A speech by Dr Mark Gregory (RMIT) about our NBN that will do more than shock you, you will probably want to cry.
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Thank you, mikebribie, for this link. Yes, I want to cry. Some really important insights for our internet-via-nbnco. Especially in relation to 5G, and the fact that Australia is now being put at the end of the queue for the next wave of international interactive applications which require low latency. Sigh …
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NBN satellite service is having lots of outages lately- every few days between 1am and 6am, and an “unplanned emergency outage” for an hour 6:30-7:30 this evening. Then there are the outages they don’t mention, when it drops out for a few minutes or an hour or more. It really is rubbish.
A tech from ANT Communications told me the TIO is getting so many complaints about it that they are doing nothing about them now - it’s just too much of a flood.
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aarrrgghhh, I’ve had no NBN satellite for over 12 hours so far today, it went off shortly before 6am with no warning… what a PITA it is!
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Just remember Gordon .It can only get better .
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Nothing is ever so bad that it can’t get worse.
– Gattuso’s Extension of Murphy’s Law
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I subscribe to Paddy’s Law which states Murphy was an Optimist.
Another update, I think I’ve mentioned before about the very long ping time making pages very slow to load, sometimes requiring one or more retries. Now a site I regularly visit has become unavailable via NBN satellite- I have to use my phone as a hotspot in order to access it! I think they have added some more items to the page, so since the last day they published a story in 2016, their pages wont load, I suspect due to the ~700ms ping times, which apply to each separate item on the page, and overall it just takes too long, so it times out.
As web pages include more and more content I can foresee other sites becoming unavailable in the future.
ATM I guess I can hotspot my phone for the several stories on that site that I read each day, but it is annoying to have to do that, and it has spurred me to to investigate other options as suggested by @grahroll in PMs.
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I complained to my ISP about not being able to access some sites, this is their reply.
From ANT Communications>>
It appears because NBN set up all long term satelitel customers on the one IP address, that when a website domain decide to block a person, if they are on LTS it blocks them all.
The only way around it is to contact the website either by phone or email and complaint about being blocked and see if they will unblock you.
Or you can install vpn software to change your outgoing IP so it lets you in.
ANONYMOX is one our customers have been installing, its an ADD on to Google Chrome.
Whether or not this is the problem with the site I can not access since late December (except for Monday afternoon, when I could access it) I dont know, but if the above is true, it sounds like a pretty dumb thing to do.
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Maybe there were too many complaints before the NBN was installed? Or too many enquiries about why some people were getting inferior solutions to others?
NBN emailed me for a survey 3 months after installation. Suffice it to say there were quite a few 0, 1 and 2 out of 10 answers!
The software detected that I was an unhappy customer and invited me to leave my contact details so NBNCo could follow up, so I’ll wait and see what happens.
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It is a classic play from the “mind police” handbook. You control all information and only put out that which is favourable to your cause and redact or censor the rest.
If 100% of NBN subscribers only read about how good it is how could they not be ecstatic regardless of what they are forced onto? 
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NBN: I live in a Brisbane suburb. December: took offer of connection to nbn from our current telco TPG. Booked in for HFC connection about two weeks later. (HFC is the old Foxtel/Optus cable circa 1990). First appointment: technician checks internal socket not used since 1990 and finds no signal. Goes out to exterior terminal box connecting with the power pole across the street. Cannot access terminal box to install new interior cable (or test street connection?) due to later fitting of exterior window blind. Conclusion: me to arrange access to terminal box, by temporarily removing blind. Blind fitting is on second storey window and heavy requiring two fitter than me persons on extension ladders. So: my problem. Rebook when its done! Would that job cost $200 to have done?Luckily tried accessing cable from the upstairs window and without opening, out came about 50 cm. I reasoned sufficient to connect to new interior cable via new terminal box. Tried contacting nbn and TPG immediately to confirm but no one interested. TPG:Just make sure there is access; rebook another two weeks. This time without lifting a tool other than phone, a different technician declares problem is cable from power pole sags too much, is too old and too long. Needs replacing, but again a two man job as its about 40 m of cable to string. This is nbn issue, not mine. But now our foliage including council tree is too close to proposed new cable line, so I have to clear foliage and rebook. The exterior terminal box not even inspected. Lucky I did not contract handymen to shift blind. So this time I emailed nbn with query: am I responsible for foliage? As in the case of electricity the supplier, Energex does necessary trimming as part of their regular maintenance. Its not my problem. Seven working days later still awaiting response from nbn before possibly booking with TPG a third try at connection. Meanwhile ADSL2+ speed seems to be more frequently frustrating than before HFC connections commenced in our area.
This is an interesting case from the USA, where Time Warner Cable is being sued for failing to deliver broadband at the promised speeds.
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Interesting read @BrendanMays.
In Australia it would require a well funded body willing to reach out to customers and do significant research on what was promised vs what is actually being delivered. Do you know of a body who might be willing to do that? (Nudge, nudge, 
, . Say no more.)
I’m not sure what percentage of users provide their own modems here in Oz, but most people I know didn’t buy the modem their ISP’s offered for sale when purchasing their package.
At the same time. I suspect that there would be similar findings here with the major carriage providers (who lease off bandwidth to the other ISPs) if just measuring promised speeds vs delivered speeds to the premises.
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It’s definitely an issue for CHOICE to watch
It looks like the ACCC is ready to weigh in on on this issue after a public consultation and widespread confusion about broadband claims.
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NBN failure in Alice Springs over the weekend, all customers for just over 24 hours. A single outage (northbound fibre) dropped the whole town off, and possibly others. Based on maps I’ve seen, backhaul paths go north and south with an eastern path through Queensland, so it’s not clear how anything less than local cuts north and south of the town would result in complete isolation. Based on the lack of information available and the scant weasel-words from NBNCo with an explanation that doesn’t fully stack up and conflicts with rumours currently circulating it seems there is more to the story. Luckily there are still many on POTS, but imagine if this happens when everything is NBN reliant …
Internode’s outage advisory:
Some NBN customers in Alice Springs and surrounding suburbs may be disconnected and be unable to reconnect to the Internet. Affected customers will be unable to browse the Internet or check emails.
Please note that affected Nodephone customers will be unable to place or receive calls.
A fault has been lodged with our network partner for further investigation.
Update 12/02 23:00:
Our Network partner confirmed that a Fibre cut in the area affected aggregate services. Fibre fault has been rectified and services are now online
From local ABC Facebook page:
Statement from NBN Co regarding the Alice Springs outage affecting 4,500 customers.
Media Statement
12 February 2017
Alice Springs notification of outage
The nbn network suffered an outage in Alice Springs last night and technicians are currently working to restore services as soon as possible.
It was an unusual timing of two simultaneous faults that caused the outage – one due to heavy rain in northern Western Australia, and the other because of a line error north of Alice Springs.
Technical experts have been deployed to both sites and we are hopeful of restoring services later today.
We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused those connected to nbn’s fixed line service in Alice.
Jill Bottrall
Corporate Affairs Manager NBN SA/NT
Apparently the cut in Western Australia was in Ravensthorpe, which doesn’t seem very ‘northern’ (it’s near Esperance).
Hardly a high availability network … if it were just Internet I’d not be too concerned, but when it’s soon to be all things comms its more than a little worrying.
Edited to add: interesting to see the NBNco Facebook page … lots of customer comments …
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I think I will investigate moving to New Zealand!
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