News & Discussion: National Broadband Network

[Waewick]

I must be one of the lucky one.

Was on HFC on 12mpbs, getting on average 10-11 mpbs this was perfectly fine. Until we had to work from home.

I forked out the extra $10 a month to jump up to 25mpbs and any issues i had at 12 have gone.

No hassles with video calls had 4 people online at once at it chugged along averaging 18-20 mpbs.

I do wonder if I'll need to go higher again at any point.

[Nort]

In March 2020 it's pretty wild reading back through the first couple dozen pages of this thread and seeing people passionately argue that there is no need or business case for businesses to be able to rely on all homes having a fast upload/download internet connection.

[rev]

I must be one of the lucky one.

Was on HFC on 12mpbs, getting on average 10-11 mpbs this was perfectly fine. Until we had to work from home.

I forked out the extra $10 a month to jump up to 25mpbs and any issues i had at 12 have gone.

No hassles with video calls had 4 people online at once at it chugged along averaging 18-20 mpbs.

I do wonder if I'll need to go higher again at any point.

What wereall 4 doing online? Many services have reduced bitrates and download speeds. YouTube, Netflix for example.

[Waewick]

I must be one of the lucky one.

Was on HFC on 12mpbs, getting on average 10-11 mpbs this was perfectly fine. Until we had to work from home.

I forked out the extra $10 a month to jump up to 25mpbs and any issues i had at 12 have gone.

No hassles with video calls had 4 people online at once at it chugged along averaging 18-20 mpbs.

I do wonder if I'll need to go higher again at any point.

What wereall 4 doing online? Many services have reduced bitrates and download speeds. YouTube, Netflix for example.

Skype business calls and you tube/netflix

[rev]

I must be one of the lucky one.

Was on HFC on 12mpbs, getting on average 10-11 mpbs this was perfectly fine. Until we had to work from home.

I forked out the extra $10 a month to jump up to 25mpbs and any issues i had at 12 have gone.

No hassles with video calls had 4 people online at once at it chugged along averaging 18-20 mpbs.

I do wonder if I'll need to go higher again at any point.

What wereall 4 doing online? Many services have reduced bitrates and download speeds. YouTube, Netflix for example.

Skype business calls and you tube/netflix

Out of curiosity did you notice any drop in quality for the skype calls? Audio or video.

[Waewick]

No drop in quality so far. Before i upgraded yes.

[rev]

NBN upgrade: More than one million households will miss out on $2.9 billion fibre upgrade

Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson, National technology editor, News Corp Australia Network
September 23, 2020 6:05pm
Subscriber only

Aussies blast ‘diabolical’ NBN
How to find the best NBN deals right now

More than one million Australian households will miss out on high-speed broadband upgrades under the NBN’s $4.5 billion upgrade package.

And those who do qualify for the speed surge will have to wait until June next year for construction to begin.

Details of NBN Co’s billion-dollar boost began to emerge as the company launched its 2021 Corporate Plan and after Communications Minister Paul Fletcher unveiled a policy backflip to upgrade parts of the national network and connect more households and businesses to gigabit-per-second speeds.

Telecommunications analysts welcomed the NBN Co’s adoption of more fibre in the network on Wednesday, but warned important specifics about the plan had yet to be revealed, including the areas of Australia that would receive upgrades first, and whether the highest download speeds would price some users out of the market.

Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said the $4.5 billion upgrade to the NBN so far was “the next logical step” in its development, and would boost download speeds for millions of users from a minimum of 25 megabits per second to as high as 1000 mbps within three years.

“It means that by 2023, 75 per cent of all fixed-line premises in Australia will be able to order ultra fast broadband speeds up to one gigabit per second,” Mr Fletcher said.

Most of the upgrade package would fund a speed boost for customers using fibre-to-the-node technology; replacing copper lines with fibre optic cables in a reversal of the plan introduced by then communications minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2013.

NBN Co chief executive Stephen Rue told News Corp that growing demand for greater downloads and speeds during the coronavirus pandemic “accelerated” plans to upgrade the NBN, which was due for completion in June.

“Our focus has been on completing the build of the network,” he said.

“It (has become) apparent to us that now is the time to we need to start investing to ensure that by 2023 we have as many people as we can able to order those high-speed tiers.”

But not every NBN user will receive access to the network’s top download speeds under the upgrade package.

The plan will see $2.9 billion spent installing fibre connections in suburban streets, passing two million homes currently served by FTTN connections.

But approximately 3.1 million households and businesses currently use the technology, meaning more than one million will miss out on the upgrade.

