Thread: National Broadband Network (NBN) What do you know?

Originally Posted by incisor

lots of problems with nbn service guys never showing up or saying no one was home when they were, sorts of issues.

lots of lies being told about how long it takes till it's up and running... sometimes people are without phones etc for 14+ days.

Ah! I see nothing has changed. I was lucky. One day, in the local shopping centre, we had both Telstra and NBN there with a marketing presence. Bear in mind, I already had fibre connected, on the day they said, and the internet working, on the day they said. I was just trying to get my phone transferred to fibre. They kept making appointments but not turning up. I don't know why they needed to turn up, everything was connected.
Back at the shopping centre, I questioned Mr Telstra as to why my phone service had not been transferred. He said it was NBN Co's fault. So I trotted off to the NBN Co stand and asked why Telstra could not connect my phone. "It's all there ready for Telstra to flick the software switch." she said. "Well, they're blaming you. Perhaps you could discuss it with them." And she walked over, and did. Still didn't get fixed, though.
Four times I took a day off work. Four times the Telstra tech didn't turn up.
The overseas call centre got so sick of me my case manager let fly with a tirade of abuse at me. I put in an official complaint. I also contacted the manager who was sending me all the "Welcome to Telstra" junk mail. "How did you get my number?" he constantly asked me. I didn't tell him I had contacts in Telstra.
I also contacted one of the country regional managers who organised two of the appointments that the tech didn't turn up to.
Remember, this carry on was all after the NBN was up and running and I had already been using the internet on fibre for some months.
Finally, I told the regional manager to forget it. When they decommissioned the copper network, Telstra were going to lose a customer.
With that, the regional manager then organised a Telstra tech to turn up on a Saturday. When he arrived he said "It's all up and running. I don't need to do anything." But the phone wasn't working. The tech said "I know who needs to do what. Leave it with me."
Later that day, I got a call from someone in Telstra asking me if my phone was working.
Then I got a call from the Telstra tech who had visited earlier. He told me he had called the IT people in Telstra who flicked the software switch.
It was a drama.
I had been hearing similar dramas from the local area.

Oh, have I noticed I'm on fibre?
No. The ADSL service I had was plenty good enough for what I use the internet for.

Originally Posted by incisor

....lots of lies being told about how long it takes till it's up and running... sometimes people are without phones etc for 14+ days..

fun fun fun

Biggest liars of all are the NBN marketing and planning departments. For our rural suburb, the NBN website told us that continents would float past before they would start work in our area.

However, new developments to the north, south and east of us were being built as "NBN ready".

Then NBN helmets and utes started appearing in the local town. Still the website said "more chance of growing an extra leg, than having anything in this lifetime". Then the helmets and utes appeared at the end of the next road to us. Still the website says "suffer with crappy, slow rural ADSL, you field dwelling loser".

The all of a sudden we have more Ns and Bs on our road than in a tin of defective Alphabetti Spaghetti. One of the helmet wearers tell us the installation will be complete in 4 weeks!

Ooh! Ooh! The website has changed! "Planning in progress, register with us for updates, but it'll be about a year guv".

Helmet wearer number 2 confirms work under way, and only a few weeks till switch on.....

*EDIT* Ooh! It's changed again!

Good news, construction of the nbn™ network started in your area using fixed line technology

"Fixed line technology". That'd be what people call "a cable" then.

So, anyone here got FTTN at their place? What sort of speeds are you getting? My ADSL2+ is very good and unless I can get guaranteed faster speeds, I'll be holding off. The closest node being installed is around 50 metres from the house.

Do they run a new cable from the node to the house or patch your existing cable in back further - the closest node isn't near any existing Telstra infrastructure, but the one around the corner - about 200 metres away - is next to the box where all the local connection go to.

You will be on a vdsl circuit then by the sounds of it... Not much will change setup wise but you won't know the speed till you try it... Distance from the node and how many are using the node will be big influences...

At one stage we were on the schedule but then under the current government we disappeared off the list and no-one can say if or when it might happen.
Last week our modem was playing up and the Optus tech replaced it. He said there was congestion in our area and switched our 12 channel modem from chanbel 1 to 3 because no-one was on it. Working fine. When I asked if he knew anything about NBN in our area he said no-one knew anything so don't hold my breath.
Incidentally my workplace, which has more than 600 laptops connected at once, got fed up with the terrible internet and paid a lot of money which resulted in a fibre connection which now flies - its great.
How long ago was the Copper Age - 2000 years?

Sent from my SM-G900I using AULRO mobile app

We have fttn at work and we're getting 90Mb down and 48Mb up via Speetest. No idea where our node is, though i think we joined straight away so im expecting it to slow once people come across. We have a business account so not sure what effect that has on bandwidth.

I've heard of others getting ADSL1 speeds once connected...

Cheers

Dan

In Thailand 8 years ago I was averaging 100 Mbs at work. One day Australia might catch up.

Sent from my SM-G900I using AULRO mobile app

Originally Posted by OffTrack

You'll get no argument from me on that one

Mind you Telstra has been letting the copper cabling decay in the ground. If the NBN hadn't gone ahead Telstra would have faced pulling new cable in large sections of inner city Melbourne for example. You could argue that the Fed Govt. paid too much for the copper network simply because much of it needs replacing with fibre anyway.

Nor me.