NBN Discussion

[Quickstatus]

The last thing I want is to bundle services from unrelated providers. If a provider wants to give me special pricing, then do so, I don't want it if it requires a consumer relationship with someone else.

 

[Quickstatus]

However, Amaysim advised that to instate the service the property had to be upgraded to FTTP

Yes, a lot of FTTC is now FTTP by default.

At my place we were given FTTC. Enquiries to upgrade just my place cost > $6,000.

But then NBN decided to upgrade the street to FTTP for free. They had to dig in a couple places where the underground conduit collapsed. The total conduit length was 60-70m and they pulled the fibre from the telegraph pole.

Prior to the free upgrade, a paid upgrade , would have pulled bespoke fibre about 1km from down the street when the main junction is and not from the adjacent telegraph pole.

 

[33kft]

With all that, I am now running FTTP at 25/5 for $40 per month until March when it would go up to $60 per month.

Interesting - when they originally brought in the free FTTC > FTTP upgrades they had a minimum service speed requirement of 100mbps for upgrade. A long time back (maybe a year ago?) my ISP reached out to encourage me to upgrade to FTTP from FTTC on a 50mbps service which surprised me, looks like if they'll upgrade for a 25mbps plan now they've probably dropped the speed requirement entirely.

At the time it didn't really offer me any huge benefit, FTTC was actually pretty good - but I had since upgraded to 100/20 which then got me a bump to 500/50 under the recent FTTP speed upgrades, and then I switched to Launtel which lets me change speeds on a daily basis depending on my needs (not cheap but super flexible) - so right now I'm on a 1Gbps plan - so I guess the NBN upgrade push is pretty smart on their part, within 12 months I've gone from 50mbps to 1gbps (or less, depending on what I choose on any given day)

 

[MiaWexford]

I think this is the key point that often gets lost in these debates: it’s possible to support social programs and still want them designed and delivered efficiently. Cutting waste isn’t a “right-wing idea”; it’s just good governance.

On the specifics:

The insulation scheme – conceptually solid as fast stimulus and energy efficiency; execution was the failure, not the idea itself.

The NBN – agreed, it’s an investment, not a simple expenditure. Long-term infrastructure almost always looks expensive upfront.

School upgrades – again, stimulus during a global downturn, and the Auditor-General’s report makes clear it wasn’t the disaster some made it out to be.

Where I think most people from both sides converge is exactly what you said: the tax/benefit/rebate maze is just overly complex. Streamlining that system so support goes where it’s actually needed shouldn’t be ideological — just practical.

So yes, you can be left-leaning and still want simplicity, transparency, and efficiency. Those things make social policy work better, not worse.

 

[Quickstatus]

FTTC was actually pretty good

Most people found it quite good , except a few whose modems were burnt out due to atmospheric electrical activity (these modems send power to the street FTTC boxes). I suspect this is one reason why they dropped the minimum sppeed requirements.

 

[MELso]

Most people found it quite good , except a few whose modems were burnt out due to atmospheric electrical activity (these modems send power to the street FTTC boxes). I suspect this is one reason why they dropped the minimum sppeed requirements.

That, and I suspect they ultimately want to reduce the number of technologies they have. Basically, they're moving down the value chain capturing people with lower willingness to pay for tech upgrades. I suspect that eventually you'll see stragglers still on FTTN and FTTC switched over to FTTP en masse to save NBNCo the cost of upkeep on those technologies.

(But yes, FTTC was fine for me. It's just that FTTP is even better. )

 

[Quickstatus]

(But yes, FTTC was fine for me. It's just that FTTP is even better. )

The ping speed and latency is misunderstood by people
All it is is the return speed to the server it is pointing to - often a server very close.
So there are a lot of people posting ping speed on facebook as though that is the speed of their internet.

It is not the bottleneck
And it is certainly NOT the speed to/from the server from which actual internet information is requested from and sent.

I have not noticed a difference between 500 Mbps and 50Mbps.
In fact very few would.

The only difference might be connection dropouts. FTTP evangelists use this as a selling point but FTTP drop outs do occur.

 

[MELso]

The only difference might be connection dropouts. FTTP evangelists use this as a selling point but FTTP drop outs do occur.

In this respect, FTTC was pretty good for me (not so much for my dad whose connection died a couple of times). But my downtime for FTTP has been limited to routine maintenance.

 

[moa999]

FTTC and FTTB (essentially similar without the power back feed for larger apartments) did have upgrade paths in g.fast and xg.fast to 500+Mbps but NBN have seemingly dropped these programs.

So suspect both will have to be upgraded to help NBN meet its growing speed and ARPU targets

But progress, particularly for FTTB where each design will likely have to be custom is pretty darn slow.

 

[NM]

I have not noticed a difference between 500 Mbps and 50Mbps.
In fact very few would.

The main difference I have experienced since moving from 100/40Mbps to 500/50Mbps is improved responsiveness when using on-line cloud storage such as OneDrive and Sharepoint when opening and downloading cloud-hosted files. Of course not much change for uploading going form 40->50Mbps upload bandwidth.

But general web surfing and the bits of streaming content we consume all "feel" the same since the bandwidth upgrade was enabled, as expected.