NBN who's happy with theirs?

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Originally Posted by garrycol

And what do people who do not have a mobile so, like my 90 year mother.

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Don't be silly.

"Everybody has a mobile."

Or, that is what I was told when I pointed out the bleeding obvious (your words I have quoted).

Just as an aside when we had power outages for 5days in April 2015 when an extreme low hit the Central Coast, many of the mobile cells were knocked out also. In addition it was difficult to recharge mobile phones although at Erina Fair which had power all the shops put recharge points outside.

The only way I could get mobile reception was to stand on a lookout down at Avoca Beach and I think I got 1 bar from somewhere up North.
AFAIR the old Optus phone I had worked for a while.

So really the only reliable way to have reception in blackout is with an NBN UPS, as long as the UPS at the exchange has not gone down. LOL. In long blackouts its every man for himself.
Regards Philip A

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Originally Posted by garrycol

And what do people who do not have a mobile so, like my 90 year mother.

Sorry - with the introduction of the NBN it should have been legislated that the "NBN box" must be able to be self powered for a set period of time and not having a UPS as an expensive option. Sorry not good enough - you should be able to access 000 from landlines in power blackouts.

Oh in addition to lower than advertised speeds, my NBN drops out all the time for a minute or so then comes back on.

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My elderly Mother has a mobile and knows how to use it. Only problem is there's no signal at her place to start with, so not very helpful if the land line is U/S... She is still a couple of years from the NBN anyway and may not even get it where she is as it will be fixed wireless and there are some rather large hills between her place and it's most likely location which is why there is no mobile reception either....

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Originally Posted by garrycol

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Sorry - with the introduction of the NBN it should have been legislated that the "NBN box" must be able to be self powered for a set period of time and not having a UPS as an expensive option. Sorry not good enough - you should be able to access 000 from landlines in power blackouts.
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The original fibre to the home came with a rechargeable battery backup. And caused all sorts of issues with people failing to replace the battery when needed. The fibre to the node though does not come with this option - a bit irrelevant, since if the power is out the node is too! And as my son in Yass found out the first time the power went out over the whole town after he got NBN, when everybody in town got on their mobile to either phone the power company or their ISP about no service - the mobile tower fell in a heap as well - text messages could be sent if you were patient enough, but phone calls in or out - forget it.

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Originally Posted by JDNSW

Satellite NBN is available from about a dozen companies - none of the really big names. Prices are pretty similar for all suppliers, as NBN closely controls how much data is allowed per customer and the conditions.

Because the principal bottleneck on the service is the satellite link, slowdowns and outages are usually beyond the control of the provider. Choices mostly come down to things like plan lock-in time, support etc.

Active8 is the largest, followed, I think, by Skymesh, although I have not checked the numbers lately.

Speeds available (all providers) are 25/5 or 12/2 (nominal maximum.

The points to keep in mind about the Skymuster service:-

1. Like all satellite services using geostationary satellites it has a minimum latency of about 550ms (varies slightly according to your location).

2. NBN mandates that off peak = midnight to 0700, so the large offpeak data allowances usually offered are useless for most people, the only figure that matters is 'anytime' data.

3. Because of NBN restrictions on data quantity per customer (per 28 day period, not per month!) the prices for data quantities (anytime) skyrocket above about 80GB and have a maximum of about 120GB. Some providerss seem to be gaming the NBN restrictions and are offering more, but these are likely to have strings attached or may change without notice if you actually use it.

4. Skymuster has a large number of spot beams covering specific areas of the country, and a very few of these have too many customers for the bandwidth and can get congested at times.

5. The equipment you have at home comprises a dish (usually on the roof and mostly 0.8m diameter although this depends on where you are) and an NTD (Network Termination Device) that sits on the wall and has a power pack that needs a powerpoint. This takes around 30w, which does not sound a lot, but is significant for something that is 'always on'. If switched off, connection time varies from a few minutes to several hours for no obvious reasons.

6. After a rocky start, the system is reasonably reliable, although probably not as reliable as other fixed line services. Some people report regular interruptions due to rain, although in my case these are very rare. Your service can be interrupted by rain (or a fault) at the ground station that provides the other end of your service, which will be nowhere near you - I am in Central West NSW and my ground station is Carnarvon in WA. All Skymuster services connect to your RSP at Eastern Creek in Sydney, and faults have occurred here.

7. While Skymuster can be used for VOIP, and most providers support this, the latency will be disconcerting, and if calling someone also on a satellite service, a significant issue. NBN does not recommend you rely on using this as your only voice connection, but say you should retain your landline (or mobile if available). At least in part this is to provide support - if there is an issue with the connection, and you have no other communication, a site visit will be needed, and if it turns out to be one of the kids turned off the powerpoint or similar, you could get charged for an expensive visit!

8. Installation will be by a subcontractor, hopefully local, and, if straightforward, should take only a few hours. Problems could include your roof type and condition, tall trees or close hills in the wrong place.

I selected Skymesh for my satellite service well before NBN mainly because when I phoned them they were able to support their service with someone who spoke Australian English, and seemed to know what they were talking about. At the time, several of the listed satellite providers either had phone numbers that did not work or failed to return calls. Skymesh has since been sold, but it is to a specialist satellite company. Most of the issues with Skymesh customers relate to non-satellite services, which it got into as a way of growing given the limited number of satellite customers, but does not have the customer base to adequately support, especially as for a lot of places it uses a connection bought from an aggregator.

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Hey thanks for the detailed info JD. Much appreciated.

Bit depressing how unreliable Sat NBN is. Hmm tin cans and string maybe?

NBN plan prices could surge by up to $120 a year

Cant complain about our NBN[bighmmm]
Supposed to connect on the 29th of August just gone :Rolling:
Oh the excuses from our ph line in the house is stuffed but that is not their problem , the modem they sent is faulty ect
Turns out no NBN connected out side the house :wallbash:
Over a month of hassles with 2 modems to hiring a contractor to replace the phone line in the house and a million ph calls :bat:
Still have ADSL :soapbox:

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Originally Posted by bee utey

Got two good days out of the NBN connection then yesterday, nothing, the line's dead as a dodo. Waiting now for the possible attendance of a tech to look into it, or not. Good thing I always have backup wireless internet.

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And a few hours later the internet is back on but the phone connected to that line no longer works. Grrr. Fortunately mobile reception here is adequate.

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Mine's been behaving perfectly since the nice Indian tech fixed the bodgy wiring the first Aussie tech left me with. My only annoyance is the time it takes for the modem to reboot after a power supply glitch so it got put on a small UPS the other day. It now does everything I need it for. [smilebigeye]

Reading all the above it is now my opinion that the longer we are without NBN here, the better.


Who was it that rushed it through but apparently had little experience in these matters? Yep, got it in one.[smilebigeye]

After a month now, my TPG 50Mbps speed tier with typical evening speeds of 44.5Mbps is actually settled to about 30Mbps at any time - not unexpected but not really good enough.

Interestingly TPG must know they cannot meet their advertised standards as I received a message from them allowing me to exit my contract without penalty if I was unhappy with the speed and switch to a lower speed package - no benefit really as the lower speed package will still not meet their own advertised speed standards.

I still dont know why providers can get away with their advertising standards but I guess the only thing you can do is get used to taking the pineapple.

Garry