Australia doesn't want 100Mbps Internet, says Turnbull
Saturday, 7th August 2010 - ARN
High-profile Liberal MP, Malcolm Turnbull, has slammed Labor's National Broadband Network Policy in impassioned comments to a Sydney audience, describing it as "a gigantic torching of taxpayers' money" and claiming most of Australia doesn't want 100Mbps fibre internet.
on 08/08/10
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on 03/09/10
One thing both sides should look seriously at is the cost of ownership - if you have an ADSL modem failure in the 'city' it will cost you less than $100 to fix (by a new one) with 2 way sat, it starts at about $600 and can easily cost over $1000, because there is a policy of replacing both modem and power supply in the event that one component fails (IPSTAR/SKYBRIDGE/SKYMESH). Hardly equity of access for those on the pension or low income!
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on 09/08/10
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on 11/08/10
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on 05/10/11
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on 09/12/11
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on 31/10/10
Also - if your worried about paying your internet, then how are you going to afford the $100 + for this fibre network they are creating? Companies will be charging this, wireless will go up and become less useful as telstra and co move their sights to maximizing profits from the NBN setup.
Finally, if anyone who is a home user can honestly tell me why any household requires greater than 15mb/s connection I will agree that the NBN is worthwhile.
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on 01/11/10
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on 10/12/11
all you need to do is ring saying you will go to optus and you will get it cheaper.
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on 26/01/11
I remember when the first 9600baud modems came out, and it was wow-wee look at this speed! That was 1/5th the speed of dialup.
One thing that will come with faster broadband.
=> Better Productivity due to more powerful information sharing within business, between businesses, and from business to customer.
If you don't believe in better productivity due to information sharing, then dump your iphone, your blackberry, your internet, and go back to using dialup at work.
In fact - why not make Liberal Party Headquarters PROVE their point, and switch EVERYTHING to wireless internet?
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on 28/01/11
What all this means is impractically slow source code check out times from our Norwegian secure servers, lost packets and half loaded web pages of technical data and of innovations in the software industry, and God forbid I need to download a prerelease SDK or OS from Apple (5+ GB a piece, often at least one a month). Wireless internet beyond basic email checking and web surfing is a joke.
Lucky for me, I generally make use of my mobilty and *leave* the country, spending my income elsewhere in places where I can do my job properly (US, Europe, even Brazil), which thankfully I enjoy. I am just thankful for this mobility because I doubt I could do my job properly with Australian internet. I'm just going to have to leave until the NBN is completed.
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on 08/02/11
I'd take the 50-100 Mb/s in the hope I could wring 15Mb/s out of it! Trouble is....not in proposed NBN coverage, Wireless unusable too close to city for Satellite scheme.
I run my business from home and have two uni students at home. We have to co-ordinate our internet usage to get by. At times I can't even do Skype on voice because my upload speed is rubbish. People overseas don't understand that our internet could be so crap.
Turnbull hasn't a clue!
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on 06/04/11
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on 02/05/11
Regarding your comments about wireless networks - it's not possible to improve the speed of Australia's wireless network infrastructure without significant investment in the fibre-based infrastructure currently in place. That is established fact. The Liberal plan would not achieve its stated goals because of the lack of necessary fibre-based networks to support it.
Regarding your comments about household users - this isn't about what speed is required today by the general consumer. This is about providing infrastructure that will serve Australia for the future. The rest of the world, including 2nd and even some 3rd world countries (!), deliver faster internet to their population - already up to speeds of 50MBps and above. What's the consequence of that...? Software and media developers around the world are already beefing up their content so that internet connections require these higher speeds being delivered in Europe, North America and Asia. Your argument is the equivalent of saying in 1995 that speeds of 1MBps were unnecessary - and that would've been true at the time - but now those kind of speeds would be very limiting, especially to businesses. In a matter of years, speeds of 50 MBps will be necessary to deliver mainstream content, let alone to served business capabilities and specialist content.
The basic fact is that Australia needs a high speed fibre backbone. We are already lagging behind the rest of the world and will be left behind very soon without the NBN.
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on 07/05/11
Name them.
"We are already lagging behind the rest of the world ..." -- document your statements, please.
