NBN Discussion

[33kft]

It's also being extended based on demand which makes a lot of sense. The idea of pulling last mile fibre to a bunch of subscribers on 50Mbps services has never sat well with me. People complain about paying for "gold plated" power transmission networks and yet want to service 50Mbps NBN services by entering 11 million properties and pulling fibre through the walls. It's exactly as expensive, slow and disruptive as it sounds.

And no, the 50Mbps service spped or cost has nothing to do with the connectivity medium, nor is that why it is so popular. It's instead a product of the CVC charges which would see no change under a complete FTTP model and is the default offering where most people are not prepared to pay more for a higher speed tier.

 

[NM]

The idea of pulling last mile fibre to a bunch of subscribers on 50Mbps services has never sat well with me.

Keep in mind that there are likely lots of people in my situation. I have FTTN and the node is such distance from my property that I cannot get anything more than 50Mbps. So I only pay for 50Mbps because subscribing to a higher speed would be useless. I first ordered 100Mbps, but the best they could provide, based on distance from the node, was an actual modem sync rate of about 52Mbps. If they could be provide me with 100Mbps, I would happily pay for it.

So please NBN, pull fibre down my street and I will happily pay the incremental cost for a 100Mbps (or higher) service. But please don't determine not to pull fibre to my street just because people are currently only subscribed to 50Mbps plans, because today that is all we can get.

 

[33kft]

Keep in mind that there are likely lots of people in my situation. I have FTTN and the node is such distance from my property that I cannot get anything more than 50Mbps.

Firstly, it just isn't the case. I always end up spending too long finding the NBN docs to quote stats but you can go see what proportion of people are passed by FTTN (looks like 29%) and it is not the prevalent connection mechanism. Other than Microwave or Satellite, no other method will have < 100Mbps speeds available and there are probably FTTN customers that can go over that rate (according to this article from 2017, 66% of FTTN can).

But it's hardly the point anyway, because the demand driven model means that if you actually pay for the higher speed, you get prioritised for the FTTP connectivity.

I know people love them some NBN bashing but to suggest the majority of people choose 50Mbps because it's the highest they can achieve when the real reason is that lower speed tiers are actively discouraged with 12Mbps having been pulled and the 50Mbps tier advertised as the default tier, only those who actively request less than 50Mbps would get a lower plan. It is very simply the reason why. Have a look below and see what the default offering is in every case:

nbn Plans - Unlimited Data with Telstra

Enjoy unlimited data on the nbn network with Telstra. Check if you're eligible to connect to the nbn and compare internet plans & prices today.

www.telstra.com.au

https://www.optus.com.au/broadband-nbn/nbn/plans.html

NBN Plans Internode | Award-Winning Internet Service Provider

Internode NBN50 for just $59.99/mth for the first 6 mths then $79.99/mth. 45Mbps typical evening speed. Speeds may vary. Min charge $434.93.

www.internode.on.net

NBN Plans | Unlimited Data NBN Internet Plans - Westnet

Compare Westnet's NBN internet plan: now with unlimited data options! Join Australia’s most satisfied NBN Customers on our great-value NBN Broadband Plans.

www.westnet.com.au

I did not link to any special page, this is the landing page for NBN for every RSP. Every single one advertises a 50Mbps plan. I empathise with your postion @NM but your experience cannot be the norm based on the distribution of connection mechanisms across the NBN

 

[NM]

Firstly, it just isn't the case.

Well, it most certainly is the case for me and my neighbours. None of us can get any more than 50Mbps. It IS the case for plenty of people who have no choice than to use FTTN. I did not choice FTTN, that technology is all that is offered here. And evey node has some properties that are able to connect at 100+ Mbps and some properties that cannot get more than 50Mbps. While the percentage may be low, I suggest that these properties should not be ignored when it comes to determining where to run fibre.

I always end up spending too long finding the NBN docs to quote stats but you can go see what proportion of people are passed by FTTN (looks like 29%) and it is not the prevalent connection mechanism. Other than Microwave or Satellite, no other method will have < 100Mbps speeds available and there are probably FTTN customers that can go over that rate (according to this article from 2017, 66% of FTTN can).

I have no doubt that lots of FTTN customers can achieve 100Mbps. But I cannot and neither can my neighbours. And neither can another site I manage/support that is similarly constrained due to the distance from the node. In that case we get about 40Mbps down and less than 10Mbps up. And one of the primary use cases for that service is live-streaming video content. With the limited upload speed, 720p25 is about the realistic practical limit for that content.

But it's hardly the point anyway, because the demand driven model means that if you actually pay for the higher speed, you get prioritised for the FTTP connectivity.