“We will continue to assess demand and to assess the extent to which people to which choose higher speeds,” Mr Rue said of the shortfall.

NBN Co will also spend $400 million upgrading hardware used to connect fibre-to-the-kerb users and may replace some leads to some homes, Mr Rue said, while households connected using HFC (pay-TV cable) would receive software upgrades to boost speeds at a cost of $100 million.

Mr Rue said the company would reveal which areas will receive upgrades early next year, and chief operations officer Kathrine Dyer said new fibre services could be available by June 2021.

“We expect the first premises to be able to order high-speed services via (fibre) connections around the middle to the end of next year,” she said.

“We estimate that civil construction work will require ramping up across all states.”

Independent telecommunications analyst Paul Budde said he welcomed the NBN Co’s fibre upgrade, even if it would only improve part of the network.

But he warned the price of gigabit broadband plans could still be a sticking point for users, and both NBN Co and the Government should set an accessible wholesale price for the plans.

“It’s great to see the infrastructure but is it going to become affordable?” he said.

“If this is not affordable for everyone and that means Australia climbing up the (speed rankings) will be slower.”

Mr Budde said modelling showed an upgrade to a full fibre network for Australia could have cost as much as $16 billion.

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/technolo ... b3794d52e3

Basically, they're using the cover of people working from home during the pandemic and putting a strain on the networks as the excuse for why they need to now upgrade the network, when in reality if they hadn't messed up the original plan and allowed a full fibre network to be built they wouldn't need to be spending billions more.

[SBD]

Basically, they're using the cover of people working from home during the pandemic and putting a strain on the networks as the excuse for why they need to now upgrade the network, when in reality if they hadn't messed up the original plan and allowed a full fibre network to be built they wouldn't need to be spending billions more.

If the government had insisted on "fibre or nothing", would as many homes have had NBN internet at >15Mb/s at the beginning of the COVID-19 shutdown as we did? It seems that this "upgrade" is scheduled to start after the first rollout is finished. My FTTN NBN is significantly faster than the ADSL it replaced. Most of the time, we do not have problems with two or three screens of videoconference or streaming video around the house (plus some web browsing), but we don't have any 4K TVs either. I'm not sure if I would pay for a higher tier service if it was available.

[Waewick]

I was wondering that too. I got HFC just before COVID, sitting at 50mbs and never had an issue really.

I would say, going faster is simply cost prohibitive for me.

[rev]

If the government had insisted on "fibre or nothing", would as many homes have had NBN internet at >15Mb/s at the beginning of the COVID-19 shutdown as we did?

It seems that this "upgrade" is scheduled to start after the first rollout is finished. My FTTN NBN is significantly faster than the ADSL it replaced. Most of the time, we do not have problems with two or three screens of videoconference or streaming video around the house (plus some web browsing), but we don't have any 4K TVs either. I'm not sure if I would pay for a higher tier service if it was available.

Here is the reality check on this....

If the original plan was continued, we'd have it all up and running by 2021. That's FTTP and a new satellite network delivering high speed access to remote areas. The FTTP network was already underway when the Liberals came to power by the way.
Now under the Liberals butchered NBN it will be AFTER 2023 when it's all done, because there new announcement will still leave over a million premises to go, and billions more in costs.

The Labor NBN FTTP/Satellite plan was to cost what, $40~ billion?
The Liberal plan prior to Abbotts election went from $29 billion to $51 billion in 2018. Throw in another rough $10 billion by the time they're finished now in the middle of the 2020's at least.
So more expensive and longer to complete. Gee we got real good value for tax payers money on this one haven't we.

But you're happy because you can use 2-3 devices at once and don't notice any latency. If that's the mentality of most people, no wonder we end up with the dick heads we do as politicians in this country.

[Jaymz]

Putting on my tin foil hat here.

I reckon they are wanting to increase the speeds so that something that has cost the tax payer tens of billions of dollars doesn't become obsolete very soon. I mean, once 5G is commonplace and phone companies are offering 200GB+ plans (maybe even more), people will hot spot through their phones and get mega fast internet, casting to tv's etc. etc.

[SBD]

If the government had insisted on "fibre or nothing", would as many homes have had NBN internet at >15Mb/s at the beginning of the COVID-19 shutdown as we did?

It seems that this "upgrade" is scheduled to start after the first rollout is finished. My FTTN NBN is significantly faster than the ADSL it replaced. Most of the time, we do not have problems with two or three screens of videoconference or streaming video around the house (plus some web browsing), but we don't have any 4K TVs either. I'm not sure if I would pay for a higher tier service if it was available.

