Let's hear about some positive experiences with the NBN.

[MLXXX]

I sometimes think we Aussies have turned into a nation of whingers, a description we used to give to the Brits who immigrated here, whom we called  "whingeing poms". 

 

There have certainly been delays and cost overruns in rolling out the NBN, and there have been individuals who have horror stories to tell about poor service.  However, isn't it about time for some "good news" stories? 

 

These may be dull and uninteresting, compared with tales of woe, but are worth sharing, I feel; if only to help to avoid an impression that the NBN is simply "bad".

 

______

 

My good news NBN story!

 

At our Brisbane inner northside address we'd been using Optus HFC broadband for many years. This delivered a download speed of up to 31Mbps, typically mid 20s, and occasionally dipping down to the low 20s.  The upload speed was very limited, only a little over 1Mbps. This made working from home awkward as file uploads of large text files or spreadsheets took a long time to complete.

 

For a bit over a month now we've been connected to NBN HFC broadband (with Optus as the ISP). This is delivering a download speed of up to the high 40s occasionally dipping down to the mid 20s but usually staying above 30Mbps. The real change has been in the upload speed which is now a minimum of 15Mbps. This makes sending emails with photos, videos, or large documents much easier than before.

 

What about the cost?  We were on an Optus  bundle of basic landline  plus unlimited broadband for $60 per month and have recontracted at exactly the same price of $60 per month, getting the enhanced broadband speeds (NBN50) and continuing with a basic landline service.

 

Below are some figures for the broadband speeds as reported by the Ookla speed test. (The test date times have been rounded.)

 

IP_ADDRESS	TEST_DATE	DOWNLOAD_MEGABITS	UPLOAD_MEGABITS	LATENCY_MS
OLD	Thurs mid-afternoon	30.19	1.3	10
NEW	Fri early afternoon	31.59	15.05	15
NEW	Fri late afternoon	47.16	15.72	15
NEW	Tues mid-afternoon	47.74	18.24	13
NEW	Wed 8am	46.73	18.26	12
NEW	Wed 8.30am	46.76	17.89	12
NEW	Wed 11am	43.96	17.96	13
NEW	Wed 11.20am	47	16.31	12
NEW	Wed 11.40am	46.88	18.42	12
NEW	Thurs 8:30am	47.22	18.23	13
NEW	Sun 12:30am	25.95	17.86	12
NEW	Sun 2:15pm	43.41	18.28	7
NEW	Mon 12noon	27.75	18.36	11
NEW	Thurs 3.15pm	35.26	18.15	11
NEW	Mon 12noon	40.14	16.59	11
NEW	Mon 1:30pm	46.22	18.78	11
NEW	Mon 11pm	41.99	18.63	11

 

 

The big change is in the upload speed which was has gone from a figure below 2Mbps to a figure above 15Mbps.

Edited September 26, 2019 by MLXXX

[GregWormald]

I had ADSL with Internode when the NBN was put down the street.

 

I went with Internode again. Connected on time, worked fine, got latest speed upgrade by just re-starting the modem/router. At peak times I get download speeds of 5.6 MiB--which is what I ordered. I assume upload speeds also match the standard, but I've never measured it.

[Luc]

HAHA. I love City people and their discussions of what happens in the major cities...it bears little resemblance to what happens outside your bubbles(no offence intended), the people who live in the country(that bit that makes up the majority of the Aus landmass) can only look on and marvel at what you guys have and what you whinge about.

And Aussies have long been some of the world's best whingers way way before the thought of whinging Poms appeared(listen to an Australian overseas queuing or tipping or talking about Bodyline, or English weather or the abrupt Spaniards or the forceful Singaporeans) and we nailed onto them the sobriquet; whinging, lol.

 

But the NBN in my street in a regional town is yet to better the ADSL+2 we all had before the enforcement date and the early taker ups of the Telco's seductions about the NBN in my street regret it in spades. A few of us are holding out till we are forced(democracy...wonderful thing)by the Govt and the Telco's to take it up in Feb 2020.

 

So sorry OP, happy stories of city dwellers and the NBN are like bedtime stories to any out here in the regions.

 

Although the lucky buggers in some parts of Tasmania who have the fully blown fibre to the house set up that Labor originally intended to futureproof Aus must be extremely happy with the mammoth speeds they apparently get.

 

There is an elderly widower in our street he is happy with his NBN,. His kids set up a streaming service for BBC news and old TV series and he loves it. So there's one happy camper in our street.

