NBN Discussion

[Quickstatus]

Currently and foreseeable future most households don't need 100mbps so not sure why the preoccupation with 100?.

Remember 3D TV - was all the rage a few years ago?. All fizzled. I've got a 4K video projector and a 140 inch screen. Looks great but the difference is much less noticeable on a flatscreen TV. You can only watch so many 4K. The vast majority of TV is still at SD or HD.

I suspect 50Mbps will be enough for several ?10 years to come.

I like FTTC (C= curb or K = kerb) - essentially fibre to driveway with copper to house. The power for the conversion comes from the house via POC (power over copper). Such technology enables speeds well in excess of 100mbps and no digging up the lawn or driveway.

FTTH?. Very few will want to dig up their front lawn to get a technology which they can't use or don't need at their cost.

Mine will be fixed wireless when they get around to it in 2020. Hopefully the tower won't be to the west as I have a grove of 30m tall turpentine in that direction. My kids school 4km from me can get 100/100 via fixed wireless uncontended private nonNBN service with the antenna pointed directly east. I'm hoping the tower they use will be the one that NBN will use.

Ive heard the installers for fixed wireless can be quite inflexible in the installation of the antenna and associated equipment - they can't modify the installation to suit the site circumstances - one design fits all apparently. Anyone had issues (or heard of ) with FW antenna installation?

Also with FW, there is no mandatory disconnection of copper services and apparently 100/40 is mooted for FW from 2018?

 

[Quickstatus]

Bit of a rain into the pits and their goes your copper end connection.

i have water all the time in the pit outside my place. It's often underwater. But the copper connection is silicone sealed so no issues there. Ive had problems with the adsl when the pit is dry and no issues when flooded. Pits are often flooded.

Youtube for the innovation nation? Unfortunately most will be using such "enabling" infrastructure to consume YouTube. Very innovative!

 

[ajw373]

Actually that's incorrect. The NBN was about delivering a minimum standard of internet to all Australians regardless of their location as the private sector had failed to do so.

By replacing the infrastructure. As I said.

 

[PLANT]

Currently 4k...... Already 8k cameras and gaming monitors......Amazon prime video coming...... OLD Family members....... "The speed in Europe and America is so much better than here, I can just get things done faster"

 

[jb747]

Currently and foreseeable future most households don't need 100mbps so not sure why the preoccupation with 100?.

Probably 'cos it's a nice round number. I don't need an Audi, but I sure enjoy it.

Ten years ago, we were happy with basic ADSL. The entire world has migrated to the net, and I expect bandwidth requirements will continue to grow. Building something that is barely capable now isn't what I would call an investment.

Remember 3D TV - was all the rage a few years ago?. All fizzled.

Sadly. There were two types of 3D. Active and passive. The more common was the cheaper version, as usual. I have a very large tv with the better, and I love it when watching shows that were filmed in that format. My wife isn't as big a fan, but it's the only way to watch Avatar, or Minions!

I like FTTC (C= curb or K = kerb) - essentially fibre to driveway with copper to house. The power for the conversion comes from the house via POC (power over copper). Such technology enables speeds well in excess of 100mbps and no digging up the lawn or driveway.

Yes, and I expect that much of the current roll out will eventually be finished with that system. It was even mooted when I eventually got to talk to someone at NBN as a fix for my issue...before they actually realised that no fix was really required.

FTTH?. Very few will want to dig up their front lawn to get a technology which they can't use or don't need at their cost.

As I can pull fibre through the very same pipe that holds the copper, not much digging would be required.

One of my neighbours is a retired Telstra guy, and he tells me that the big issues with the Telstra copper lines are that they've used aluminium connectors, and also a sealant that degrades quite rapidly. They will be a short term maintenance nightmare.

 

[RooFlyer]

Two locations of mine in rural Tasmania.

Holiday house at Coles Bay - holiday town 2.5 hours from Hobart; maybe 100 permanents; thousands of holiday makers in summer. Got fixed wireless several years ago. Took them a bit over 2 months from tower footings to my getting one of the first services. Not sure what the top speed is; I got a limited 12MBps and its brilliant.

