NBN questions - When should I sign up? Cost to roll ethernet around the home?

We were lucky in that NBN FTTP was required to be in area before build by council, and we got our sparky to lay network cabling at same time as electrical, so even if I could give you a rough cost it would be way out lol.
I did a lot of research first though as NBN was not due in our street in Sydney for another 4-5 years when we left - move from major city to bush for faster internet, seems legit lol. Cowboys were mentioned above and you can find them even when only in the research stage - had one company say that to properly future-proof our home we should lay fibre optic at build stage since we had FTTP. I laughed and reminded them of which country we lived in and the type of government leadership we can expect/have received when it comes to good technology outcomes - so fibre-optic cabling in Australian homes to future proof won’t be needed for decades.
I was leaning towards Cat 5e for a while but with my wife still working for Sydney Children’s Hospital, myself doing a lot of online stuff and a growing young boy and his visiting teenage cousins we went with Cat 6. I chose this because we have a single story home that is on the large size (acreage style home) and cable lengths to some areas would be long. On longer cable lengths Cat 5e can suffer under high bandwidth load, but Cat 6 can handle it. Would have gone with Cat 6a but at the time there was a noticeably higher cost and would only be for future proofing as the majority of domestic routers would bottleneck the higher speed anyway - same goes for Cat 7, Cat 7a & Cat 8 when they come out. The extra shielding in Cat 6 and above was a factor too, helping to minimise crosstalk & noise interference.
Once you lay your cables (whether at build time or down the track) you’ve effectively done some future proofing anyway, as it’s easier to lay new cabling where there is pre-existing cabling in most cases. Especially if you get your sparky/cabler to install with conduit in wall cavities, etc.

Quick word on wireless - good for many things but too unreliable for some things. Watching videos, checking your emails or even playing online games on your Ipad or Notebook is fine if you are close to the router, but scratch online games and hi-res videos if others are on the same network also doing high bandwidth stuff (depending on your router & network setup). For MMO games drop-outs can be a major hassle and wireless does not provide a constant connection, as Citrix is very fond of telling my wife when she connects through wireless lol. If you are not gaming or using software that requires the connection to be constant however, wireless is fine for now. The reasons stated here are also why I hate the idea of wireless NBN installations, just call it wireless not broadband (as broadband is used these days). If you are looking for future proofing and adding future value to your property then lay cabling as soon as you can afford it. The price of doing so will only increase as each year goes by even as the technology improves and becomes cheaper - tradie rates have never tracked downward lol.

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No. Sounds unrealistically low - unless you can get mates rates.

Incidentally, a professional job will involve testing every outlet. That by itself takes time.

Expect it to be a two-person job.

I would suggest that if you do it at all then you should get economies of scale by putting in multiple outlets in a group at any given point. The effort in pulling cable for four outlets is not much different from the effort in pulling cable for one outlet. You will use more ports than you imagine initially so having the extra outlets is worthwhile futureproofing. If you have a fixed line phone then you can place phones around using the same cabling but that will suck up even more ports.

As others have suggested, cost will depend on house construction. If on slab, you will need roof access, which may be easier in some houses than others. The ease of drilling through noggins at the outside walls will vary.

I would avoid visible conduit. Looks ugly and probably won’t pass the “wife” test.

I don’t think there is a substitute for getting quotes but I do think that you will need to raise your cost expectations.

(Background: I’ve had cabling fitted retrospectively to two houses, both on slab.)

As far as WiFi v. wired goes, it is not “either or”. As others have found, WiFi range is limited and WiFi extenders can be difficult to get compatible and reliable (again depending on house construction). So you could use cabling to ensure that almost all parts of the house have strong WiFi signal even if WiFi is your main or sole means of connecting to the network.

As far as number of ports go, you can have as many switches as you want and they aren’t that expensive. The per-port cost on the switch is going to be a lot lot less than the per-port cost of the cabling. (At the high-end of design, it is better to have a smaller number of switches with a larger number of ports per switch than to have a large number of switches with a small number of ports each - but you are unlikely to notice the difference unless you are pumping some serious data around the house.)

However clearly there is additional hardware cost in either of the previous two paragraphs - so think about what you are really trying to achieve, and what your design is, and what your budget is, before leaping in.

