Nothing But The Best Most Credible NBN Rollout

Not that I mind, but my house was supposed to be connected to the NBN HFC about a year ago. It was in the too hard basket and got deferred. They fixed a blocked conduit and put April 2018 on their map, then went missing.

I and my neighbours recently received 16 October availability dates and the sales pitches from multiple RSPs rolled into our post boxes yet my HFC connection remains future tense.

Curious, I sent an email to NBNCo to ascertain when that minor problem might be addressed and the reply is December 2018, subject to change.

The three stooges come to mind. Not sure if I am lucky or late, but know that when the NBN is available their 18 month clock starts ticking to disconnect that which works fine, albeit slowly. That 18 months might be my 16 months or even much less.

I am so thrilled to be getting done over by NBNCo. Truly. The concept of farcical comes to mind. Still wondering if I am lucky or late though. How hard is it to do on the third or fourth scheduling go?

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It might be polite to suggest lucky. I have a similar feeling.

I might add one not so great observation about that being left behind feeling. Our local Sunshine Coast hinterland exchange is now providing FTTN services to all its surrounding streets. There is at least one node at the exchange. The exchange had some major disruptions in Jan/Feb which upset our ADSL service. The guess is that was a step related to the fibre connection locally. Our ADSL service has not been the same since - for the worse.

It’s reasonable to expect backhaul at the exchange should no longer be an issue. Noted our copper line comes through the same conduits as many of the copper lines now being swapped over to the node at the exchange.

One simple outcome is that as ADSL and VDSL now share the same conduits there are cross talk or other issues. The NBN does boast the two are incompatible, however for up to 18 months the two do coexist. The other option is that our ISP has both ADSL and FTTN customers on the one back haul and we are still congested. That the connection slows or drops down the connection speed reported by the modem outside peak times is worrying.

Our happy ISP has tried to disarm my concerns on three occasions since. The final pert reply was something to do with it only being a fault if the landline became unusable, or we saw a consistent internet speed of some number less than 1Mbps.

The HFC connection to our place in Brisbane is also on its 4th due to connect date. It has moved back progressively 15 months. In true NBN Co stupidity, the fibre to coax node is 140m approx down the street. We have never had coax to the property or complex. They’ve run a brand new coax to the complex and used a splitter on the end of one cable to feed five! It makes you wonder how little they saved compared to a FTTB solution. In particular given they have needed to cable individually to each unit compared with a single connection point.

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The faint hope would be that we get a Government who changes the preferred method of connection to something closer to FTTP eg FTTC and ditches any remaining less desirable outcomes regardless of existing contracts. That hope is very faint indeed.

The fact that in one case they used a splitter to feed five on HFC is not unknown or surprising and as HFC is indeed a shared bandwidth source of internet ie all on HFC in an distribution area share the same cable, then it is no different to having 100 houses all with their own connection to a single cable running past their houses. This is part of the issue with HFC as it was with previous cable…the shared nature of the resource.

In the end the NBN no matter how you connect is a shared resource but HFC bites harder if you are in a densely populated area all using the same cable to get to the NBN main infrastructure…you get congestion in your local area even if more widely there is more than enough capacity to have no real congestion.

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Monty Python; the Keystone Kops. :expressionless:

I read somewhere of an installation finally taking place after 25 missed appointments. Satellite, I think.

Yet the electorate still believes that this mob are the better managers! :roll_eyes:

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It’s the sort of thing that Gilbert and Sullivan used to put music to…

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Doubtful Gilbert and Sullivan would be interested. They only do happy endings.

Finding a cast that can all sing in tune might be an even bigger ask. :joy:

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FTTP, FTTC, FTTN three little maids are we…

A genuine three-act Farce.

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Possibly, but we don’t get it?
We are still waiting for the a Fixed Wireless Farce or Skymuster Line Dance.

More seriously it’s all about the FW towers and how the NBN justify just one more to serve around 75-100 premises they dropped off the fibre roll out. How do I know, I don’t. It’s a wild guess as to why as a group we are now the odd one out in our area. The planned FTTN, FTTC and FW towers in the area are being enabled. We are exceptionally a Q1 2020 delivery date with a still planning status. I don’t have the interest to chase the NBN for a better answer while I still have an ADSL2 service, even if it is temperamental.

