Hi - yes noticed this as well - I am with Internode (which is owned by iiNet - and therefore now TPG) and have been with them for around 15 years - the drop is service has been very noticeable - to the point I am even considering going back to Hellstra…
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Connected!
Pretty seamless transition - router arrived on time, technician made the change at the node as scheduled and I received a text message when it was all complete.
Aussie Broadband suggested we start on a 25/5 plan first, so we could assess what speed our line is capable of before getting the upper plans. I called them up the same day as activation to get a line speed test and they estimated around 70mbps. They then upgraded us to the 100/40 plan, and to our surprise we’re getting upwards of 80+mbps and about 36mbps upload. (Pretty great for Fibre to the Node - there are horror stories out there)
Again, the telephone staff were fantastic - they understood what I wanted, explained what they needed to do and did it all without a fuss.
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Also, suggestion for the mods - should we move the TPG/iinet/etc discussion to its own thread so people can use this one for experiences with Aussie Broadband?
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We currently have Foxtel and Internet via cable. Works reasonably well, good speeds, few interruptions. Until now - NBN has arrived. The first notification that NBN has arrived is the telco ringing to ask when we want to book in to get the NBN connected. What? We don’t - cable works just fine and in fact is faster than NBN. Bad luck, you have 18 months to change, but we want you to do it now. Why? it is slower, oh but you can get a booster - which costs more than we are currently paying. What about deals? NBN doesn’t have any better deals than we are currently on either. Oh, but we can’t convert the Foxtel. So the hype is - I am supposed to jump to NBN, costing more if we want the booster, leaving Foxtel as it is for now, at a slower speed. But - the bit I love best - we MUST do this within 18 months otherwise everything is cut off. Come back in 16 months !!
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I can second this. I recently moved to NSW and decided to remian an IINET customer, as they had provided a good service in the past. This was a big mistake. I have had nothing but frustration with them over the last 2 months, and everytime i ring the support number, the wait time is “more than an hour”’ … One time in fact, it was almost 4 hours! The complaint emails i have sent over the multiple issues were eventually answered with the suggestion i give the support team a call!
In sharing my frustration with a bililng techinician today he told me that they have more staff leaving IINET than they have time to recruit and train them. Telling, I think.
Needless to say I too am looking for a new provider and it won’t be TPG either!
This Whirlpool forum on Aussie Broadband has lots of good information.
https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2580062
John
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Hahaha, Hellstra! love it!
I once got friendly with a staffer at Hellstra, after revealing that one of my phone calls was used in the training room…yeah, I vowed to never return. Although I did check their prices out the other day, I’m in the country, and after taking a poll of those living near me I’ve decided they can keep their ‘services’ and their prices too. Hence my requesting feedback on this new supplier.
I’m not only curious, I’m excited/hopeful that I’ve found a company that will rival the iiNet of old.
We had NBN installed over a year ago. Both NBN and Telstra were great and we now have a very quick and good service. There were no hassles.
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Hi all,
An update on this - our connection with Aussie Broadband happened without a hitch.
Intelligently, the salesperson suggested we start on a 25/5 plan, get them to do a line test once connected and then choose to upgrade based on our actual router stats.
Our FTTN connection is capable of around 83mbps at its peak, so we’ve bumped up to a 100/40 plan. (A bit annoying that we pay the same as people on FTTP, but get 20 mbps less, but that’s NBN/The Government’s fault)
The connection has been consistent so far - we’ve ditched Foxtel via satelitte and now get Foxtel through Foxtel Play and a Telstra TV - streams without a trouble at all.
The router we bought through Aussie Broadband ( Netcomm NF17ACV ) has a great 5ghz network, but the 2.4ghz is pretty rubbish (though we don’t know whether it’s any better or worse than our previous routers, because we were on slow ADSL1 speeds anyway)
Overall, Aussie have provided great service and our household of 4 millenials is pretty pleased!
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Aussie Broadband Rock
Well, I’m converted. We hooked up with Aussie Broadband (ABB). Not only was their service as idyllic as iiNet once was, but they also warned me, yes they warned me, against going for the larger deal until such time as they could guarantee that there would be no, or less congestion periods - because currently, where I live in Western Australia, there are peak periods where the NBN becomes so congested that everyone’s service goes down to a crawl or worse, drops out completely.
Ahhh, now if only iiNet had told me that this was the reason we were receiving lousy service…
Still, ABB have also informed me that this congestion is because the POI that the secondary party own - that would be Optus in this case (and for iiNet also) - cannot cope with the current loads.
Considering they actually know in advance how many customers are interested in hooking up with NBN, you would be right in being as ticked off as I am. They have NO excuses for congestion if all it takes is the impletementation of their own POI’s.