 

*Best speeds so far for everyone here is on a par or a bit better than ADSL+2, but not much.   25mps is what nearly everyone has signed up for and it's lucky to reach  15 and kinda hovers at about 12 or so most days.

[Guest Muon N']

@Luc In the USA some cities/places have set up their own internet service, to avaoid the  Government sanctioned monopoly that rips people off everywhere over there.

 

Hmm...

[MLXXX]

11 minutes ago, Luc said:

 

Although the lucky buggers in some parts of Tasmania who have the fully blown fibre to the house 

It's a common misconception that you need fibre to the premises for good results.

 

You may not have meant that yourself, but it is a commonly expressed assumption. Perhaps people who have good results from fibre to the cabinet will be able to refer to those results in this thread. It's not all doom and gloom not to have fibre to the premises.

[Addicted to music]

Shhhhh.......  don’t tell anyone,   I have FTTC.......

 

i didnt say this but happy what’s on offer compared to when I moved in!  Couldn’t get ADdL2 +. No ports!   Had to wait 2yrs......  in the mean time my son was screaming that the upload was snail pace at 1mb upload.....

Now it’s FTTC 100/40.  Check what happen to the upload in June,   Now it would have been impossible to up load 80GB in one day!    And just got the speed results of the Orbi. 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2019 by Addicted to music

[MLXXX]

2 minutes ago, Addicted to music said:

Now it’s FTTC 100/40.  Check what happen to the upload in June,   And just got the speed results of the Orbi. 

Yes, just because it's fibre to the cabinet doesn't mean it has to be slow, as your speed test nicely demonstrates.

 

96Mbps download and 38Mbps upload: more than most people could make good use of.

[Addicted to music]

Just now, MLXXX said:

Yes, just because it's fibre to the cabinet doesn't mean it has to be slow, as your speed test nicely demonstrates.

 

96Mbps download and 38Mbps upload: more than most people could make good use of.

And the boss no longer complains that it buffers.......when she streams on the iPad......

[Ittaku]

Happy with my Internode NBN HFC 100/40, even if they are just reselling iinet or tpg or whatever. Rarely gets below 93/36 at any time of day, and I am a VERY heavy bandwidth user.

Edited September 26, 2019 by Ittaku

[Dirkgerman]

Just did a test

42 Mbps down and

18 Mbps up

FTTN Connection

 

That's positive.  Pretty fast as well. 

GO NBN 

yay

[aussievintage]

2 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

Happy with my Internode NBN HFC 100/40, even if they are just reselling iinet or tpg or whatever. Rarely gets below 93/36 at any time of day, and I am a VERY heavy bandwidth user.

Hope mine goes as well.  btw.  my understanding is that TPG owns iinet and internode

[Guest DarkNark]

Went from 1.8 Mbps ADSL to an Aussie Broadband HFC 100/40 plan. Runs around 95/35 consistently.

 

 

[Luc]

19 minutes ago, MLXXX said:

It's a common misconception that you need fibre to the premises for good results.

I'd be quite happy with my current adsl+2 speed as it does the job I guess, we're not big users but it would be nice to have a video load with out waiting and multiple tabs open with out waiting.

 

I don't really care where the fibre goes, FTTN is I think what is at the end of the street here and then it runs along the PMG's ancient copper system to each house( Telstra boxes have Telecom and a couple have PMG emblazoned on them, that's how current things can be in the country). If it rains for more than a day then the net will drop out and water runs out of the boxes in the nature strips and at the moment because of the drought it's going well here but if it ever rains...it'll go back to the awful thing it is.

 

A common misconception is that all is equal across the country...it isn't actually, quite the opposite in some cases. But we live in hope don't we. If we get the required DSLAMs at the local exchange then things might look up but...population and Telco profits are the indicator whether you get an upgraded Exchange.

 

@Addicted to music  Stop posting NBN porn...

 

[MLXXX]

43 minutes ago, Luc said:

If it rains for more than a day then the net will drop out and water runs out of the boxes in the nature strips and at the moment because of the drought it's going well here but if it ever rains...it'll go back to the awful thing it is.

If there is water ingress into the copper cable between your residence and the NBN cabinet that could indeed be an issue.

 

The new internet signal should inherently be more robust coming a short distance from the cabinet compared with the old ADSL signal coming all the way along old telephone wire from the exchange, and piggy-backed onto an analogue phone signal.

 

If the new arrangement actually turns out not to be good enough because of water problems it sounds like that existing copper cable will need to be replaced with something more water resistant. 

[LogicprObe]

 

No water ingress for my FTTH.

It's working fine since I switched providers!