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I did not want to start another NBN topic since there are already so many, and this looked like a decent one to add NSW going its own way in some regional towns. Will it be credible and priced right, and about those taxes? Let the partisan posturing begin.

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A reasonable topic to add this since it reinforces ‘nothing but the best’ for us. Artificial deadlines and politics once again win the day over doing something the right way, or even just better.

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Drum roll, where to add this. Is it satire? No it is this mornings news.

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This is called ‘water into wine’: what is necessarily bad supported by them becomes good when supported by us.

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$3.5B NBN Upgrade to the NBN to be announced by the Minister a Paul Fletcher.

Misdirection?

Firstly the Government is not spending $3.5B on consumers. The NBN Co has arranged a commercial loan for $4.5B from the open market. So that is where the $3.5B is coming from.

Second point is who made the initial decision? The management of the NBN Co or the Minister? Why is the NBN Co Senior Management not making the announcement? They are after all now supposedly able to stand in their own two feet free from the need for more public funding.

Third point. The release says as a result 6 million Homes will see speeds of up to 1Gbps (1,000Mbps) vs the current mandatory minimum of 25Mbps.

The ‘upto’ catch cry is also worthy of caution.

Missing is a reality check with a before and after table listing the maximum speeds available to all customers today without the upgrades and the individual improvements for each customer after the money is all gone. I’d rather see a plan for those who genuinely can’t get reliable service at 25-50Mbps to get them to 100Mbps. Includes those with none. Although the more customers the NBN can get off satellite and Wireless the better it might be for those remaining.

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Our daughter lives in Kureelpa in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland and they were told that the NBN was only being rolled out up to the other side of their road so they would not be able to get it.

There are now NBN signs all around the area and the NBN website now shows that their property is slated to have NBN available in Oct-Dec 2020.

Talk about a turn around.

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Most unexpected, (not).
Although Kureelpa has NBN Fixed Wireless and Satellite coverage. Assume that road is now getting a fixed line service upgrade, or is there another FW tower going in? The rest of the community will be jealous if it’s the former.

P.S.
My brother is most amazed. They’ve not that long ago run power past his place just up the road a bit at Gheerula. Only single phase though. He’s still waiting for mobile service to be accessible. Something about living in the hinterland instead of on the Mooloolaba water front.

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Straight from the horse’s mouth.

"#### Learn more about your address

Planned to be available from

Oct-Dec 2020*

Note: Some premises may require more work before they are ready to connect.

Planned technology

nbn ™ Fibre to the Curb (FTTC)*

Learn more about nbn™ FTTC

Construction stage

Build commenced"

The other side of the road already has fibre.

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I’m not doubting what is happening @Fred123.

I’m just amazed re the other side of the road. Other than high density urban areas the phone lines typically run down one side of the road only and pass under (over in the old days) to serve customers on the other side. That’s how our 35yo copper was installed.

The other interesting obs is that Fixed Wireless was not provided as an option. Our happy road at the other end of the hinterland has two options. Fixed wireless or Satellite if you can’t connect to FW.

Kureelpa is a great location, but hardly a metropolis. I can only marvel as you point out at the inconsistency in how streets and properties have been assessed for NBN service.

Point of Comparison:
The greater number of my near neighbours are rusted on to Telstra and Foxtel. A reasonable suspicion is Telstra are happy to leave things as they are on ADSL from the local exchange, continued high profit margins assured. The NBN FW alternative a loss maker for Telstra, we’ve received no letter box drops pushing to convert or threatening loss of our phone if we don’t. A very different situation to that we experienced in urban Newcastle and Brisbane last year.

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Have you checked your address?

Perhaps you may get a surprise.

Cue ominous music from Jaws. 25mbps on fixed line is way less than what should be available with 5G wireless coming in the near future.

Crunch, snap, gulp. Depends where you are and your wireless signal. I am in a metro area only 1km from the towers but shaded by a hill. My mobile service is often unusable in most of my house - I need to walk around or sit by a particular window, and the data goes from 4G to 3G to HSPDA quickly… then my mid-range moto G can be balky if I am not judicious in what and how I am using it. Expecting wireless to replace physical connection can work a treat, or it can be a careful what you wish for or think you are getting, case by case.

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