Suffice to say, ABB will be installing their own soon - because this information was given to me prior to my joining up with them, I’ve joined with them anyway. I know that they are intending to do the install for the east within the next four to eight weeks, so the west can’t be much further behind.
Besides, the service I’ve hooked up to is faster, larger and half the cost of iiNet so I’m not losing anything.
Even if the service is the same, it’s still cheaper. It’s honest, and all the staff are Australian.
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I switched from SkyMesh (who the TIO “conciliated” to refund 2 months fees for absolutely rubbish service) to Aussie BB.
Couldn’t be happier with the quality of their service and support
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Yep. Your(and mine as well) foxtel cable has been sold to the nbn. Telstra no longer own it. I think they rent access for 18 months. Same for your home copper phone. The copper service will be discontinued in 18 months so the only phone service available will be via the nbn. Not good I know. The other problem is that is suspect the cable service will slow since we will be sharing the cable with more people and more services. Its a no win.
Only good news is that whereas before i had no choice other than telstra. I can now move to another isp if they offer a better deal
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While this might not be applicable to everyone, Aussie Broadband advises they only support 1 device per VOIP and do not support back to base alarm dialers (ignoring the security and reliability issues surrounding VOIP and the NBN) or fax machines. Believe it or not there are still companies living in bygone ages that will accept instructions by fax but will not accept the same scanned form in an email!
If you have more than one phone or complex needs you need to ask the prospective RSP if you can plug your phone wiring into the VOIP socket (eg move it from the Telstra PSTN termination to the VOIP socket and expect it to work). Some do and some do not. If you have complex needs or a fax there are other ways to do things, they just cost $.
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I signed with ABB shortly after having HFC cable connected to my exterior wall. Since this topic started ABB has had more ‘good press’ than most of the RSPs and their pre-sales and support has been a head above most. An impressive function is that they have a feature whereby you can put your address into their web page and see which of their nodes will service you, with a graph of its CVC and loading!
The ‘welcome’ emails included the basics of what to expect and while not answering everything provided reassurance they know their business. An example is (if applicable) advice to keep one’s current landline active until after the number is ported or the number will be lost, as well as details for logging into their web portal account.
From order to connection was a 4 weeks wait for a booking. The NBN tech rang before arrival, was on time and spent 2 hours including testing the HFC signal, running interior cabling to my preferred location, connecting and confirming the NBN provided cable modem, and waiting the few minutes it took for me to add my BYO router and confirm all worked and I was happy. No drama. 10/10. Landline number porting to VOIP to follow.
Things that could be better handled so far? While obvious in retrospect, an ABB email account is required to use their SMTP server. Email is a ‘service’ under NBN (or ADSL) rather than at top level with NBN and VOIP so it was not immediately obvious how to. I rang and they told me where to set up emails as well as made one for me.
Their phone lines give you your place in the queue and an ETA. Very nice compared to mindless lift music that goes for an indeterminate period. Hold times have varied from 1~15 minutes and in each case my purpose for calling was fully resolved.
I signed for NBN-50 because I had a coupon for a 6 month discount, no ongoing commitment w/my BYO modem. Off-peak speeds are consistently 48/17.7Mbps and peak 46/17.2Mbps.
While VOIP settings are on the web and easy to find, one has to ring support for the VOIP user/password. A bit manual. The landline number was ported a week after my HFC was live. I tested it moments after getting the SMS that porting was complete and I could/should now cancel my previous plans. Inbound calling worked fine but outbound did not. The level 1 support went through the router VOIP settings methodically but no joy. He then rang his level 2 to see what my router was sending. After a few minutes on hold he reported the problem was that my VOIP was still marked as ‘internal’ rather than ‘active customer’ (their error) and it was corrected forthwith. (I suspect this happened because I got my VOIP user/password well before my number was ported so that step could not be done at the time, and got lost. Most people would get their user/password after being notified porting was complete and everything would have been done at once.) Anyway, all was then good.
My experience is that ABB’s level 1 support is as effective in problem solving as Primus’ level 2 was, with no hassles or call-backs, at least in my experiences to date.
The bad: if one uses a landline and all the typical features (call waiting, forwarding, blah, blah) ABB’s is Very Basic. It makes and receives calls.
Support advised
There are some star codes that can be used: For example:
Unconditional call forwarding is - *72(followed by the number and then #)(*92 to remove)
Anonymous blocking - *77 (*87 to remove)
This was implemented fairly recently and hasn’t been completely tested at this
point. We are working on some documentation for this currently and it should
be available in the future.
some???
Since my landline gets Very Light use it is not a worry for me, but something to be aware of. Their VOIP is a work in progress even after being in business for a few years. I would not characterise this as a good look in comparison to any other VOIP service, although others might be as basic when one meets their reality.
VOIP 1/10 for features, the few calls to date have been 10/10 for quality.
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Update: Unexpected experiences subtitled the Joys of the NBN:ABB.