Surely you are not suggesting I, and my neighbours, should all start paying for 100Mbps services even though we cannot achieve more than 50Mbps, in the HOPE that NBN might consider prioritising us for an upgrade? That does not make any sense. That is like saying that if milk was only supplied in 1L bottles in our area, we should start paying the price of 2L bottles for each 1L bottle we buy, in the HOPE that the mile supplier will decide to deliver 2L bottles to the shops in our area? Surely not.

I know people love them some NBN bashing but to suggest the majority of people choose 50Mbps because it's the highest they can achieve when the real reason is that lower speed tiers are actively discouraged with 12Mbps having been pulled and the 50Mbps tier advertised as the default tier, only those who actively request less than 50Mbps would get a lower plan. It is very simply the reason why. Have a look below and see what the default offering is in every case:

I did not suggest the majority of people choose 50Mbps because it's the highest they can achieve. I just stating that it is my reason and I know of others in the exact same situation. Never did I ever suggest that this is reason for the majority of people choosing a plan less than 100Mbps. But I do now there are plenty of people for whom this IS the case.

I did not link to any special page, this is the landing page for NBN for every RSP. Every single one advertises a 50Mbps plan. I empathise with your postion @NM but your experience cannot be the norm based on the distribution of connection mechanisms across the NBN

I know its not the norm, but it is real. I would happily pay for 100/40 services, and in fact I did when first connected to NBN. But when my RSP could not achieve anymore than 50Mbps, I changed plans and accepted their refund of the price difference.

I accept that many people do not want nor need >50/20Mbps services. Do I need more than 50/20? Probably not. But I would be very happy to pay for 100/40 if I could get it or something closer to it than I can today. And for the other location, even getting to 50/20 would be amazing. Living with 40/9 for that location's use case is challenging. And again, if we could get 100/40 we would pay it in a heart beat. So why should these cases be ignored as "uncommon" and not considered for FTTC upgrades?[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[33kft]

Surely you are not suggesting I, and my neighbours, should all start paying for 100Mbps services even though we cannot achieve more than 50Mbps, in the HOPE that NBN might consider prioritising us for an upgrade? That does not make any sense. That is like saying that if milk was only supplied in 1L bottles in our area, we should start paying the price of 2L bottles for each 1L bottle we buy, in the HOPE that the mile supplier will decide to deliver 2L bottles to the shops in our area? Surely not.

No, I am suggesting that once you have been passed by FTTP infrastructure, an order for the higher speed will trigger FTTP installation at your premises:

https://www.nbnco.com.au/content/dam/nbnco2/2020/documents/media-centre/corporate-plan-2021/nbnco-corporate-plan-2021.pdf

• Page 41 explains the demand based model:

$2.9 billion to take fibre deeper into the FTTN footprint, enabling premises to move to an FTTP service when they order a higher speed plan. Importantly, this is not a forced migration and construction of fibre into the home will be linked to demonstrated demand from households

Page 42 onwards go into more detail. It is an interesting read and you're pretty much the target audience of this upgrade.

 

[NM]

When the NBN installs fibre that runs past my home, I will be very happy to order a higher-speed connection, and I know many of my neighbours will too - its common talking point around here. It would be nice to have a guesstimate as to when it might be available, though. Trying to budget when we might upgrade livestream content from 720p25 to 1080p50. There is no point investing now, but it would nice to know if we should budget for 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years out. And of course, likely by the time its available there will be demand and capability for 4K streaming.

 

[33kft]

It would be nice to have a guesstimate as to when it might be available, though.

Sadly the document lacks a detailed roll-out plan however some inferences can be made:

Initial build complete, NBN Co announces next phase of network investment to meet future demand | nbn

NBN Co today released its Corporate Plan 2021, which outlines how the Company will provide access to higher wholesale speeds and greater capability on its network to millions of customers living and working across Australia.

www.nbnco.com.au

They suggest that 2023 will be the end of the phase 2 upgrade project where FTTN and FTTC connections will be upgraded to allow for speeds between 500Mbps and 1Gbps. Which is interesting because as a current FTTC customer, I can get up to 100Mbps today and there was some evidence that 250Mbps was achievable with FTTC DPU upgrades so I would expect someone like myself to be way way at the end of the list and I am okay with that, because FTTC is phenomenal compared to what I had before (5Mbps DSL1 over RIM infrastructure)

NBN Co will allocate $3.5 billion to network investments that will benefit homes and small businesses across the Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN), Fibre-to-the-Curb (FTTC) and Hybrid-Fibre-Coaxial (HFC) networks. This will mean that by 2023 an estimated 75 per cent of homes and businesses in the fixed-line footprint will have access to peak wholesale speed tiers of 500 Mbps to close to 1 Gbps1,2.

