NBN - Good or Bad

[Tannin]

^

yeah, me too. I've already got the Telstra cable, also got the old Optus cable so whichever one is in better condition, I'll take.

Until then, the current telstra cable gives me all the speed I need.

I agree.

For most (but not all) purposes, there is bugger-all practical speed difference between a properly-sorted, non-overloaded HFC cable setup and NBN. Real fibre has a significantly higher theoretical maximum but most customers don't use that, and won't start to use it for ... oh ... maybe five years or so, Until then, HFC cable is really just as good.

In theory, Fibre to the Node NBN is about as good as HFC cable. (The two systems are actually quite similar.) Like HFC, FTTN has a useful working lifespan of about five years (give or take) before it is obsolete. Trumble will have been booted out by then so some other bugger will have to work out how to pay for replacing it with something modern - i.e., actual fibre, which is the fastest thing there is today, and still will be the fastest thing there is until you and I are dead or we get new Laws of Physics, whichever happens first.

But that's only in theory. In practice, with HFC cable you get a shiny new dedicated copper cable from the network to your house. OK, it's only copper, but new, designed-for-purpose copper cable can still go better than OK. The FTTN (Fraudband) network uses the same crappy old not-designed-for-purpose copper wire you used to use for dial-up. If your wire happens to be in good shape and it's not raining, it can go quite well. Do you feel lucky?

Given a choice between HFC cable and FTTN, all else being equal, stick with HFC every time.

[Tannin]

So good I had to post it twice

[think positive]

Do they let you choose?

[Culprit]

Do they let you choose?

No, the roll out depends on what is in your area. If you go to the NBN website and put your address I think you can find out what you will be getting.

[Tannin]

Do they let you choose?

Of course. All you need to do is make a single phone call and sign some papers. This is the part that a lot of people get wrong. Most people call NBN or their ISP, which doesn't work. What you actually do is call your real estate agent and tell her that you want to sell your house in Footscray and buy one in Newport.

[David]

[stui magpie]

Download speed capped at 1mb/s?

That's crap. Sorry.

I just tested mine on a few different tests, average download speed 35mb/s, average upload speed of 1 mb/s

[Tannin]

There is a reason your service is so slow, David, and it's not ADSL and not your copper phone line either: it is TPG. The good thing about TPG is that it is better than Dodo. The bad thing about TPG is that it is worse than just about everyone else.

They never change. Hell, I remember buying $200 worth of dial-up time from TPG once. It was about half the price every other company was charging. What a bargain I thought it was! I would up using about $30 worth of it and just throwing the rest away. Even by dial-up standards, it was glacially slow. Horrible. Unusable.

Theway TPG and most (all?) of the other cheap "unlimited" providers work is ... well, it's like a restaurant that offers $10 "unlimited" meals. Either the food is so bad that you can't eat more than $5 worth of it without being sick, or the service is so slow that most people give up and go home before they've got their money's worth. With restaurants this model doesn't work: customers eat once and never go back. But with Internet service providers it is different for some reason.

TPG has an unlimited NBN plan for the same price you are paying now. Don't expect it to be much if any faster though. Iinet (who used to be OK but are now owned by TPG - another massive truck-up by the ACCC there - offer unlimited for $70. That would be a fair bit better. For that same $70, Skymesh offer 240GB plus 1TB off-peak, which would be vastly faster. (You get what you pay for. The "unlimited" deals don't cap your bandwidth, they just make it so annoying that you don't bother using it.) Optus gives you unlimited NBN plus a phone for $80. Internode (sadly, now owned by Iinet which is owned by TPG) is unlimited for $70. And so on.

Dodo, for some reason, charge $65 for "unlimited". I'd think about that deal, but only if it was them giving me the $65.

[stui magpie]

^

Correct me if i'm wrong please, aren't mobs like Dodo and TPG just resellers who buy space wholesale and resell it retail? they don't actually put their own DSLAMS in the exchanges?

If that's the case, is the main reason they're slow is that they oversubscribe when reselling so you end up with too many people trying to share the same bandwidth?

[Dave The Man]

Download speed capped at 1mb/s?

That's crap. Sorry.

I just tested mine on a few different tests, average download speed 35mb/s, average upload speed of 1 mb/s

1.4mbps is about the best I get. Though I am still on ADSL

[Dave The Man]

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/technology/ ... f2bdbf4243

[Dave The Man]

Been chatting to my mates who work at Telstra and NBN. I will be going HFC. http://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/the-nbn-pr ... -know.html

I just Checked that and Sadly I am getting the Shitty FTTN

[Dave The Man]

^

yeah, me too. I've already got the Telstra cable, also got the old Optus cable so whichever one is in better condition, I'll take.

Until then, the current telstra cable gives me all the speed I need.

I agree.

For most (but not all) purposes, there is bugger-all practical speed difference between a properly-sorted, non-overloaded HFC cable setup and NBN. Real fibre has a significantly higher theoretical maximum but most customers don't use that, and won't start to use it for ... oh ... maybe five years or so, Until then, HFC cable is really just as good.

In theory, Fibre to the Node NBN is about as good as HFC cable. (The two systems are actually quite similar.) Like HFC, FTTN has a useful working lifespan of about five years (give or take) before it is obsolete. Trumble will have been booted out by then so some other bugger will have to work out how to pay for replacing it with something modern - i.e., actual fibre, which is the fastest thing there is today, and still will be the fastest thing there is until you and I are dead or we get new Laws of Physics, whichever happens first.

But that's only in theory. In practice, with HFC cable you get a shiny new dedicated copper cable from the network to your house. OK, it's only copper, but new, designed-for-purpose copper cable can still go better than OK. The FTTN (Fraudband) network uses the same crappy old not-designed-for-purpose copper wire you used to use for dial-up. If your wire happens to be in good shape and it's not raining, it can go quite well. Do you feel lucky?

Given a choice between HFC cable and FTTN, all else being equal, stick with HFC every time.

Agree. What they doing now is just a Waste of Time as when Turbull Finally get's Kicked out of Power. The Labor Party would have to spend even more money to Actually UpDate it where it Really Should be.

Turnbull thinks he is saving Money but in the Mid to Long Term it will cost more

[David]

[Tannin]

^

Correct me if i'm wrong please, aren't mobs like Dodo and TPG just resellers who buy space wholesale and resell it retail? they don't actually put their own DSLAMS in the exchanges?

If that's the case, is the main reason they're slow is that they oversubscribe when reselling so you end up with too many people trying to share the same bandwidth?

Spot on, Stui.

Or, to put much the same thing the other way around, they under-specify their backhaul arrangements. TPG and Dodo, so to speak, rent the shiny new four-inch water pipe NBN dug up your street to install, and to supply the water going into that pipe at their end they use a couple of leaky old half-inch garden hoses that have been left out in the sun a few summers oo many.

(Not exact, but you get the idea.)

(Sorry Dave and Dave, I'll get back to you. I have to go and stake myself out on a hot tin roof for an hour or two now. Yes, really.)