This is a specious statement. The rest of the world includes all of eastern Europe, all of the Americas, all of Africa, all of Asia.
Korea is fastest, but "the rest of the world"? Japan is generally slower than what we get here. I grew up in Japan and my cousin David, who lives in Yokohama (Japan's 3rd largest city) can't even get ADSL. He has to settle for dialup. I travel frequently to the USA as well as Singapore (faster, but it is a city-state, not a country in the generally accepted sense of the word). Fewer than half of my friends & in-laws in the US have ADSL, let alone ADSL2+ (my wife is American and I went to Uni there where I worked at the Thomas J Watson Research Center at Yorktown Heights NY -- IBM, WAY back in 1959 & 1960).
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on 10/09/11
And don't tell people that they should document their statements if the best you can come up with is some half baked crap about your cousin. The only theory your "evidence" supports is that your cousin David doesn't know how to find a decent ISP.
on 16/08/11
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on 10/09/11
Reasons why households require greater than 15 mb/s include the fact that you would be sharing that 15mb/s with everyone else on your local exchange line, so the actual speed would be more like 1mb\s (sound familiar?). Where as fibre optic has room for millions of customers to receive the same fast speed consistently.
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on 24/09/11
I personally am a teenage computer gamer. Now you can go ahead and laugh your heart out at me thinking that I have a say in what goes on and should be heard. BUT, my generation will be the first to benefit greatly from this, and so for the love of god DO NOT SCREW IT UP FOR US. We have to put up with all the rubbish in the world too, and when you think about it this amount of connectivity will allow Australia to stray away from the City model of tall towers for each company with hundreds or thousands of workers per tower and move onto a more sustainable world. Imagine if a City was an expanse of greenery and small structures, with the bulk of the actual working below ground. All that would stick up would be apartment buildings, except by using angles and curves these could appear to have minimal effect on the landscape. All because of a higher internet speed removing the office building...Don't think for the present.
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on 12/12/11
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on 01/11/10
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on 25/07/11
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on 09/08/10
Good onyer mate :)
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on 09/08/10
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on 01/09/10
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on 09/08/10
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on 09/08/10
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on 09/08/10
If the Liberals win, this countries technological development will stall. First the internet, then digital TV because "no one wants HDTV" and "Digital TV is a waste". Then it will be "No one wants electric cars" because "It costs too much money to go installing the charging facilities."
What would happen if someone tried to invade the country? "Quick send the alert to the other side of the country and warn them!" -- "I'm trying sir, but the connection, its... its cut out sir!"
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on 12/08/10
Party..
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on 03/01/11
on 12/08/10
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on 12/08/10
Telstra's copper network is old, and it needs replacing. If we don't do it now, it will eventually need to be done later. Doing it now will keep costs down, and keep Australia on par with other Asian nations.
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on 15/08/10
Instead of complaining about the NBN which is $26bn over 10 years, why don't you go and complain about welfare that is $1.1 trillion over 10 years, or what about the other countless other expenses?
I'm sure they are a different case because they are spent on the average joe however.... Who is the selfish one again?
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on 16/08/10
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on 02/12/10
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on 25/01/11
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on 13/08/10
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on 16/08/10
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on 13/08/10
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on 14/08/10
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on 22/08/10
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on 10/09/11
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on 14/08/10
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on 14/08/10
Fibre is the ultimate, and it's the best choice when it comes to replacing Telstra's aging copper network. This shouldn't just be about a band-aid fix that's good enough for the next 10-20 years, it needs to be something that will last the next 50-100 years+. That's what this exercise is about.
Regarding cost, have you not seen some of the prices offered by telecos on the Tasmanian NBN? They are very comparable, if not cheaper than ADSL2+ plans currently on the market, so this argument is totally void!
e.g.
http://www.internode.on.net/residential/broadband/fibre_to_the_home/nbn_plans/
http://www.exetel.com.au/residential-fibre-pricing-tasmania.php
http://www.iprimus.com.au/PrimusWeb/HomeSolutions/FibretotheHome/
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on 07/05/11
I have never seen a proper cost benefit analysis published on high speed broadband (NBN), nor have I seen any hard data published on it. Voting Labor for a single policy is absurd. They couldn't run a tuck-shop, let alone the economy. And they can't trust each other -- just ask Kevin -- so why should anyone else?
