NBN Discussion

[paulthegolfer]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Could Abbott be the new Hewson?

 

[Hvr]

Re: What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

Could Abbott be the new Hewson?

We can only hope. He is after all a peacock preening himself and believes he is born to rule.

 

[scaredeycat]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

JAL Sakura Lounge @ FRA
8.50am

ping 12ms
down 41.65Mb/s
up 9.02Mb/s

Not bad!

What is even more impressive is that 11% of Germany is faster!
Is Tony Abbott reading this?

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

What is even more impressive is that 11% of Germany is faster!
Is Tony Abbott reading this?

I hope he's too busy not planning to spend my taxes on infrastructure that goes beyond what's necessary for most punters. Giving everyone a taxpayer-paid Ferrari when I only actually need a BMW 7 Series is beyond a waste, especially with the current budgetary situation. If anyone wants a Ferrari instead, they should spend their own money.

 

[JessicaTam]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

I hope he's too busy not planning to spend my taxes on infrastructure that goes beyond what's necessary for most punters. Giving everyone a taxpayer-paid Ferrari when I only actually need a BMW 7 Series is beyond a waste, especially with the current budgetary situation. If anyone wants a Ferrari instead, they should spend their own money.

"I feel the need, the need for speed"!

 

[Sprucegoose]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

"I feel the need, the need for speed"!

you cant be that young!!!!

 

[JessicaTam]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

you cant be that young!!!!

Top Gun reference.

 

[medhead]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

I hope he's too busy not planning to spend my taxes on infrastructure that goes beyond what's necessary for most punters. Giving everyone a taxpayer-paid Ferrari when I only actually need a BMW 7 Series is beyond a waste, especially with the current budgetary situation. If anyone wants a Ferrari instead, they should spend their own money.

Strange analogy. It reminds me of a little race I had with one of my teachers along Sheridan st in cairns one day. Managed to just beat him to the next set of lights. He pulls up, in his mighty boy and says I would have had you but one of the rubber bands broke.

You're not being offered a 7 series, you're being offered a mighty boy - goes ok, until a rubber band breaks.

 

[RooFlyer]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

Strange analogy. It reminds me of a little race I had with one of my teachers along Sheridan st in cairns one day. Managed to just beat him to the next set of lights. He pulls up, in his mighty boy and says I would have had you but one of the rubber bands broke.

You're not being offered a 7 series, you're being offered a mighty boy - goes ok, until a rubber band breaks.

We won't agree I suspect, and not to hijack the thread, but presently I run my two (small, laptop and personal interaction based) businesses perfectly well off the 3G network because I live out-of-town and don't have ADSL even. (And neither premises will get the NBN!) Would love to have greater speed, but I do get by perfectly well. When I'm in Canada or Germany I get access to much higher speeds, but my laptop work honestly doesn't get 2x or 3x or 10x more efficient or productive. I think in your analogy dial-up would be rubber bands (the minimum technology for propulsion / minimum internet) but the alternatives being offered by the 2 major parties only differ in whether we go much faster or super-dooper fast. I'd rather go much faster and have it cost a bundle, than going faster again where the cost is commensurately greater but I can't actually notice the difference. (and others use for fiber speeds acknowledged - just talking about my own uses / opinions.)

 

[medhead]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

The difference is the "A" in ADSL. That's what is being offered on the last mile of copper wire. Dial up is more like a billy cart.

 

[Sprucegoose]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

Top Gun reference.

you maverick you.....

 

[wafliron]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

I hope he's too busy not planning to spend my taxes on infrastructure that goes beyond what's necessary for most punters. Giving everyone a taxpayer-paid Ferrari when I only actually need a BMW 7 Series is beyond a waste, especially with the current budgetary situation. If anyone wants a Ferrari instead, they should spend their own money.

We won't agree I suspect, and not to hijack the thread, but presently I run my two (small, laptop and personal interaction based) businesses perfectly well off the 3G network because I live out-of-town and don't have ADSL even. (And neither premises will get the NBN!) Would love to have greater speed, but I do get by perfectly well. When I'm in Canada or Germany I get access to much higher speeds, but my laptop work honestly doesn't get 2x or 3x or 10x more efficient or productive. I'd rather go much faster and have it cost a bundle, than going faster again where the cost is commensurately greater but I can't actually notice the difference. (and others use for fiber speeds acknowledged - just talking about my own uses / opinions.)

/me bangs head against the table repeatedly.

1) The NBN is beyond what most "punters" need now, but it won't be in the (not too distant) future. On the "punter" front, it's being built for 5-10 years time, and then the 40 years after that. Unfortunately these things take time to build, so you gotta start early. Plus, there are also plenty of other business, education, health, etc uses for it that are relevant right now. And not to mention, this sort of network being available will drive the development of applications for it - if the internet-age-to-date has taught us nothing else, it's taught us that.

2) The NBN is clearly not being built for you, in the sense of how you use the internet for your business now. Nor is it built for the way those Australians who have access to decent broadband use it now. If technology / infrastructure was planned like that, we'd all still be living in the stone age. Just because you can't see a use for it now, doesn't make it worthless.

