But the thing is NBN has to have offerings that can compete with 5G speeds.
FTTN is not up to the task, nor is using the old ex Optus cable strung from power poles.
FTTC and FTTP can, hence the “upgrades” to provide a proper fixed line service. I have FTTC in my street but have yet to convert from my rock solid ADSL which gives me 10mbps at all times free of other users competing on shared bandwidth.
Yes, I have thanks Fred. No change as of this morning. I still have the house end of our plot in the no FW service area and the other as FW. I’m too busy fencing and arguing with the barbed wire to take on the stress of going down the path of a failed FW install. Although the used scraps may be useful as tools of persuasion to some. From the advice of others in the community there are always options. How the NBN and it’s number one shareholder prioritise upgrades in rural areas? I’m not that connected to comment further. Equity however can be measured in many different ways.
It’s worth highlighting the exceptions with the NBN good and bad. Noting others in the community often share their frustrations with the service outcomes. Hope the outcome at Kureelpa is a good one. Not since they shut down the local tram has progress promised so much to such a small rural community.
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Sure - if you believe what the telcos are saying 5G will deliver. The reality is that 5G cannot and will not deliver the same bandwidth to the same number of customers as a fixed line - especially when that fixed line is a fibre optic cable, but also generally when it’s not. The 5G networks will stop at the same places the NBN stops because money.
I would be interested in seeing exactly what locations are getting this upgrade - and in which specific electorates.
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The key thing about 5G is that it is designed specifically to multiplex hundreds or even thousands of simultaneous users, or just things, per base station. Base stations can be very small since the frequencies used are hitting the millimeter wave band and antennas are small. There can be far more base stations than existing 3G or 4G all back-hauled by fibre…the same fibre being layed in streets by NBN. So, they have to offer competetive 100mbps speeds to users via wire. Simple. And that is what the telco experts were saying 15 years ago, and ignored by the science-denying liberal government.
They too were wrong?
The target now appears to be the magic “upto” 1Gbps speeds the NBN Co is targeting.
4X and 8X HD TV is well and truely upon us. The future is streaming not broadcast services.
More everyday use of Zoom, FaceTime, Skype and other forms will see users demand more than stuttering grainy Video and broken audio. Especially for that late night catch up at bed time. Why not QHD for the video cam. Many portable devices are now pushing that limit.
Fortunately 5G will also not be that solution, although it does have much improved capacity to handle more users connected at the same time.
The latest NBN Co smoke trail though will still leave nearly 5 million off the screen!
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Yes, but 15 years ago that was still a long way in the future - while 100Mbps was achievable at reasonable cost even back then.
I’m in the suburbs, and getting around 25-31Mbps on my 50Mbps plan. (Yes, I could drop back but I want whatever I can get.)
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I just noticed this clarification about the NBN upgrade. Truth may be stranger than anything a mere satirist could write.
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Will it be politician-grade gas or are they looking for something a little less inclined to leak?
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We’re not in the burbs. Like our 20+ near neighbours we have ADDL2+ that achieves around 12Mbps.
I could swap to the NBN FW service, available Feb 2020. I’ve chosen not to because there is no assurance it can provide service. And I’ve not the patience to deal with that scenario for the moment.
Sympathy sips. 
P.S.
The irony for all those nearby is only two hundred metres distant as the crow flies there are others on FTTN and less than 500m from the node or FTTC. The last option is most amazing as the FTTC services rural properties with a similar low density to our area.
Unlikely to be colourless and odourless whatever it’s properties.
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I was watching a black bird on the fence this afternoon as I was updating a rather outdated tomato shibby to a 20.6 freshtomato, and contemplating the latest (though still old, but newer than currently implemented) ‘richud’ on my Netgear DGND 3700 v1 ‘modem’ - to get the latest VDSL ‘blob’. Whether crow or raven, the subsequent speed test did indicate high 40’s out of the 50 plan, with nearly 20 on upload - depending on which of the usually questionable speed testers is in use, plus or minus a bit. This, in relatively the middle of nowhere … one would think if they can get the 'net to the geo-centre of Oz with reasonable performance they could do it anywhere …
The reality seems rather simple. There is fibre (as a backbone/bearer) available almost everywhere there are customers. Whether consumers can get a quality NBN service seems simply an economic choice by NBN Co of how much cost and how much people will complain (and be heard) - it’s not a question of capability in the vast majority of cases. Either way, the lowest common denominator seems to be cost against noise of displeasure.