In the corp update they show that 9% of FTTN users get < 50Mbps, I would expect they would be first, followed by 17% < 100Mbps, which is your scenario, and then so on and so forth so I'd have to think that with aspirations of replacing 100Mbps capable FTTC services to allow 500Mbps services in the future, they'd be wanting to cross off < 50Mbps and < 100Mbps FTTN customers pretty early in the piece.

If it affects a majority of your area, in a way it's probably a good thing. You'd have to be way up there on the list. But writing to a local member to lobby them into action couldn't hurt either I'd guess.

 

[Buzzard]

We have FTTP but only pay for 50 as we don't need anything faster.

 

[Quickstatus]

please don't determine not to pull fibre to my street just because people are currently only subscribed to 50Mbps plans, because today that is all we can get.

There are 3 parts to the NBN.
Distribution fibre network - all built
local fibre network - partially built.
Lead in - copper or fibre

For FTTN areas, NBN will build the LFN (local fibre network). The lead in remains copper. Therefore those who don’t want higher speeds stay on copper connected to the node.
Those who want a higher speed will sign up for a higher speed plan when and NBN will build a fibre lead in. The higher speed plans won’t be available until the LFN is built

 

[NM]

The higher speed plans won’t be available until the LFN is built

Indeed, and of course. Don't get me wrong ... I am very happy that we got FTTN as that was a massive improvement over the <4Mbps ADSL we had prior. Going from that to 50Mbps FTTN as an "interim" service and finally to 100+ Mbps with FTTC or FTTP, is good progress. The impossible part is guessing when we move from step 2 to step 3 in the process. But much refer having step 2 as an interim rather than waiting at step 1 until step 3 is available.

 

[NM]

If it affects a majority of your area, in a way it's probably a good thing. You'd have to be way up there on the list. But writing to a local member to lobby them into action couldn't hurt either I'd guess.

Hopefully that will be the case. And the other location I mention will hopefully be the higher priority, but somehow I fear that will not be the case. It is a semi-rural area with very low density of residences. So the FTTN node is likely servicing a very low number of customers compared with others. Even cellular phone cover is poor. Of the three networks, only Vodafone users get any coverage inside the building. Any subscribers to the T or O networks need to exit the building to make a reliable phone call. T and O cellular users get 1 or 2 bars of 3G coverage at best. V gets 2-3 bars of 4G service.

 

[Lynda2475]

And of course, likely by the time its available there will be demand and capability for 4K streaming.

I stream 4K now when relevant content is available on a 50/20 connection without any issues. Im on HFC and can order up to 500GB with Aussie, but no need for more than 50/20 despite WFH spending most of the day on Video Conferences, uploading/downloading files etc.

The compression on streaming services in HD and 4K is very efficient, so unless you have multiple household members streaming 4k concurrently, you dont need to wait for a higher connection to enjoy them.

 

[NM]

I stream 4K now when relevant content is available on a 50/20 connection without any issues. Im on HFC and can order up to 500GB with Aussie, but no need for more than 50/20 despite WFH spending most of the day on Video Conferences, uploading/downloading files etc.

The compression on streaming services in HD and 4K is very efficient, so unless you have multiple household members streaming 4k concurrently, you dont need to wait for a higher connection to enjoy them.

From the streaming location, we get a max of 10Mbps upload, normally the modem connection is in the 9Mbps range. While I have QoS configuration on the NBN interface providing a minimum 5Mbps dedicated to streaming, there are other "users" of the connection fighting over the remaining up-link bandwidth. The 720p25 stream consumes about 2.5Mbps. So I am confident we could stream at 720p50 (smother for moving content) or 1080p25 (higher resolution) with around 5Mbps consumption, to minimise packet drops I would also want to increase the "reserved" streaming bandwidth to around 7Mbps.

I do not expect we can get to 1080p50 with the current NBN service. Would not be an issue if we could actually achieve 20Mbps up-link on a 50/20 service. But we actually get about 38/9 most of the time. Originally ordered 100Mbps service, but when NBN tech came to "connect" the service, the best he could get was less than 40Mbps, so we changed the RSP service to 50Mbps - no point paying a premium for something that cannot be achieved.

Then again, we can't produce 1080p source content without upgrading the equipment (vision switcher) which is limited to 1080i. And we won't be upgrading to 4K/UHD capability any time soon, as that would be way too expensive and just not needed at the moment. But who knows what the demand will be in 5 years time. For now, 720p25 streaming from 1080i50 source works fine. Cameras, computer content and encoder are capable of 1080p50. Just the switcher needs upgrading to move from 1080i to 1080p. Going from 3G SDI to 6G SDI (4K/UHD@25/30fps) or 12G SDI (4K/UHD@50/60fps) cameras, switcher etc is way beyond dreaming at the moment.

There must be lots of people/organisations that have moved to live streaming content. Equipment designed for this purpose of hard to find at the moment with all sources showing significant back orders and no ETA for delivery. So another reason 720p25 will remain our streaming standard for at least a short time.