Residence - a small country town 1 hour from Hobart maybe 500 residents. Since October last year dozens and dozens of workmen have been preparing the area for FttN during that time - mainly laying the fibre in difficult situations (ie under creeks etc) and in the long, strung out roads that characterise the area but also (hopefully) fixing up the copper. Still no-where near ready, apparently. I can only imagine the cost. I currently have an ADSL1 service (and 4G) - from what I hear I won't be subscribing to the FTTH snail service. Fixed wireless would have been here years ago and would have been a better option and goodness knows how much cheaper for this sleepy town.

 

[amaroo]

Booked for connection next week. Have thrown caution to the wind and signed up for 1/2 price speed boost (100mb).

 

[Quickstatus]

Booked for connection next week. Have thrown caution to the wind and signed up for 1/2 price speed boost (100mb).

Whats your technology and if FTTN do you know copper length to Node?.

 

[amaroo]

Whats your technology and if FTTN do you know copper length to Node?.

FTTN we're within 100+ metres from one. The bloke assessed prior to signing and reckons we're in the zone! We shall see .... for $15/month I'm willing to take a punt.

I have been able to check an estimated speed at your premises, as an early guide we have a returned maximum download speed of between 80-100 Mbps. This is a great indication that you would experience very fast downloads if you were to take up a speed boost.

 

[ajw373]

Currently and foreseeable future most households don't need 100mbps so not sure why the preoccupation with 100?.

It kinda gets back to the point I was making before that NBN was not about the speeds, it was more about replacing the infrastructure for something capable of taking us into the future. Not small changes to squeeze the last bit of possible bandwidth out of technology that has essentially been developed to the end of its physical capability.

And 100mb is just an arbitrary figure that someone though would be an ideal maximum to start with.On FTTP the technology used, GPON is already capable of much more.

The G in GPON stands for gigabit. In laymans terms the speed of the fibre is already about 2.5Gb/s. To get gigabit to the user some minor architectural changes are needed. With the current technology your fibre goes to the street and is then passively (the P in GPON) multiplexed with a number of customers, up to 32 on NBN, but in most cases its less than half that amount. 2.5g/32=~78mb/s per user 24x7, which of course most people never ever even come close to using. In fact the fibre NTD's installed in homes have 4 ports Ethernet ports plus 2 voice ports, so it is already technically possible for a single NBN FTTP customer to have 4x200mb/s services plus two voice channels, so add in another 32-64mb/s depending upon voice compression running over that fibre. Try and do that with FTTN or FTTC.

 

[amaroo]

The copper length from the pit outside my house to the termination inside the house is 58 metres
The builder who built the house originally did not put the telephone cable inside a pipe. He just laid the cable underground. I discovered this when I had to dig in the vicinity of the cable with the assistance of a cable detector.

In a way Im glad I don't have to do FTTH.

The distance from the pit to the box on my house is about 8m and was the same as yours - copper buried a few inches below the ground. I cut into it one day and did a quick fix .... it was never the same. Had issues with the line and after a few visits the Telstra tech decided to run new cable from the pit to the house and installed a nice new box .... I then had my guy run new cable from the box to the points in the house.

 

[mrs.dr.ron]

Booked for connection next week. Have thrown caution to the wind and signed up for 1/2 price speed boost (100mb).

We haven't signed up yet, but will probably do this in July ! I will be interested to hear how your connection goes !

 

[Quickstatus]

As I can pull fibre through the very same pipe that holds the copper, not much digging would be required.

One of my neighbours is a retired Telstra guy, and he tells me that the big issues with the Telstra copper lines are that they've used aluminium connectors, and also a sealant that degrades quite rapidly. They will be a short term maintenance nightmare.

The copper length from the pit outside my house to the termination inside the house is 58 metres
The builder who built the house originally did not put the telephone cable inside a pipe. He just laid the cable underground. I discovered this when I had to dig in the vicinity of the cable with the assistance of a cable detector.