[SkipEsquire]

I've had very few NBN problems, almost always ISP problems (Telstra) but I've spent enough time dealing with their 'customer support' team that I know how the terrible system works now and try to take advantage of it to for own benefit.

NBN in Dubbo is great, I have the fastest internet I've ever experienced after years of shitty service in Wollongong... FTTP, 90+ down 35+up all the time with Telstra. Only paying $90/month for tier100 since I tried to break my contract and swap to Aussie broadband about 3 months back and the telstra rep basically let me name my own price. But also currently getting 3 months free because of a "fault" a few weeks back that sent me automated SMS for a week about my connection swapping o a 4g backup mode, that was actually non-existant. Around 5 hours customer support time spread between 6 sessions in a month? and telstra complaints sent me a technician to the premises and then gave me over $300 credit as compensation for the ordeal.
 

I'm a very heavy internet user streaming video and music almost 20 hours a day, often even when I sleep, NBN is our only choice. I'd prefer something faster than tier100 still, so until everyone else gets on board we'll never have faster options for niche users, especially things like symmetrical down/upload speeds for 'domestic' connections.

Edited September 26, 2019 by SkipEsquire

[Luc]

1 hour ago, MLXXX said:

it sounds like that existing copper cable will need to be replaced with something more water resistant. 

Lol.

I'll just ring Telstra up and ask them to come and replace it all then.

 

Telstra/Telecom for close on 30+ years have never ever ever answered a query asking them to come and check out the lines because everytime it rains the ph signal drops out(you guys here in this thread remember dial up?) so there is very little we can do about that. Even repeated calls and email to our local National Party member at both State &Federal level has met with mute incomprehension.

 

 

But I'm sure you mean well and as this is a thread about good things about the NBN I'll wait from now till I have a good story about it. Surely they'll get better...

[MLXXX]

6 minutes ago, Luc said:

But I'm sure you mean well and as this is a thread about good things about the NBN I'll wait from now till I have a good story about it. Surely they'll get better...

Well let us know how the FTTC signal actually works out for you, after (eventually) you get some soaking rain. You might be surprised.

[Assisi]

3 hours ago, Luc said:

HAHA. I love City people and their discussions of what happens in the major cities...it bears little resemblance to what happens outside your bubbles(no offence intended), the people who live in the country(that bit that makes up the majority of the Aus landmass) can only look on and marvel at what you guys have and what you whinge about.

And Aussies have long been some of the world's best whingers way way before the thought of whinging Poms appeared(listen to an Australian overseas queuing or tipping or talking about Bodyline, or English weather or the abrupt Spaniards or the forceful Singaporeans) and we nailed onto them the sobriquet; whinging, lol.

 

But the NBN in my street in a regional town is yet to better the ADSL+2 we all had before the enforcement date and the early taker ups of the Telco's seductions about the NBN in my street regret it in spades. A few of us are holding out till we are forced(democracy...wonderful thing)by the Govt and the Telco's to take it up in Feb 2020.

 

So sorry OP, happy stories of city dwellers and the NBN are like bedtime stories to any out here in the regions.

 

Although the lucky buggers in some parts of Tasmania who have the fully blown fibre to the house set up that Labor originally intended to futureproof Aus must be extremely happy with the mammoth speeds they apparently get.

 

There is an elderly widower in our street he is happy with his NBN,. His kids set up a streaming service for BBC news and old TV series and he loves it. So there's one happy camper in our street.

 

*Best speeds so far for everyone here is on a par or a bit better than ADSL+2, but not much.   25mps is what nearly everyone has signed up for and it's lucky to reach  15 and kinda hovers at about 12 or so most days.

Some time things are fine out of the city.  I live in a small regional town in Victoria.  I had ADSL 2. 11 Mbs per second.  I now have  NBN FTTN.  23 Mbs per second.  One problem in 18 months.  Life is good.  I am happy.

John

 

[davewantsmoore]

4 hours ago, MLXXX said:

However, isn't it about time for some "good news" stories?

Finally something we can agree on (!?!?!).     Nearly every single person in the country is a good news story with respect to the NBN.   We only hear about the "whingers".

 

4 hours ago, MLXXX said:

These may be dull and uninteresting, compared with tales of woe

Exactly.

 

"I got an new internet connection installed with little fuss, and it works between 5 and 20 times faster than it did before ... for basically the same price as I used to pay my ISP"

 

.... doesn't sell newspapers.    Especially when the dominant political forces would like the narrative to be that the project needs to be "saved" by deregulation and a fire-sale.