As far as Cat 5 v. Cat 6 v. Cat ? and futureproofing … well, needing more than 1Gb/s would be a good problem to have. I expect to be dead before my internet connection exceeds that :slight_smile: - your mileage may vary. Today it does depend on whether your main network bandwidth is with the internet or within the house.

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Postulative, I have cancelled my NBN service (internet and VOIP phone) and my wife and I purchased Telstra smart phone plans (30gig and unlimited phonecalls and sms) so that our phones provide a hotspot to connect our laptops to the internet. Huge overall saving, better internet speed and no unreliable NBN dependent upon a heritage copper network and no house wiring. We live in rural SA. The point is that the NBN is simply not needed.

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Hi Baycreek,

what upload and download speeds are you achieving ?

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what upload and download speeds are you achieving ?

Hi Scott,
HonestyBox measured my NBN average around 25/10 Mbps (cannot remember the precise measure but it stuck in my mind as about 50% of the Telstra plan speed which was 50/20). The speed in the afternoon and evening dropped significantly and noticeably compared to early and mid morning.
I do not know how to measure what we are getting now through 2 phones however it is consistently fast but I do acknowledge that it only “seems” faster.
Also note that our data usage so far for the first 2 months has been just under 3Gb each

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Download a free app such as Speedtest on to your phone. Then you can use it to test your internet speeds and if you register, you can save your results to see what the pattern is over time.

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The guy from Optus came last Tuesday. Ran a cable down the wall upstairs where this PC is. I supplied the router to modem cable as he didnt have any !!! Efficiency ??

Its runng 45 - 47 most of the time on speed test. On Thursday last week no phones, dead as mutton - supposed to be through the modem - so ANOTHER cable needed from here to the phone downstairs for 5 or 600 bucks or more. So I just plugged in the old modem cable with the phone plug on its end into the modem phone point and the plug on the wall, Theres a chuff chuff chuff in the phone but nobody rings me so its a cheap fix, I presume Optus will bill me on my next bill for the cabling and the router.

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It is not an efficiency issue, it is what their job is. The NBN provides the final female plug that is the NBN modem or the wall jack, MTM dependent on which, and we are required to do the rest, including having our houses rewired when necessary :frowning:

For the VOIP phones, many will just plug in a multi-unit wireless base to the VOIP port and put a slave in the lounge and wherever. Others will do some wiring at their own cost.

The costs are a legacy of ‘government care’ without responsibility for what it wrought on us.

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I found that incredibly humorous, pertinent and disturbing - all at the same time …

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If they - what we laughingly call a government - want me to re wire this house for the phone they can F***ng pay for it. I have no idea what : For the VOIP phones, many will just plug in a multi-unit wireless base to the VOIP port and put a slave in the lounge and wherever. Means.

I’m officially an old guy, seniors card etc and dont care jack or his brother about phones. And I dont have the cash to wire from up here to down there so the phones will stay on the lash up I did. Nobody has rung me for 2 weeks so I’m safe.

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It means buy something like: Panasonic KX-TGC223ALS Triple Handset Cordless Phone | Harvey Norman

No rewiring required. That is the cheapest and easiest option (but not necessarily the best option).

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what upload and download speeds are you achieving ?

Scott,
With Telstra Speedtest measured 30/12Mbps for each laptop/mobile pair and 24mS latency. As much as I “love” the Telstra customer service this is good value - the household telecoms costs dropped from $320 to $98 per month for a better product (at this point in time of course).

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Why go NBN at all? Will it be feasible to avoid all this drama and the problems of the slowness and inconvenience and stay with Mobile? I don’t need a home phone, and with mobile I can use all my connectable gadgets anywhere in the house or away from it.

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Does it depend on:
How good the mobile coverage is in your home?
Who your provider is?
How many other customers in your area suddenly all decide to go mobile data only?
Are you a big user of data and streaming, or just after email and low rate browsing?
Can you run your AV and other updates at 1am?
Assuming your mobile device is also up to it?
And …?

We use mobile data as needed. With the luxury of Optus for our mobile services, and Telstra dedicated mobile data. Both 4G capable.

I posted some speeds elsewhere in the community earlier this year. Speed test in urban Brisbane, Newcastle and rural Glass House Mountains would say yes! Say goodbye to the NBN. Spot tests with average signal strength typically better the quoted NBN 25 speeds.

When we do not have ADSL2 both Optus and Telstra get a fair workout. We are yet to be disappointed downloading 100MB+ updates at ease.

