NBN doesn't like the weather...

For part of the year I work overseas in a third world country, most small villages with no power or water have better internet connections than I have in my hometown. At home 18 months ago I used to get 5 signal bars, now flat out getting 1 or 2, forget trying to download any net content. We had better mobile service with analogue phones.
What has changed?
In the third world country where I work everybody has a new phone with internet. Average wages in this country would be $100 a month. They are not paying their entire wages or even a quarter on internet services, are we in Australia getting ripped off by paying much more than others and getting a worse service?
I spose it’s just like power costs, they charge so much because they can. Service promises and customer guarantees are meaningless twaddle. Privatisation of telecommunications, it will open the market to competition and the consumer will be better off, yeh right.

I've yet to see an essential service that's been privatised, get cheaper due to increased competition .:bat:

Update: still out.

Apparently there is a tech coming out on Monday.

Hooray for the NBN! What a technological marvel!

I jest somewhat - apart from this the longest dropout has been about a day (during wet weather) and we have 10 times the speed at not much over half the price of my ADSL connection. But at last the ADSL connection was more water resistant...

You were lucky to have ADSL - a lot of people could never get ADSL due to distance from the exchange, "no ports" or other excuses.

I'm on NBN and yes, it drops out when it rains. When I was on ADSL it did the same so nothing has changed. One good thing though...........when I was on ADSL it used to buffer a lot when I was on U-Tube and the like, that doesn't happen now.

Thought I should update this:

Tech came out and diagnosed fault as modem chip had died. He said that it had happened to a lot of people - a nearby lighting strike had travelled through the rainwater into an NBN node and then up the copper phone lines, destroying the circuits in peoples modems. The modems still turned on but couldn't connect.

A guy at work had a spare router so plugged that in and away we went! Turns out its a better router than I had and now my WiFi is heaps better *win*

As a side note, my ISP has kept giving me new offers to re-sign. So far I've got 3 months free and a speed increase to 50/20 for a total of $1 extra per month. Looking forward to seeing what speed I actually get.

Cheers

Dan

I have the opposite experience with Optus.
Up until about 3 weeks ago I was getting down to 2-3 Mbps in peak times.It drove me mad and I rand Optus several times.
Lo and behold suddenly 3 weeks ago The speed increased to 10-11.5 Mbps at all times and today after a drenching it is still at 11.
Hallelujah!
I guess Optuse purchased more bandwidth from NBN.
So my message is that it is most probably the ISP that is at fault for poor NBN speeds other than of course hardware faults.

Regards Philip A

My NBN drops out in the rain, because I’m at the end of a copper run and all the old pits along the way fill with water. Despite 18 months of diplomatic yet firm negotiation at every level, including two rounds of ombudsman action, Telstra excuses, politician letters, I’ve been told it will be another 12 months til they ‘get to it’. To make matters worse my immediate neighbour has FTTP because they are on a different line!

Pathetic.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PhilipA

I have the opposite experience with Optus.
Up until about 3 weeks ago I was getting down to 2-3 Mbps in peak times.It drove me mad and I rand Optus several times.
Lo and behold suddenly 3 weeks ago The speed increased to 10-11.5 Mbps at all times and today after a drenching it is still at 11.
Hallelujah!
I guess Optuse purchased more bandwidth from NBN.
So my message is that it is most probably the ISP that is at fault for poor NBN speeds other than of course hardware faults.

Regards Philip A

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Yes, a lot of the issues are with ISP's who blame the NBN. Regarding your service, they may not have bought more bandwidth, but just allocated you some more as you have complained - this happens a lot. Squeaky wheel stuff. You may find that in a few months, it will slow again as they have reallocated some of your bandwidth to the latest person that has complained enough to make them act.

They're all dog like that.

BUT - the NBN are to blame for lots of stuff. Take my inlaws for example - they are on the end of around 13KM of old copper wire to their house so their internet is basically useless. There is little to no mobile coverage in the area. If you look their address up on the NBN website it shows their premises is available now for connection. When they enquire with ISP they are told the same thing - yes, there is a fixed wireless tower near you, so we can connect you to this. When an installation attempt is made - no go, there isn't signal in your area as you're behind a hill so the fixed wireless won't work.

Other options - try Skymuster - that's available to remote premises that can't be connected to other options. Try that - Nope, can't connect to that because there's a fixed wireless tower in your area and you're too close to a major centre to qualify for it. :bangin:

So, they live about 20KM from a major regional city and can't get the NBN full stop.

There would be thousands of similar stories of the trials and tribulations people have connecting.

I had heard that all new connections will be fibre t the kerb from now on (my understanding is it including existing houses, just new connection). At the at point, in most of suburbia you may as well take it to the house.

At this point I would insert a comment about the difference in policies between the current and previous government, as well as mention the word "backflip", but its probably better suited in the Current Affairs section.