 

4 hours ago, MLXXX said:

For a bit over a month now we've been connected to NBN HFC broadband (with Optus as the ISP). This is delivering a download speed of up to the high 40s occasionally dipping down to the mid 20s but usually staying above 30Mbps. The real change has been in the upload speed which is now a minimum of 15Mbps. This makes sending emails with photos, videos, or large documents much easier than before.

The speed issues you have aren't directly related to the network, but to your ISP.

 

Granted you were in a monopoly previously.... so you had no choice by to suffer the slow-downs offered by Optus (ie. 25%+ slow downs) .....  but now you can get no slow downs if you want to change providers.

 

 

Quote

 

Let's hear about some positive experiences with the NBN.

 

I've looked after a lot of NBN transitions, and it's usually pretty boring.

 

I think the biggest positive experience is the choice of provider....  You can get whoever you want, on equal terms across the suburbs/states.

 

I have a provider who charges by the day.   If I don't want internet tomorrow, I don't pay for it.   If I go on holidays for 2 weeks, I don't pay.

 

If I want to change my speed, I can change every day..... If I was 12/1mbps tomorrow, I can have that .... If I want 1gbps / 400mbps tomorrow, I can have that  (although it's a bit pricey, $13 per day or something)

 

I can have any of the NBN product configurations.... any day of the week.

 

Down     Up

50            20

100          40

100          100

250          100

500         200

1000       400

 

When people (renters) move into a new house.....  they can have the internet connected within hours.

 

 

The uptime (quality of service) within the NBN is world-class.    In fact looking at the numbers in their corporate report .... it's almost "too high"  (people mistakenly conflate issues with their ISP as being "the NBN") ....  with ironically HFC NBN dragging the numbers down quite a bit (due to all the problems they've had getting it working complaint free) ..... but at the same time, Aussies whinge if it's too good/too expensive   ("white elephant!!!") .... but also whinge if it's not good enough.... so making it super good was probably the right choice.

 

NBN has been pretty good so far upgrading interconnection and backhaul to they're never the bottle-neck ......   although this does not apply to wireless and satellite services, where they are stuck with the "statement of expectation" given to them by the government  (they're nothing effective NBN can do, until the pollies [ie. us] decide to fix it) ...... nor does it help people perpetually stuck on close to 25mbps (fibre to the node).

 

... but that's what we voted for.

 

 

 

 

NBN contractors had to dig a 30m ditch to get fibre to my house (Telstra ducts are blocked) .... and they filled the ditch in with horrible quality earth which was full of stones, clay and weeds.    One phone call and they came back and fixed it.

 

I tripped and fell on a fibre conduit for a customer (which pulled it out of where it was terminated).    The area was really busy as it was still being built (and I knew there was a reasonable amount of delays) ..... and so I was really worried they'd be without internet for who knows how long.     But, NBN have a completely different queue/process for fixing infrastructure faults..... because at that point they (NBN) have a customer (the ISP) .... as opposed to before an area is "read for service" when there is no "customer".   It was fixed within 24 hours..... at a very reasonable charge.

 

Mum and Dad went from ADSL that would only work at 1.5mbps on a "stability profile" to  FTTN at the full 100mbps.   (Their own wiring was great, but the wiring out in the street was ancient and salty, and got replaced).

 

At the huge Tassie bushfires earlier this year, when we had to relocate an emergency headquarters in a reasonably remote town .... we were able to get 300mbps+ of connectivity delivered there within 24hours via the NBN.      Using 4 telephone lines with fibre to the node, bonded together  (theoretically max 400mbps) ..... allowing video conferencing, and scores of people from all the different emergency services to base there.     There was only ADSL1 there before (8mbps).

[Addicted to music]

1 hour ago, Luc said:

Lol.

I'll just ring Telstra up and ask them to come and replace it all then

 

Telstra/Telecom for close on 30+ years have never ever ever answered a query asking them to come and check out the lines because everytime it rains the ph signal drops out(you guys here in this thread remember dial up?) so there is very little we can do about that. 

I had that problem over 30yrs ago in a single bedroom unit in St Albans....

it got that bad when it rain especially in cold and moist days that you can’t heat the dial tone.....    Remember Telecom,  called them numerous times and every time the tech showed up it’ll behave.    Testing the line when they showed up indicated a clean and coherent line....so they put it down as NFF.    Anyway the next time it happen, knowing very well that the line was clean to the exchange,  I decided to open the plug to the telephone and found that the connection was loose, tightened it up and we never had an issue until we moved out!    