Here is the reality check on this....

If the original plan was continued, we'd have it all up and running by 2021. That's FTTP and a new satellite network delivering high speed access to remote areas. The FTTP network was already underway when the Liberals came to power by the way.
Now under the Liberals butchered NBN it will be AFTER 2023 when it's all done, because there new announcement will still leave over a million premises to go, and billions more in costs.

The Labor NBN FTTP/Satellite plan was to cost what, $40~ billion?
The Liberal plan prior to Abbotts election went from $29 billion to $51 billion in 2018. Throw in another rough $10 billion by the time they're finished now in the middle of the 2020's at least.
So more expensive and longer to complete. Gee we got real good value for tax payers money on this one haven't we.

But you're happy because you can use 2-3 devices at once and don't notice any latency. If that's the mentality of most people, no wonder we end up with the dick heads we do as politicians in this country.

A lot of people got an improvement quicker by going with the interim technology upgrade than if we had waited for the "gold plated" fibre-only rollout. Yes, it would be better once it was done, but a lot of people might have been sitting at home this year still waiting for it.

"Fibre" is not one technology either, so over time there will be more upgrades to come, although hopefully not for a long time for the bit in the ground. The copper in the ground lasted a long time over multiple upgrades, too.

[rev]

If the government had insisted on "fibre or nothing", would as many homes have had NBN internet at >15Mb/s at the beginning of the COVID-19 shutdown as we did?

It seems that this "upgrade" is scheduled to start after the first rollout is finished. My FTTN NBN is significantly faster than the ADSL it replaced. Most of the time, we do not have problems with two or three screens of videoconference or streaming video around the house (plus some web browsing), but we don't have any 4K TVs either. I'm not sure if I would pay for a higher tier service if it was available.

Here is the reality check on this....

If the original plan was continued, we'd have it all up and running by 2021. That's FTTP and a new satellite network delivering high speed access to remote areas. The FTTP network was already underway when the Liberals came to power by the way.
Now under the Liberals butchered NBN it will be AFTER 2023 when it's all done, because there new announcement will still leave over a million premises to go, and billions more in costs.

The Labor NBN FTTP/Satellite plan was to cost what, $40~ billion?
The Liberal plan prior to Abbotts election went from $29 billion to $51 billion in 2018. Throw in another rough $10 billion by the time they're finished now in the middle of the 2020's at least.
So more expensive and longer to complete. Gee we got real good value for tax payers money on this one haven't we.

But you're happy because you can use 2-3 devices at once and don't notice any latency. If that's the mentality of most people, no wonder we end up with the dick heads we do as politicians in this country.

A lot of people got an improvement quicker by going with the interim technology upgrade than if we had waited for the "gold plated" fibre-only rollout. Yes, it would be better once it was done, but a lot of people might have been sitting at home this year still waiting for it.

"Fibre" is not one technology either, so over time there will be more upgrades to come, although hopefully not for a long time for the bit in the ground. The copper in the ground lasted a long time over multiple upgrades, too.

Whooop there it goes, right over his head.

[muzzamo]

I think you are both right.

FTTN is a collosal waste, with most of the "final mile" infrastructure going to need to be torn up and replaced with fibre in time.

But FTTP was a labor-party led "bink batts" project and would have taken decades at the rate it was going, and was absolutely gold plated. My grandparents had a huge fibre box installed on the inside of their house despite no intention of ever getting fixed line internet. Scale that to the millions and you can see the waste,.

The best hindsight scenario IMHO would have been to start the project half a decade later when skinny fibre, FTTdP and other less gold plated fibre technologies had become available.

As it turns out, we were extremely lucky to have NBN at 95%+ completion when COVID came along. Imagine if it was at 30% fibre and the rest of us were on ADSL.

[I Follow PAFC]

Speed boost for 900,000 inferior NBN internet connections.

Nearly one million homes and businesses across Australia can soon have access to much faster internet speeds, NBN Co confirmed today.
The announcement, part of a wider $3.5 billion investment into the often maligned NBN, heralds the conversion of 900,000 Fibre to the Node (FTTN) connections to speedier Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology.
For the first time, some suburbs and towns in Tasmania, the ACT and Northern Territory - long left out in the internet wilderness - will finally be able to access improved FTTP connections.

South Australia
Andrews Farm, Ascot Park, Edwardstown, Exeter, Glanville, Grange, Largs Bay, Munno Park West, New Port, Port Adelaide, Seaton, Semaphore, Tennyson, West Lakes, Woodville West.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/nbn-f ... LL6TWuGwyY