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on 16/08/10
1) Try getting iiNet on Optus cable
2) The media (TV especially) is petrified at the thought of NBN, the potential is there for them to lose viewers in droves and for viewers to opt for alternate political and financial commentators. The vested interest shapes your perceptions
3) NBN will be subsidised initially, there are so many hanging out for a reasonable, stable, reliable connection (12-20Mb I would be happy with). that it will be economically profitable sooner than anticipated ( Cloud computing and online storage and back up for example )
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on 03/01/11
Who wants to wait 20 minutes? I could drive around to the DVD store in that time!
I REALLY WANT THOSE SPEEDS!
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on 25/01/11
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on 14/08/10
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on 14/08/10
Regarding download limits, again, a lot of Australian's visit websites that are hosted in the US. To get the data over here you need to have expensive undersea cables. Asian and European nations don't have as much need for this, as most sites they visit will be in their own country.
That's not to say things should not improve, and it seems slowly but surely things are changing.
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on 15/08/10
Add the populations of Melbourne and Sydney together and you are not far off half of our population already....
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on 07/05/11
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on 10/09/11
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on 14/08/10
and if you would like to view my speed the link is below
http://www.speedtest.net/result/914428845.png
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on 14/08/10
As for price, as I posted above, NBN prices are on par and cheaper than current Cable and ADSL2+ pricing. It really goes to show you how much cut Telstra take out of most internet connections, no matter which provider you are with.
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on 23/08/10
Pauly, how far from the exchange are you? I've never seen over 5mbps in Western Australia on a regular adsl 2 connection. In Pt Hedland 1km from the international exchange between Australia and Java i tested my line speed at 2am in the morning to be 2.5mbps on ADSL 2.
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on 15/08/10
I am one of the lucky ones on ADSL2. I sync at TWICE the average sync speed - at 18Mbps, and I get half the speed you do.
Please, spare a thought for those stuck on speeds
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on 16/08/10
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on 08/05/11
Mirror: TPG
Data: 3 MB
Test Time: 11.49 secs
Your line speed is 2.13 Mbps (2132 kbps).
Your download speed is 266 KB/s (0.26 MB/s)
i'm paying around $50 a month for that speed and i live 4-5 hours away from sydney, are you saying that my speed (or worse) is perfect for everyone not glued to sydney or the other major capital cities? You should try watching qanda, they had great examples of why we have rural australia and why they need a fair go too. Or are you going to just tell everyone to move to the cities, stop farming stop mining and let us all starve away
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on 21/05/11
Mirror: TPG
Data: 3 MB
Test Time: 2.41 secs
Your line speed is 10.16 Mbps (10165 kbps)
Your download speed is 1.24 MB/s (1271 KB/s)
this is actually not bad for someone who wants to download normal stuff like movies, but i am a gamer, and this speed sucks. i have been to US and they have special internet connections for gamers with less data plan and super high speed for almost same price range. i think Australia should have some such provider and have the required infrastructure.
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on 15/08/10
For those experiencing fast speed right now? Do you think that you will be the only ones using the internet? Do you really think that you will get the same speed as more and more people use bandwidth intensive application? Do you really think that you have a dedicated line to all the websites that you want to connect to?
More users and more bandwidth intensive applications means more bandwidth needed! Will you still layout more copper cables? 5 years from now, imagine how many people will be whinging because of slow internet if we still have the same infrastructure as now? HELLO!
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on 15/08/10
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on 16/08/10
Countries with widespread Optical Fibre Networks are in areas where housing is vertical,i.e. high rise buildings, or, have a small spread on the ground.
Also who is going to have a 100Mbps Internet connection, and the ensuing security problems; Malware can spread instantly throughout Australia with this kind of speed, and the lack of Education in safe secure computing. Even in Government !
So, what i'm reading is people in outer areas have slow Internet access to WWW. People in major cities are catered for, and will be even more so.
Before anything is done the Government, if it is Labour, as the Coalition seem to have opted out, should get a census on who does what online, and why they feel they need a better faster connection. Only then will we know what areas to target, and what speeds are required plus what technology should be used to remedy such, whether it be wireless, or copper. It's a general practice to run copper from exchanges to nearby users, not over thousands of miles.