[davewantsmoore]

3 hours ago, Luc said:

HAHA. I love City people and their discussions of what happens in the major cities...it bears little resemblance to what happens outside your bubbles(no offence intended),

I have a lot of experience all over Tassie, with lots of fixed-wireless and satellite customers.

 

There's certainly some FW areas that get substantially less than 25mbps in peak times (ti can also be very ISP dependant though) .... and satellite customers are stuck with data limits (although you can get relatively high ones).

 

.... but aside from that, it's quite good.    Certainly good relative to where most regionals have been before .... and certainly good relatively to regional areas in most other western countries.    Try the forgotten parts of US and UK for example.   Dismal.

3 hours ago, Luc said:

But the NBN in my street in a regional town is yet to better the ADSL+2

Full speed ADSL2 is 20+/1 mbps (which almost zero people get) ... where as a minimum speed NBN connection is 25/5.

 

Can you PM me where you live?  I'll take a look.

 

3 hours ago, Luc said:

democracy...wonderful thing

Just like power and water ... it's simply not possible to do it well, without "force".

3 hours ago, Luc said:

Although the lucky buggers in some parts of Tasmania who have the fully blown fibre to the house set up that Labor originally intended to futureproof Aus must be extremely happy with the mammoth speeds they apparently get.

It's true there's some lucky regions in Tassie.... but.... Many parts of Tassie were moved onto FTTN

3 hours ago, Luc said:

*Best speeds so far for everyone here is on a par or a bit better than ADSL+2, but not much.   25mps is what nearly everyone has signed up for and it's lucky to reach  15 and kinda hovers at about 12 or so most days.

Speak to your ISP.

 

If you don't get 25mbps... then you can get the TIO involved.   This is bad for the ISP.   This will cause one of two things to happen:

 

If it's NBNs fault .... then the ISP will aggressively log the fault with NBN (to ward off the TIO) ... and it will get fixed.

If it's not NBNs fault .... then the ISP will fix the issue (and ward off the TIO).

3 hours ago, Luc said:

I'd be quite happy with my current adsl+2 speed as it does the job I guess

It's interesting to note that if you have reasonably working ADSL2 (although you may not, based on the description) ..... then any stability problems and/or extremely low speed problems, that you encounter after moving to the NBN, are likely going to be your own internal wiring more than anything.

3 hours ago, Luc said:

A common misconception is that all is equal across the country

It actually IS.  Everyone has the guarantee of 25mbps*.   Don't be a victim, take what is yours by right.

 

Except for fixed-wireless, who seemingly get no guarantee anymore  .... and except for the first (approximately) 18 months of fibre to the node service, where it's 12mbps.

3 hours ago, Luc said:

 

...it isn't actually, quite the opposite in some cases. But we live in hope don't we. If we get the required DSLAMs at the local exchange then things might look up but...population and Telco profits are the indicator whether you get an upgraded Exchange.

If your street is "ready for nbn service" then no telco is putting a DSLAM into the old exchange ... or I'll eat my hat  

2 hours ago, MLXXX said:

The new internet signal should inherently be more robust coming a short distance from the cabinet compared with the old ADSL signal coming all the way along old telephone wire from the exchange, and piggy-backed onto an analogue phone signal.

The analogue phone signal has no bearing.    This is a tricky generalisation....   VDSL is much more prone to interference.....  but every area/situation is obviously unique.

 

1 hour ago, SkipEsquire said:

so until everyone else gets on board we'll never have faster options for niche users, especially things like symmetrical down/upload speeds for 'domestic' connections.

Your connection is capable of 100/100 250/100, 500,200, 1000,400, etc .... right now.   It's just that no ISPs (who I know of anyways) are willing to supply those services to you.     Due to the large amount of bandwidth it needs an ISP to purchase, it's needs to wait until enough people there are all willing to all purchase faster speeds..... or until there is a need to purchase a large amount of bandwidth there for another purpose, which can overlap with a residential ISP business case.

[Guest Muon N']

We are on a 12Mbps plan, speed test shows 2.91 down and 0.76 up.

 

NBN is great

[joz]

Only had it install a few weeks ago . Got to say I was dreading it after all the horror stories.

We moved from cable to NBN both optus. Went smooth am happy with the same price. 

Yay team!

[Candyflip]

It replaced our Optus Cable line a few months back, and though the download speed is noticeably slower at peak times, the upload speed is freakishly fast now (I'm guessing something in the order of 20-40x faster than before). Still with Optus.

 

Overall, a loss, with one highlight.

Edited September 26, 2019 by candyflip