That's fair enough @straitman, I don't blame you for walking away from it - but the reality is that neither 4G nor 5G networks possess the ability to replace fixed line networks. What is happening at the end user level for some NBN subscribers is beyond my comprehension but network wise it is far and away a more reliable and scalable solution than microwave. We know this because we've been constructing fixed-line networks for reliable comms for decades - from undersea links to data centres. When Google start rolling out data centres where servers communicate over microwave I'd say there was something to it but ultimately the only reliable form of network communication for data transfer today consists of wired connections. Mobile data is a convenience app but if I had to rely on it for day to day business use I'd be very unhappy, especially with the terrible mobile service we have had in our area for as long as I can remember.
Perhaps the biggest irony of the whole thing is that more than likely in 99% of cases the issue lies with the cheap wifi routers providers dish out to customers and not the expensive fibre network. There is also the issue of RSP contention at POIs but that doesn't result in the sort of complaints I've seen daily on Facebook. I work from home, I work with enterprise networks and I have been on FTTC for a year now. I have not had a single interruption I haven't caused myself. That said I see constant complaints in my area on Facebook that people are without NBN for days and I can only conclude that it's at the last mile. Not only do I plug into the same infrastructure as they do but most of that infrastructure (save for the FTTC concentrator) is passive and just can't differ between them and I. I would suppose it is the copper pair that was re-used for FTTC except i see FTTP users around us (part of my suburb was an early FTTP trial but not my area unfortunately) complaining about the same thing which is unfathomable since they are literally hanging off a piece of glass that is spliced from a GPON trunk that is powered only back at the exchange, and yet they have issues, somehow.
For me it's been nothing but bliss since I got it. I was hanging off a "RIM", the product of a 90s era Telecom experiment in cost savings by splitting fibre into copper voice channels at boxes on the street, just before ADSL was invented (which needed a nice copper path to the exchange to work well). I have lived with the worst of worst (for a metro service in a capital city 15kmfrom the CBD) internet service until now - 8mbps was our ADSL2+ modulation speed at the RIM, but that 8mbps was backhauled onto 20mbps services shared by the entire street. I would not go back for quids. I think the NBN was a giant turkey but I will happily keep my heavily taxpayer subsidised service which is 12 times faster and much more reliable than my previous service and at the current rate of people abandoning ship I reckon it will be a few times over faster than that in the future with all the excess capacity I will have access to
Perhaps the biggest irony of the whole thing is that more than likely in 99% of cases the issue lies with the cheap wifi routers providers dish out to customers and not the expensive fibre network. There is also the issue of RSP contention at POIs but that doesn't result in the sort of complaints I've seen daily on Facebook. I work from home, I work with enterprise networks and I have been on FTTC for a year now. I have not had a single interruption I haven't caused myself. That said I see constant complaints in my area on Facebook that people are without NBN for days and I can only conclude that it's at the last mile. Not only do I plug into the same infrastructure as they do but most of that infrastructure (save for the FTTC concentrator) is passive and just can't differ between them and I. I would suppose it is the copper pair that was re-used for FTTC except i see FTTP users around us (part of my suburb was an early FTTP trial but not my area unfortunately) complaining about the same thing which is unfathomable since they are literally hanging off a piece of glass that is spliced from a GPON trunk that is powered only back at the exchange, and yet they have issues, somehow.
For me it's been nothing but bliss since I got it. I was hanging off a "RIM", the product of a 90s era Telecom experiment in cost savings by splitting fibre into copper voice channels at boxes on the street, just before ADSL was invented (which needed a nice copper path to the exchange to work well). I have lived with the worst of worst (for a metro service in a capital city 15kmfrom the CBD) internet service until now - 8mbps was our ADSL2+ modulation speed at the RIM, but that 8mbps was backhauled onto 20mbps services shared by the entire street. I would not go back for quids. I think the NBN was a giant turkey but I will happily keep my heavily taxpayer subsidised service which is 12 times faster and much more reliable than my previous service and at the current rate of people abandoning ship I reckon it will be a few times over faster than that in the future with all the excess capacity I will have access to