Also with the advances in technology you can certainly bet there will other Internet technologies available even before the NBN is completed. I even doubt Technicians, Politicians, and Business could agree as to the infrastructure of such a Network.
As Christopher says,
on 14/08/10 "Lets be reasonable people. Australia doesnt REALLY need 100mbit internet, an 8mbit connection is fast enough to do all of your needs, and even so Cable is capable of reaching 100mbit. The cable network should be expanded, rather than replaced by NBN. Telstra's turbo plan (the slower of the 2 cable plans), is fast enough to download a movie in about 10-20 mins, anyone who REALLY wants NBN are saying they want the movie in 56 seconds."
Wont these super fast speeds just cause more problems with piracy, and malware ?
Heck, I understand if you have dialup speeds you need a better option obviously cos the Net just doesn't work at that rate, but 43 billion dollars for all Australians to have 100Mbps Internet connections, yeah, pull the other le3g, the Ukranians would take it over in an instant !
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on 07/09/10
We build a new house in a new area which cable isn't available to us. ADSL only able to offer under a 1mbs. With ADSL2+, it only able to achieve 2.4mbs. Do you think I don't need fibre?
You guys able to have 30mbs or at least 10mbs and pay the same amount as I pay that's why you guys keep saying you guys doesn't need it. But how about others like me. You might thought i'm in the country but actually i'm only 10 kms away from Melbourne CBD.
CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NBN. Please bring it on.
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on 16/08/10
oops EDIT:"It's a general practice to run copper from exchanges to nearby users, not over thousands of miles."
I meant "Fibre"
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on 16/08/10
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on 18/08/10
'anyone', who earns $1.2m pa from the private sector, then switches to parliament for the lush super package - doesnt speak for the millions of aussies who actually pay their own way.
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on 22/08/10
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on 02/11/10
They are rolling it out in major first, then rural areas.
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on 22/08/10
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on 02/11/10
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on 23/08/10
Is how on in melbourne ( Bigpond ) cable .
i have order it last week .
the hell whit 24 Mbps ADSL2+ any more / was only getting about 6 Mbps / whit TPG !! . .
Bigpond sad i will just about get all that 100 Mbps speed on cable ? .
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on 07/12/10
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on 24/08/10
The reason most aussie sites are hosted on US servers is because bandwidth here in Australia costs so damn much! You cannot find a hosting deal that even comes close to the deals you can get in the US.
Why, because Australia does not have a fast enough network. Take a look at the US for example. A person just like you and can host their own site/server from their own pc simply due to the face that their upload speeds are higher than our downloads speed in Australia.
Sure we can do it here but have 10 people hit your connection with a measly 1mbps upload speed and your connection will be at a standstill.
It's about time Australia got this much needed upgrade. Then maybe better services can be offered. Webhosting would be one of them. Webhosting in Australia would increase dramatically. This means more jobs as more companines would start up. In turn, less people would look to overseas for hosting servers, therefore more money would be kept here in Australia and not making some overseas company rich. The speed of the site would increase ten fold as the ammount of nodes needed to get to the other site of the world be next to none!
So Mr Turnbull, unless you know exactly what the Australin public want, don't you dare make decision on our behalf. As you really dont know jack diddly squat!
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on 24/08/10
Your off ya rocker mate! No matter what speed your connection is, it will not determin how fast malware, virus's, trojans is spread. That is determinned by the end user and what they do with their computer. eg, visit sites full of infections, download through limewire and other p2p programs, just to name a few.
Malware does not just sit in the cable waiting to be pushed down the line.
"Wont these super fast speeds just cause more problems with piracy, and malware?"
Simple answer, NO! It will be no different from what it is now! If people want it, they will do it!
What the NBN will do, besides what has already pointed out within Hospitals, Schools and GP's, is it will be able to provide better services to the Australian people. As I mentione in an earlier post, webhosting is just one service that needs to be worked on here in Australia. IPTV could be really taken advantage of. It could be a cheaper alternative to Foxtel and Optus TV. More shows and movies could be offered instead of this crap we have to put up with on Fox and Optus being repeated over and over again. Access to overseas TV shows and news on demand.