In a way Im glad I don't have to do FTTH as I will have to dig and also tunnel under a concrete driveway

The big problem with FW is the inflexibility of FW installers and NBNCo rules re "Standard installation"
If the installer can detect a signal better -99dBm at his preferred spot then the antenna goes there.
Worse if they detect worse than -99dBm, the installer will say no FW and dob you into NBNco who will change your sevice class from FW to Satellite and lock you out of FW.
Generally the installer will not try to improve your signal strength by changing position or even elevating the antenna on a mast.

Probably they are on a fixed contract per installation and they cant even do additional work outside their remit and invoice you the difference.

Property owners can go the "non standard installation" route but this is a big PITA negotiating with NBNCo and your own installer. A non standard installation is sometimes required to get a worse than -99dBm situation to a better than - 99dBm or to improve a marginal signal strength.
Essentially a non standard installation requires the property owner to prepare the infrastructure (usually a high mast remote from the property with own power supply) so that the the NBNCo installer can do a standard installation.
Note only the NBN Co installer can touch the NBNCo equipment.

How do you know what the best signal is available for the property?. NBNCo can't/won't tell you that. They can just do a Standard install if signal is better than -99dBm.

Very much like the foxtel installers - my IQ3 signal strength is always either yellow or red. Still get video but sometimes bad weather degrades the signal so I get nothing. They wont try to improve signal because when they do turn up the weather has improved and I can get a video feed, and I cant touch the foxtel dish

 

[RooFlyer]

We haven't signed up yet, but will probably do this in July ! I will be interested to hear how your connection goes !

... except amaroo's speeds and connection quality will bear no relation to yours, or even his neighbour's if they have different ISPs. NBN knows the line speeds throughout their network, but they don't let the great unwashed in on this - only to the ISPs, and they certainly won't tell you in advance of signing up!

 

[amaroo]

... except amaroo's speeds and connection quality will bear no relation to yours, or even his neighbour's if they have different ISPs. NBN knows the line speeds throughout their network, but they don't let the great unwashed in on this - only to the ISPs, and they certainly won't tell you in advance of signing up!

FWIW I requested this information and they provided the "estimated" range I posted above... I then signed. Time will tell if the estimate is worth the paper it's written on.

In other news; a new modem just arrived .... it will be a spare as Telstra gave me the exact same one back in Dec when my old modern was toasted in a spectacular thunderstorm.

 

[RooFlyer]

But is that the NBN speed, or Telstra's? An ISP's predicted speed should take account of their network congestion and purchased ( by them) bandwidth. It will usually be much less than the raw NBN number.

If NBN released their own speeds ( and they won't, except to the ISPs), then one has a basis of arguing with the ISP if the speeds are slower than expected it advertised by the ISP. As it stands, we only have Telstra's version, whatever that is based on.

 

[ajw373]

But is that the NBN speed, or Telstra's? An ISP's predicted speed should take account of their network congestion and purchased ( by them) bandwidth. It will usually be much less than the raw NBN number.

If NBN released their own speeds ( and they won't, except to the ISPs), then one has a basis of arguing with the ISP if the speeds are slower than expected it advertised by the ISP. As it stands, we only have Telstra's version, whatever that is based on.

It will be the access speed, eg NBN. No provider ever provides throughput guarantees.

 

[drron]

We haven't signed up yet, but will probably do this in July ! I will be interested to hear how your connection goes !

Also our NBN pit is up the street and around the corner a bit so further away than Amaroo's.

 

[RooFlyer]

It will be the access speed, eg NBN. No provider ever provides throughput guarantees.

Yes, and agreed, and that's the scandal. They are quoting figures which for the majority of cases aren't just 'up to' but impossible to deliver. The ISPs can and do their own model figures but of course they don't tell prospective customers those.

 

[ajw373]

Doubly so with FTTN.

That said I fully understand why a maximum throughput figure cannot be guaranteed at the prices being charged, but there should be a minimum speed guarantee not simply up to.