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I live in the Hunter Valley in NSW and we were excited to hear the recent announcement that the federal government wants to upgrade the current NBN from FTTN to FTTP if someone requests a premium plan. Our provider knew nothing, so we asked our local member for the details. Apparently the announcement was just a vague ‘statement of intent’ that improvements may be made by 2023-24! We can barely get 30 mips download and we live 300 metres from the exchange! We would be happy to pay for premium speed, but this being possible is just as far away as ever! So much for the press articles about the improved NBN😡
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Welcome to the community @Maureencl,
I moved your post to this existing topic that is a compendium of ‘admiration’ for the NBN, historically as well as contemporary. Many of us feel similar pain to differing degrees.
The more recent posts echo your ‘substandard speeds’ are not unusual, and The Shovel’s ‘report’ linked above seems to be more news than satire these days.
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I live in Newcastle and TBH I do not believe for one second that we will get FTTP. Maybe FTTC if we are very lucky, but we wont get a full conversion to fibre.
BTW its not distance to exchange that matters. Its distance to the pillar. I’m about 400M to the pillar I am linked to, and the NBN cabinet which is where the fibre goes to and from, is near the pillar too… I can theoretically get (according to my modem/router) 100/40. I’m on 50/20 and on a good day I get 40/15.
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Assume by 30 mips, you are saying 30Mbps data rate? It does seem low for a fixed line connection.
What reasons did your Internet provider give for not being able to provide a faster speed to your property?
Are you able to share any other details re your service, such as the provider (RSP, EG Telstra, Optus etc) and type of NBN service you were connected to, (EG FTTN - fibre to the node or something different)?
Note:
One assumption in more rural areas and townships is that the NBN is served out of the old local telephone exchange. The NBN may not use your local exchange to connect your service. Sometimes the copper cable used to connect to a premise does not follow the shortest route. We have family who are within 200m of an exchange by road. But because there is a rail line in between their internet follows a more than 1,000m route. Fortunately the NBN installed a fibre node a couple of streets away on the same side of the railway line. The old phone line was cut and only goes to the node now.
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LOL. I’m about 50 meters from the node and pillar. But the line goes around the block. Back in dialup days a Telstra tech was able to tell me that.
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Our provider is telstra. We have FTTN NBN. We were originally with iinet but our speeds with them were even slower than they are now. We have complained about the slow speed on several occasions and have been told by the technicians that have come to the house that the problem is the poor quality of the copper cable that runs from the node to our house. We would be first in line to request a premium plan so that the NBN would need to replace the poor cable with fibre, which was why we were so excited about the recent announcement about the extra 4.5 billion for the NBN so they could do just that. But our local federal member put us straight. The announcement sounded good, but no one knows when or even if any improvements to the copper will actually occur or what areas may be eligible.
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If they told you that your copper runs from the node, they are lying. The copper runs from the old pillar (or whatever) that you were connected to for landline, prior to NBN. Fibre runs from the node to the pillar. And then on crappy copper, to you.
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In a rural area or small town it may actually run directly into a local demountable exchange hut. Mostly the NBN appears to have located the nodes next to a pillar. Technically there is a small difference in distance, but it is insignificant. Note there are always exceptions. Our copper service has two pillars or a pillar and in pit service connection according to the ADSL cable report. IE 3 seperate lines from the exchange. FTTN customers may still have an intermediate pillar or other between them and the NBN node used for the service.
The node is the large grey-green cabinet, and the pillar the round thing to the left. My primitive understanding of the connection procedure. The NBN pre-installs a copper cable between the NBN node cabinet and Telstra pillar. As each customer is changed over to the NBN their copper connection leading back or into the exchange is lifted. The service connection at the pillar is replaced using the short copper link previously installed from the node. There is no fibre between the node and pillar.
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Correct the fibre connection is to the Node, the Node contains the VDSL modems that connect each premises to the Fibre in the node. From that VDSL modem to the house is copper and this terminates at the VDSL modem in the house, or more correctly for FTTN at the first connection point in the house which the household VDSL modem plugs into.
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OK, I shall bow to your greater knowledge. I have a pillar between me and the node as does everyone else that I know in Newcastle. Perhaps they dont bother wth Pillars everywhere else. They were already in place here, prior to the nodes being installed. Also, I know what a node cabinet looks like, dont need assistance to identify it. Thanks.
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