More IPTV companies could be set up, again creating more jobs and keeping more $$ within Australia.
Better conference calls could be made with clearer voice and better cam images, benefiting Australian companies by being able to communicate at a much higher standards both within Australia and overseas companies.
They are just a few benefits of the NBN. I could keep going on and on but Im sure by now you get my drift.
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on 25/08/10
If only for the NBN, we need Labor!
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on 26/08/10
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on 30/08/10
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on 31/08/10
There are many other countries that are rolling out fibre, including our friends over in NZ.
At this stage, wireless will only be good to supplement fixed line connections.
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on 01/09/10
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on 05/12/10
"Inherent Limitations
WiMAX cannot deliver 70 Mbit/s over 50 kilometers. Like all wireless technologies, WiMAX can operate at higher bitrates or over longer distances but not both. Operating at the maximum range of 50 km (31 miles) increases bit error rate and thus results in a much lower bitrate. Conversely, reducing the range (to under 1 km) allows a device to operate at higher bitrates.
A city-wide deployment of WiMAX in Perth, Australia demonstrated that customers at the cell-edge with an indoor CPE typically obtain speeds of around 1–4 Mbit/s, with users closer to the cell tower obtaining speeds of up to 30 Mbit/s.[citation needed]
Like all wireless systems, available bandwidth is shared between users in a given radio sector, so performance could deteriorate in the case of many active users in a single sector. However, with adequate capacity planning and the use of WiMAX's Quality of Service, a minimum guaranteed throughput for each subscriber can be put in place. In practice, most users will have a range of 4-8 Mbit/s services and additional radio cards will be added to the base station to increase the number of users that may be served as required."
So WiMAX is the way of the future? Maybe in Swaziland.
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on 01/09/10
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on 03/01/11
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on 01/09/10
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on 11/09/10
Whoever said we don't is an idiot.
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on 15/09/10
Mr Turnbull and I are working day and night in our Kings Cross back alley labs to complete our flux capacitor, that will make all this 4G superhighway magic happen... just need another $6Bn or so.
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on 15/09/10
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on 16/09/10
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on 16/09/10
Distances from the Earth's surface to satellites, combined with the laws of physics, dictate that the latency for a satellite internet connection is never going to get even close to what a wired (especially fibre) connection is going to provide.
Satellite is capable of providing fast transfer of large amounts of data, but is terrible at transferring lots of seperate small bits of data in a timely fashion...
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on 05/11/10
Infrastructure expenditure is never regained. Imagine if we upgraded the roads to the standard they should be. We would be paying for it for the next 1000 years.
Wireless technology is good but is only capable of so much. Same with Wimax (read line of sight again). Scott points out below fibre to the node - that is probably a cheaper, doable solution for the shorter term and would resolve more immediate issues. Longer term, fibre to the home will be of greater benefit.
And Telstra.. get off your collective backsides and invest in more exchanges!!
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on 17/09/10
The fibre will cover us for the next 100 years or until quantum entanglement communications is developed. Guess which one is more feasible at the moment? Hmmmmm?
And yes, we do WANT and NEED the speed and capacity. "Don't want?" The same stupid argument were given for the current phone system over 100 yrs ago. "Whom would want or need a phone in their house? It is a device only for big business." Once again politicians can only see to the next 3 yrs, not the next 100 yrs. We, the people, can see beyond our own immediate wants and needs, and think of the wants and needs of our children and children's children. This is a development the we MUST HAVE, for now, for the future. We have asked for this to be done.
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on 19/09/10
well not all politicians see into the next 3 years and I think that we the people (judging by how 'we' voted) get spooked by short sighted negative politicians that stand for nothing and have NO big ideas .Funny how good ol Ben Chifley , who had the vision for Australia's future (and was hounded and howled down by the short sighted negative politicians), came up with the Snowy mountains scheme and was promptly shafted and turfed and when it started to take shape and it was time for the pollies to open the completed dams those same short sighted negative politicians took the credit for it
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on 24/09/10
I know other people who reside in other new housing estates who face the same congestion issues.