The IP assigned to me is apparently static for HFC, previously homed in Perth. As a result all my default searches for ‘anything local’ return hits a continent away. ABB states location services are done by 3rd parties they have no control over and it can take a while for a changed location to propagate. 1 month and counting. As another consequence many of the web sites I routinely visit are detecting I am logging in from a ‘new location’ (Perth not Melbourne) and are requiring multiple level validation as well as challenge questions or SMS codes. Agro!
edit1: now a site placed me in Churchill VIC, well out of the Melbourne metro area. Had to do yet another multi-level security test. Seems I am getting around, and around and around 
Today, after weeks of using the ABB SMTP service I discovered that 100% of my outgoing email (Thunderbird using ABB SMTP) to any gmail.com account gets marked as spam, has physhing warnings, and ‘cannot validate it is me’ warnings, whether or not the recipient has me as a friendly or not, when using the gmail website or app. I don’t know if other services are similarly flagging but the specific ‘test fails’ causing the flags are shown. Just reported it to ABB with snips and headers today and switched to google SMTP in the interim. Since I am paying ABB for service that includes email they should be enthusiastic to resolve it.
edit2: no real surprise that I am getting a fob off about my email problem since I use my gmail address and was sending through the ABB SMTP server. That I had been doing a similar thing for many years with another ISP without the problem did not impress them. I find ABB provides a Very Basic Service, although what they provide seems high quality. /edit
A few days ago they sent what purported to be a satisfaction survey. I responded with my experiences/gripes on where I felt they are ‘short’ expecting it to go to management/marketing. It seems that because it was not a top score it was routed to support ‘to resolve my issues’ rather than to management/marketing as one might expect of a survey response, and support responded exactly as they had previously, with a note my VOIP was not registered and reiterated how to do so. I replied that my VOIP had been working so did not understand what happened. Afterwards I realised we had a power failure 2 days prior that probably took it down; a(nother) modem reboot resolved it but it seems VOIP can be fragile, at least with my kit. 10 minutes later received a call on the VOIP from ABB support to check if it was really working - had a good talk with him about various issues - top marks for a consciousness support person!
I did learn that the VOIP username and password become available on the account website after the service is ported or fully enabled, so no need to ring them to get it.
The saga continues.
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You have probably already have done so but if not it may be worth checking Spamhaus and similar (examples to look through https://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/ https://www.abuseat.org/ https://www.spamcop.net/ https://www.senderscore.org/) to see if the address or ip address you have has been placed on a spam list.
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Not that. The header message is very clear what and where the problem is 
edit: addition
@grahroll, Google still locates me in Perth. 
Here are relevant sanitised header lines, any insight is welcome.
ARC-Authentication-Results: i=1; mx.google.com;
spf=softfail (google.com: domain of transitioning SENDER@gmail.com does not designate 202.142.142.239 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=SENDER@gmail.com;
dmarc=fail (p=NONE sp=QUARANTINE dis=NONE) header.from=gmail.com
Return-Path: SENDER@gmail.com
…
Received: from [192.168.1.108] (119-18-30-154.77121e.mel.nbn.aussiebb.net [119.18.30.154]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher XXXXXX (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) (Authenticated sender: SENDER@aussiebb.com.au) by mx4.wide.net.au (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 9A7A52D1FA for RECEIVER@gmail.com; Mon, 29 Apr 2019 09:31:12 +1000 (AEST)
In comparison an old primus header has the text ‘…neither permitted nor denied by domain…’
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Our home is scheduled for HFC connection this Friday, and I’m taking the opportunity to jump ship from iinet ( we’ve been with them for 12 years ) to Aussie BB. We’ve chosen to go with an nbn50 plan, and will want VOIP. We’re doing BYO modem as we’re very happy with our Fritz!Box 7490. A predecessor 7390 will hopefully keep the ADSL going in tandem for the first month or two.
There is a pit just beyond our front fence, the cable should be easy to feed in the existing PVC conduit, and there is plenty of space to work under the house ( at least on the side where most of the work needs to happen ), so my fingers are crossed that the nbn install will go smoothly.
Wish me luck, and I’ll report on any issues…
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Your scenario is almost identical to mine, except my connection is FTTC.
I also took the precaution of employing a cable guy to run a new cable from the house entry point direct to my study where my in-house connectivity begins. The new cable run is Cat6 Ethernet twisted pair cable, The cable guy opened the pit just in front of my house and ensured that the NBN-owned (Telstra installed) copper cable from my house to the pit was in good condition and that terminations were clean and solid. At the time that’s work was carried out, about three months before the ABB cutover from iiNet, I was on a 5MB ADSL connection. This had always worked reasonably, but immediately after the cable guy attended, my ADSL service became rock-solid and stable, indicating that somewhere in my house or at the house entry point, there were dodgy connections.
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