 

[Daver6]

From the streaming location, we get a max of 10Mbps upload, normally the modem connection is in the 9Mbps range. While I have QoS configuration on the NBN interface providing a minimum 5Mbps dedicated to streaming, there are other "users" of the connection fighting over the remaining up-link bandwidth. The 720p25 stream consumes about 2.5Mbps. So I am confident we could stream at 720p50 (smother for moving content) or 1080p25 (higher resolution) with around 5Mbps consumption, to minimise packet drops I would also want to increase the "reserved" streaming bandwidth to around 7Mbps.

I do not expect we can get to 1080p50 with the current NBN service. Would not be an issue if we could actually achieve 20Mbps up-link on a 50/20 service. But we actually get about 38/9 most of the time. Originally ordered 100Mbps service, but when NBN tech came to "connect" the service, the best he could get was less than 40Mbps, so we changed the RSP service to 50Mbps - no point paying a premium for something that cannot be achieved.

Then again, we can't produce 1080p source content without upgrading the equipment (vision switcher) which is limited to 1080i. And we won't be upgrading to 4K/UHD capability any time soon, as that would be way too expensive and just not needed at the moment. But who knows what the demand will be in 5 years time. For now, 720p25 streaming from 1080i50 source works fine. Cameras, computer content and encoder are capable of 1080p50. Just the switcher needs upgrading to move from 1080i to 1080p. Going from 3G SDI to 6G SDI (4K/UHD@25/30fps) or 12G SDI (4K/UHD@50/60fps) cameras, switcher etc is way beyond dreaming at the moment.

There must be lots of people/organisations that have moved to live streaming content. Equipment designed for this purpose of hard to find at the moment with all sources showing significant back orders and no ETA for delivery. So another reason 720p25 will remain our streaming standard for at least a short time.

I think you might be confusing upload and download here. If you say you're getting 38/9, it's the 38 capacity you have for streaming into your home. The uplink is for sending data out of your home.

 

[NM]

I think you might be confusing upload and download here. If you say you're getting 38/9, it's the 38 capacity you have for streaming into your home. The uplink is for sending data out of your home.

No, I am not confusing it. I am discussing live streaming content to the internet using this link. It is the upload bandwidth that is the limiting factor when sending the streaming content to the internet.

This is very different to consuming streaming content, which would be constrained by the down-link bandwidth as you note.

 

[Daver6]

No, I am not confusing it. I am discussing live streaming content to the internet using this link. It is the upload bandwidth that is the limiting factor when sending the streaming content to the internet.

This is very different to consuming streaming content, which would be constrained by the down-link bandwidth as you note.

My apologies. I misunderstood your use case.

 

[TheRealTMA]

I'm happy with the Telstra/NBN Internet service (yes I'm strange I accept but it works nicely with SIM backup when some idiot runs a truck into the HFC cable on Friday afternoon) but who would believe the NBN/Telstra hoops to get my second phone line connected. Their solution is to physically connect a new HFC cable from the street and a new NBN box (~$300 and weeks delay). For heaven's sake, it's just a VOIP SIPP connection which can be connected to any internet system. But computer says no! Only one phone line per connection. Simply stupidity.

Will go with a local VOIP provider and probably a Grandstream HT812 ATA box and just disconnect the landline and connect to my current PSTN phone service to the ATA box. (Or just run another SIPP connection through the router to a new PSTN/Cordless line.)

Suggestions and recommendations welcome.

 

[DeKa]

I would highly recommend either Maxo or Siptalk. Siptalk gives you almost full PBX features if you like.

 

[tomlee1986]

I am with iiNet in Melbourne... not too much dramas, but sometimes does have connection issues when it rains... appears it is an NBN issue and not the carriers fault (HFC BTW)

 

[TheRealTMA]

I am with iiNet in Melbourne... not too much dramas, but sometimes does have connection issues when it rains... appears it is an NBN issue and not the carriers fault (HFC BTW)

I think like most technology, when it rains the mouse running around on the wheel that powers the services drowns so they have to send out for a replacement.

FWIW: We have had a good service connection from Telstra on HFC in western suburbs (Brisbane) but every few months usually late on Friday when someone has pulled down the HFC cables with a truck or tree lopper etc. Always Friday arvo so that the techs can't fix it until Tuesday. Sod's Law.

Which is why I like the current Telstra Smart Modem solution with the SIM so if the NBN dies, it just switches over to mobile after 1-2 mins and one still has a connection. Friend at Mt Gravatt ran on SIM for 10 days until they fixed the issue in his street. (He told me they rang him and said "Why have you been running on the SIM mobile connection for so long?":, and he replied "Still waiting for you to fix the cable connection to my house.")