Now let's move on to Telstra's monopoly. A door-to-door salesman representing Telstra claimed that there were only 2 ports available and are being "reserved". To have one of the ports I must accept a $130 bundled plan on a 2 year contract or the port would be offered to the next house on his list (he even stated the house number that he would go to). After 4 years of having no ADSL this sounded like the only choice I had of having an ADSL internet connection.
That is all.
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on 15/11/10
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on 07/01/11
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on 24/09/10
1. Give Turnbull some credit for at least having been in the industry.
2. The Office next door to me got Fibre in 2006 - It was a Labor Senators Office !!!
I wonder if all the Pollies have Fibre already !
3. What speed do you think you will connect to the USA at with a 100mbs connection ? - I dont know exactly, but I do know it is limited by the capacity of the current submarine cables and I can guarantee you it won't be 100mbs.
4. How long will it take you, or your kids :), to 'Blow' your current download limit at 100mbs, and how much do you think it will cost you to upgrade to a new "1 terrabyte +" plan to cover it.
5. It takes up to 3 days to see a doctor in person at my local practice. How many doctors do you think will be waiting at the end of their new 100 mbs NBN connection to instantly take your call and give you diagnosis ?
6. If Korea, Japan and Singapore already have, (and have had for some time) ultra fast Internet - Why do our Pollies keep sayin that the NBN will open the way for new applications to be developed. - I would have thought that the above countries would have developed most of the applications already !
7. Do you think that the NBN needs to be a Wholesale Monopoly so that it can 'FILTER' and monitor our Internet useage? (Include VOIP).
PS.
Was it Bill Gates that said 640kb of RAM was enough for any home computer ?
(Only old DOS users need answer)
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on 26/09/10
Also if a government that couldn't put insulation in roof cavities without the waste and loss of life can be trusted to roll something out multiple times more complex then it will be a miracle.
Show me the business case then have a proper debate; the government has managed to turn this into political opinionated discussion instead of the informed and logical decision it should be.
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on 07/12/10
That was because people just went ahead and made a business of it for themselves. Most of which weren't doing it right anyway.
And the fibre can be replaced fairly easily.
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on 17/10/10
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on 31/10/10
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on 02/12/10
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on 19/10/10
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on 21/10/10
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on 22/10/10
Well I have been with bigpond wireless broadband since 2005, and it has taken all this time to finally get the latest ultimate modem, which now fianlly lets me watch u-tube videos etc without constantly refreshing or even for gods sake send an email with a pdf document attached of more than one page.
So the coalitions ideas that we don't need fibre, and pursue wirless technology
If we followed that path of wireless, how long before I can do simple things like X-Box live or down load videos or emails with large documents, unless you live next door to the exchange
10 to 20 years and by the the existing copper network would have failed and you won't even be able to make a phone call on your house line
Oh yeah I forgot that when the coalition sold off telstra, the money raised was supposed to go into a broadband guarantee to fix all these future problem
So the network should have been built way before Labout got into power
And I am a Liberal supporter by the way
Come on Labour and the NBN
Australia can't afford to wait for any more broken promises, from either side of politics
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on 23/10/10
Australia doesn’t want 100Mbps Internet(WHAT A JOKE)
Tony Abbott(WHAT Broadband) is Moron
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on 26/10/10
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on 28/10/10
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on 04/11/10
I saw inter-nodes cable plans 50000/2000 for 109$ for 200GB of usage that's not bad considering and if this new thing with Telstra keeps going prices will go down and usages will go up and upload speeds so don't whine about it it will do Au good.
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on 10/11/10
The broadband out here runs at dialup speeds all day every day. Except weekends and holidays, on those days you're lucky to even load up a simple page like the front page of Google.
We've called Telstra, we've complained to the council, we've even tried petitions, and no one wants to do jack about it.
Now the area, no sorry, I mean 3000 people and businesses are going to get an NBN connection, leaving the rest of us totally screwed.
The NBN is good, but they are doing it wrong and will end up just as stupid as the copper lines in a few years.
I can see it, once they have done the 3000 connections, they'll leave, come back in say 4 years and be like "eh, just put in some RIMs or similar crap and be done with it." leading to no ports and congestion on those areas.