On areas with good Telstra 4GX coverage Speedtest has hit 50-100Mbps download speeds. The best on Optus LTE this year, 143/37.6 MBps 19ms ping on 3Jan19 at 9:43am. Further from a cell the upload speed can drop dramatically, however I have consistent results of better than 100/5MBps with average signal strength on an iPhone.

While there is a congestion risk, Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone are all pushing hard in built up areas for customers. Competition may ensure they keep up. However with the NBN if what you get is not what you need, it is to your cost to upgrade, if at all you can?

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I just had NBN satellite installed with a “free” Skynet installation connected to Reachnet. I asked the sales person if the modem I purchased ( that they supplied) had any ports for Cat5 - I did not want to use wireless, my house is already cabled with Cat6. They told me it was wireless only - so I purchased some USB wireless adapters. When the modem arrived it had 4 ports available for connection and you could configure it to turn the wireless off.
The service is rubbish - In the two weeks I tested the system it was NEVER faster than 4G Optus (which is really s l o w – especially when its raining). I was told when I connected that the first month was free (after I signed up it was changed to the end of the month - two weeks - pro rata they said) and I would get 20GB peak and 30GB off peak (1am-7am) after two weeks the service was disconnected - mid session. No explanation or phone call. Downloads never went above 700k. I was told the system would get up to 12MBits but not even 1/10 of that. The service disconnects with no use and has to reconnect (even while your using the system - the drop-off time is too short) I tried all hours of the day and after midnight it was faster but NEVER over 700k - there were many times when it was less than 20k - dialup modem speed - so I’d go make a cup of tea and do something else. Tech advised me not to connect a voip phone because the service is to slow to support it. ISDN was (is?) available in 64k and 128k versions and this was a very capable telephone service. So NBN’s 12Mb service is rubbish. They can come and get they’re dish - I’ve gone back to 4G Optus and I’m now trying to get ADSL connected (then I’ll then have a phone service too). I live in rural Queensland and the community I live in is marked as satellite but all the areas surrounding me (1/2km away) are ADSL.
The tech told me they’re putting city customers on the satellite service when they have cabling issues and the like. Malcolm Turnbull needs to explain how he could spend 50 billion dollars to get a system slower than the one we had.

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If it makes you feel any better?
I’m still waiting for fixed wireless to turn up expecting the Forest next door will block it. At least we have ADSL2 and the option of mobile data, until the Forest has regrown some more and starts to block it too?

Not encouraging to hear how your NBN sat service has gone.

I feel a little better when I note from Queensland, that a simple bit of road in Sydney (WestConex) that started at approx $16.8b now has a $45.3b price tag. All that to serve just a few hundred thousand commuters in Sydney?

The NBN started with a similar guess and is up past $52b. Perhaps the NBN is not that an important a project with so little funding to service so many more?

Yes one is state and the other Federal. It is still money!
Both are user pays! Which one provides better value?

https://www.clovermoore.com.au/westconnex-real-cost

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27 posts were split to a new topic: Ethernet cabling, powerline adapters and Wifi

Contrary to my post above, I posted my connection experience at

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An interesting article regarding a small but fast growing RSP called MATE.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/company-news/sydney-twins-taking-on-telco-giants-with-nbn-plans/ar-BBVPjuB?ocid=spartandhp

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If you are still considering your options, there is the ability to get the installer to run the initial cable some 30 metres in your house as long as access is not difficult. If you arrange this then you could have your cable run to a central location in your house and any cabling done from there should be a much easier option in future.

Buy yourself a small cabinet (two shelf at least and deep enough for the modem/router) to put the modem in and make sure it is near a power point. Have the NBN tech run the cable to the spot you want on the wall and they will install the RJ45 outlet there and plug the modem in. If you haven’t mounted the cabinet you could put a small table (if no spot handy already) to place the modem on. Anytime you then wish you can get a cabler in to run cables to any point you want in the house. If you have easy access to either the roof cavity or under house you can easily run the cables you want to the various spots you want to install to. Remember to have enough spare cable both ends to ensure you have more than enough for the cabler to use to run down or up the walls to the connections inside your home. Recommendation for the cable type is Cat 6 but you can get away with Cat 5e, label both ends and optionally the middle of the cable runs so easy to identify which cable is which eg bed 2, bed 3 kitchen and so on.

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