3) The NBN is not a drain on the budget - it's a money-making enterprise that will pay for itself and more, even on conservative estimates. It's not counted in the budget, it's funded by debt (which it will pay back), and from a monetary perspective at least it's not realistically preventing any spending on anything else. There was extensive discussion of this earlier in the thread, including references, etc - suggest having a look back through them. I'll also add that the coalition's FTTN proposal will at some point in the not too distant future need to be upgraded again to FTTH, and I strongly suspect the total cost of the two upgrades will far surpass the NBN's cost (but also acknowledge that's just my suspicion - I haven't seen any detailed analysis done).

4) The NBN is not the "Ferrari". The "Ferrari" would be point-to-point fibre to the home, which the NBN is not (it's GPON - a kind of shared fibre). Ironically, I'd say the NBN is probably the 7 Series in your example. The coalition's FTTN proposal is perhaps a 10 year old Commodore - works fine right now, but needs constant maintenance, doesn't do anything well other than being basic and functional, and will need to be replaced in the near future. The current situation... I don't think I need to keep drawing car analogies here.

the alternatives being offered by the 2 major parties only differ in whether we go much faster or super-dooper fast.

I've picked this part of your post out specifically as it's just so... wrong. Not a shred of opinion here, just fact.

The NBN is:
- theoretically much faster right now (and more so in the future), as you pointed out
- in practice much faster, as whatever speed is quoted is what you get - no "up to x mbps, but it'll be slower depending upon where you live / how good your phone line is / whatever"
- incredibly upgradeable, and more important easily and cheaply upgradeable (e.g. 1,000mbps is coming later this year, and with fibre far faster is possible in the future)
- far closer to being symmetrical in the connection speed it offers (actually not truly symmetrical for consumers though, which is a common misconception) - you may not appreciate this now, this is becoming more and more important
- reliable, as it's not at all reliant upon the ancient and severely under-maintained copper network

The alternative NTTN solution is none of these things.

To finish on a more positive note, despite my head-banging above, I am so pleased that you didn't say we should just do it wirelessly instead - and even more pleased that the coalition seems to have finally dropped this piece of stupidity too.

 

[serfty]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

...
To finish on a more positive note, despite my head-banging above, I am so pleased that you didn't say we should just do it wirelessly instead - and even more pleased that the coalition seems to have finally dropped this piece of stupidity too.

I think the coalition policy is sensible in the respect that if they win government they would be presented with a half constructed fait accomplie and rather than dismantle what has been constructed they are taking a more sensible cost/benifit approach.

Given the government's continually revised costing I put more credence in Turnbull's $96B estimate.

No matter how the NBN is funded, the current concept is still going to cost me significant $$$ in internal cabling equipment costs to simply retain the telephone/internet service/speeds I have now.

Should I just have it because "it will be good for me"?

 

[simongr]

The NBN is going to make no difference to my Internet speed and live in a suburb close to Sydney. Not sure where the direct benefit to me is...

 

[DeKa]

The NBN is going to make no difference to my Internet speed and live in a suburb close to Sydney. Not sure where the direct benefit to me is...

Are you on 100Mbit Telstra cable Simon? If so, the big difference is NBN upstream is ~17 times faster than Cable (2.4Mbit vs 40Mbit). Upstream is what many people need for reasons mentioned by others above.

 

[markis10]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

I think the coalition policy is sensible in the respect that if they win government they would be presented with a half constructed fait accomplie and rather than dismantle what has been constructed they are taking a more sensible cost/benifit approach.

Given the government's continually revised costing I put more credence in Turnbull's $96B estimate.

No matter how the NBN is funded, the current concept is still going to cost me significant $$$ in internal cabling equipment costs to simply retain the telephone/internet service/speeds I have now.

Should I just have it because "it will be good for me"?

Turnbull has considerable experience in the internet industry, unlike most of the other players who are so one eyed supports of the NBN. At least the NBN has finally got more customers than staff!

 

[lovestotravel]

Re: The Lounge Wi-Fi Speedtest Thread

I prefer the NBN with Fibre to the home, however the costs associated with it and the typical mis-management in such a large project is almost laughable

I also think that the 93% of homes or whatever the figure was is also too high

Costs could have been cut in several ways, however if and it's a big IF the ALP do win the next election, the NBN will easily blow out to $80 Billion PLUS

 

[simongr]

Are you on 100Mbit Telstra cable Simon? If so, the big difference is NBN upstream is ~17 times faster than Cable (2.4Mbit vs 40Mbit). Upstream is what many people need for reasons mentioned by others above.

No - I am on ADSL2+ (with iinet). I can not get cable in the current property (but hoping to move next year so maybe access to cable).

None of the suburbs connected to mine are scheduled for any construction in the next three years based on the NBN.

 

[DeKa]

No - I am on ADSL2+ (with iinet). I can not get cable in the current property (but hoping to move next year so maybe access to cable).

None of the suburbs connected to mine are scheduled for any construction in the next three years based on the NBN.

Ah - same here.

 

[Mogul]

Heard someone talking on the radio the other day saying that the cable sheath being used will start to breakdown after around 25 years. This will mean the cable will then require replacement.