What happens when you use too many double-adapters on a power point? It will overload, some crap is happening with the copper lines and it's possible it will happen with the NBN.
I should have voted for the Libs, at least they thought about Wireless, and as much as I hate Wireless, it's probably the best way to go - if done the right way.
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on 13/11/10
on 04/11/10
Libs do not get it if you live in rural Au you will get those cable speed no matter what and you don't need a phone line i have ADSL 2 in ballarat Vic i get about 400KB a sec and it cuts off and annoy me on a day to day basis."
i am same here in the hunter valley nsw. adsl2 and i just did the speed test at 365kbps and drop outs all the time (don't go with tpg!!). my mother lives in rural nsw on asdl (with telstra bigpond) and gets 7000kbps. go figure.
i dont care for a great deal of speed, i would just like a reliable internet service please!
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on 22/11/10
Meanwhile rural Australia won't be getting fibre-to-the-home, we'll still be stuck with wireless and satellite. Provided by the eeeeeeevil market.
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on 24/11/10
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on 24/11/10
*pause*
aaaaaahahahahahhaaha
Anyone rural who voted for Gillard based on NBN needs to not vote in future.
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on 08/08/11
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on 24/11/10
There are 11 electricity suppliers in NSW. Just sayin'
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on 03/12/10
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on 03/12/10
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on 06/01/11
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on 05/12/10
Any one who says that wireless is the best way certainly has not had to put up with it. Tonight, on my mobile broadband (I can see the transmission tower out the window) I measured a line speed of 101Kbs and 16 Kbytes/s download speed. Absolutely hopeless. The politically biassed commentators who are canning the NBN are doing a great dis-service to most of the Australian Public
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on 07/01/11
Wireless is getting better and better however it would never work as the primary connection.
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on 06/04/11
I PAY 100 dollars a month for an adsl 2 connection that delivers less than adsl 1 speeds because telstra is only required to guarantee that i receive above 170kbps. No matter what the promise of the plan they sold me was or what the salesperson and telstra assured me i would get. This is the case for 75 percent of telstra's adsl 2 customers (THEIR OWN FIGURES). Force these thieving lying mongrels to provide the service they charge for and refuse to provide because they are not required by law to and even our pathetic speeds will be adequate. I didn't say satisfactory, nor did i say competitive, merely adequate but shouldn't adequate at least be the first goal. WHY give the NBN contract to a proven liar and under-performer who takes every opportunity to renege on their promises and extort money for services they cannot even provide (actually plain refuse to provide because they can, but it's way more profitable not to)?
BY THE WAY if Howard hadn't been allowed to embezzle the 52 billion dollars he promised was set aside from the Telstra sale to guarantee that these services would be provided called THE FUTURE FUND for the purpose of guaranteeing his own super because he well knew the rest of us were about to get screwed, we would all be better off for it. Enjoy your retirement honest JOHN (in the US OF COURSE) on the ill gotten gains of a political career founded on the help yourself and do it with a backhoe liberal principals of government.
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on 26/10/11
How in the world in a fiber optic network a bad thing?It's so obvious when these politicians open there mouths they have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to Inetrnet infrastructure, so why make idots of themselves, why don't they do some research, it's really noot that complicated, it's a big issue and one we should be seeing bipartisanship on.
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on 03/12/10
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on 04/12/10
That is 20 meg download and 1 meg upload it's fine for watching movies or porn but useless to business for most purposes. You cannot use ADSL video conference or use the ADSL for off site backups, You cannot use it for any serious computer based business use. It is usless even for SKYPE or MSN messenger.
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on 07/01/11
The issue will be does the webserver you want to access which hosts the web site have enough bandwidth to cope with every household now having such improved speeds?
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on 04/01/11
A virus will come no matter what speed your running. BRING ON THE NBN I say......
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on 07/01/11
If you where Telstra and had this sitting in wings for the past few years would you go and spend large sums of money on infrastructure which the Government was threatening to take off you. I doubt it. The whole things a mess and no doubt it sucks to be where you are but NBN isn't coming to you anytime soon. Someone in the back blocks of nowhere will have a better connection then you. Then labour will get dumped at the next election and NBN might get scrapped again further delaying your pain.
