 1-5 in the afternoon for installation. Guys come at 1:15 and take about 1 hour with a non-invasive installation to where we wanted.

I plug in everything and I have 58 mbit/s down and 37 mbit/s up. We are paying for 100 mbit/s down but this ain't too bad. I'm very impressed with the upload speed though.

So yeah, happy days!
 
Jul 5, 2011
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The gap between NBN promise and reality


Fundamental financial flaws in the premise of the NBN translate into slower speeds for many consumers and higher prices for retail service providers. Katherine Fenech

by Jennifer Hewett
My internet speeds plummeted when I moved house recently. It didn't matter how expensive my broadband plan was, nor the fact I had only shifted a few blocks away.

Rather than being connected to the internet through the hybrid fibre coaxial cable, my new street was still back on the old copper telephone lines.

Adjustments to ADSL technology may have greatly improved speeds over copper lines but given the growing and massive demand for data, the result still seems like putting lipstick on an ageing pig.

Nor is it as if Telstra is too interested in investing much to upgrade either cable or copper given their previous network is being gradually subsumed into the government-owned monopoly of NBN Co, the owner of the national broadband network.

Yet even if my new address is within 20 minutes of the Sydney CBD and in one of Australia's most densely populated suburbs, the NBN is still MIA there. The NBN website tells me I will be waiting until the first half of 2019 before it arrives.


Patience, patience, patience.

But it's now obvious that the arrival of the NBN to millions more homes over the next couple of years is unlikely to mean the end of download and upload woes.

Even more importantly, it is only likely to accelerate the criticism of the Turnbull government's version of the NBN in the lead up to the next election.

It means more and more people will realise the long-promised nirvana of high-speed broadband via the NBN does not necessarily translate into reality.

There are plenty of technical and financial reasons for this but most consumers won't care. They will care they are not getting what they think they are paying for.

That will make them likely to blame the Turnbull government as well as the NBN and retailer service providers like Telstra and Optus.

So rather than the slow roll out of the NBN being a political problem, it will quickly become the reverse. The more households and small businesses are connected, the more complaints there will be.

As usual, it mostly comes down to cost. In this case, it's the requirement for NBN Co to continue the commercial fantasy it can provide a financial return on nearly $50 billion worth of taxpayer investment in the project.

This was an accounting trick first applied by the Rudd Labor government and continued by governments ever since. That's because the promise of a return on investment of a few per cent above the government bond rate means the tens of billions of NBN dollars don't get counted as part of the budget deficit.

Yet the economic forecasts of the NBN always relied on political hype over commercial rationality. As communications spokesman and then minister Malcolm Turnbull promised "cheaper, faster, sooner" broadband via a revised hybrid technology NBN.

Indeed, this was always going to be quicker and cheaper to build than Labor's promise of an all-fibre network for 93 per cent of Australia. But the restyled NBN still flashes red figures rather than black way into the future.

NBN's way around this is to slug the retail service providers with hefty fees for bandwidth, officially known as the CVC (Connectivity Virtual Circuit) charge for access and data downloads.

That makes it much harder for these providers to add to their margins while still keeping prices acceptable to retail customers. Their complaints meant NBN Co has slightly altered the charging formula from June 1 to try to reduce the impact but the profitability of the entire industry is suffering badly. Just look at the share prices of companies ranging from TPG Telecom to Telstra.

So retailers have limited the amount of CVC capacity they buy. This reduces their costs but can greatly affect speeds for many consumers at peak times and is especially a problem for those on lower-priced plans.

The NBN website helpfully explains what "factors can affect your network experience". It cites such issues as network congestion, the speed tiers and plans offered by internet service providers, wi-fi interference, the quality of modems and routers and the amount of devices online at the same time at home.

(I manage to play my part in the confused consumer search for answers. As I write this column from home, my fixed-line internet connection vanishes. My (high) bill is paid. I have the newest, most expensive, modem and router available from Telstra. Following Fairfax Media technology advice to turn the modem off for 30 seconds while holding my breath (my personal advice) achieves nothing. I don't have time to hold on for Telstra technology support or assign blame (is it me?). I sigh and connect my laptop to my mobile hotspot to continue reading the section on network congestion.)

The website blandly suggests customers "think of the NBN network as a highway and the internet service provider as the gateway to the internet".

"Your network experience can be influenced by how your service provider configures that gateway," it notes politely. "During off-peak hours, traffic should flow freely and quickly, regardless of a provider's capacity.

"When there is more traffic, congestion may occur if your service provider does not have enough network capacity. This can lead to slower speeds and 'buffering'."

It urges people to speak to their service provider. But no amount of speaking, yelling or complaining is going to alter much given the fundamental nature of the problem.

One alternative is for the government to concede the underlying economic flaw of the project making a return and write off much the investment, releasing NBN Co from its financial straitjacket.

Neither Malcolm Turnbull nor Bill Shorten will rush to embrace that option given what it does to the budget bottom line. The political bottom line may be costlier still.


Read more: http://www.afr.com/opinion/columnis...ise-and-reality-20170719-gxej7d#ixzz4nLcmCmet
 
Jul 19, 2008
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In regards to country towns getting NBN
EgtKiyW.jpg
 

Bomberboyokay

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I did a lot of work on this in my previous job, which I've just left.

If you're in a suburb that has poor internet connectivity/speeds then the NBN will NOT help unless the type of technology supplied is at least Fibre to the Curb or Fibre to the Premises. If its Fibre to the Node - forget about it as NBN uses the current copper wiring which we all know is complete and utter rubbish. Some suburbs in Perth have utterly rubbish copper wiring, when it rains the internet stops working.

Fibre to the Premises was the best idea that the previous Labor government could bring to the country and it was overturned with the much cheaper and completely useless current Liberal government. Beggars belief how the current government is spending all this money for NBN Fibre to the Node where it won't even work better.

Liberals knew the old campaigners who vote for them wouldn't realise the problem until later, if ever.
 

Bomberboyokay

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Been living in a NBN home for a couple years. Looking to move and so checking addresses on the NBN website. Amazing how much of inner/middle Melbourne is still without it let alone without the better pre-Turnbull version. What a cluster*.
 
Really not looking forward to NBN.

Currently getting 37mpbs through cable.

Get the feeling my speed will be downgraded with this half assed NBN infrastructure being installed.

Yeah I get over 100mpbs via cable.. Id not be happy with a downgrade
 

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