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on 14/01/11
its funny i wrote on whirlpool on how far australia is behind and they deleted what i had to say about fibre optic, there is never going to be fibre optic in australia the goverment is full of shit and wont give australians anything, we are meant to be the lucky country wot a croc no wonder all the famous people dont live here in "australia" is crap when it comes to the internet,
you can get naked dsl 300Gig a month with iprimus for $65 stuff telstra its daylight robbery how they rip people off.
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on 04/01/11
Did Anyone mention SMART METERS, I Cant recall being asked if we wanted one. why cant wee have what WE the TAX Payer wants. ( NEEDS )
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on 06/01/11
If we were to go through each welfare benefit, tax break, and government funded programme and do a cost/benefit analysis, I wonder what would happen? Perhaps the next time MP's want a pay raise we do a cost/benefit analysis and refer the Federal Parliament to the Productivity Commission. I wonder if Malcolm will say such a payrise is "a gigantic torching of taxpayers' money" and something most Australian's don't want.
Now they have shown the NBN will be comparable to current ISP pricing the best we get from the Doctor No's (liberal party) now is that all this time the NBN has been designed as a fancy Video/TV station.
Come on Malcolm, Im sure that big mobile phone tower in Bondi Junction delivers great coverage to your Eastern Suburbs electorate, but the rest of us just want a fast, reliable, hard wired connection, so our country cousins don't have to rely on nobody being on the phone so they can connect the phone cord to the dial up modem and maybe get a 100kB connection, and the city slickers dont have a mobile phone tower every 5 blocks due to capacity issues.
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on 12/03/11
Well said.
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on 08/01/11
Turnbull doesn't speak for me, I am certain that 70% of the nation wants the nbn.
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on 12/01/11
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on 25/01/11
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on 13/01/11
Why would I want NBN? Mr Turnbull
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on 16/01/11
The speeds are great, even over long distances. I am now in an area where there is no fibre cable, so am stuck with ADSL2+ -- but we are right in the middle of 3 different exchanges. The fastest speed we can get is 600k/sec [4800kb/s]. That is because of the distance from th exchange. the biggest problem with copper wire.
When we were using fibre optic cable from Optus at our previous house, th exchange it was connecting to was nearly 30km away and the speed I regularly got was over 1300k/sec [10400kb/s]. That is one of the biggest benefits of the NBN using fibre optic cable. The distance from an exchange can be more than 10 times the distance when using copper wire.
Australia already has plenty of fibre being used. Queensland Rail has kilometers of it laid beside all their tracks for signalling. They are only using about 6% of the capacity of this cable. This same fibre could already be supplying high speed internet to rural communities, but there seems to be very few of the existence of this cable.
I have a wireless dongle; and agree with others on here, they are next to useless, except for lining the pockets of the wireless telcos. The Telstra wireless service is the fastest and most robust, but the speeds still suck.
The NBN will not make it any easier for the govermnemt to snoop on you. That can be done just as easily already. Every one filling out these comments has already supplied their IP Address; version of Browser they were using; Operating System version; range of plugins installed in their browser, and even the screen resolution you are using. So much for privacy.
Bring on a reasonable priced, solid service based on technology younger than most of the copper in the ground around Australia now which was installed not very long after WWII in most inner city suburbs.
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on 22/01/11
Why would I want NBN? Mr Turnbull"
? is a very good question. If you don't already have access to copper then it is most unlikely you will have fibre under the NBN as your location must be quite remote.
Your speed, if not connected to fibre, will only be nominal max 12Mb/s via wireless or satellite. This is what can be provided for very much less cost that the fibre to the home; which, if you are remote, you won't get anyway.
By the way, thanks to iinet, I have just recently had a free ADSL1 upgrade from 1.5Mb/s to a nominal max 20Mb/s. My Ozspeed test shows an actual line speed of about 10Mb/s. I live 4km from my local exchange which is in a rural location. The cost is $49.95 per month with 5GB + 5GB or I could upgrade to $69.95 per month for 50GB + 50GB.
What we really need is the business case to prove that it is worthwhile spending our kids future by bringing fibre to each home, in major population areas only, that are already serviced by nearby high speed internet facilities for important users such as hospitals, education institutions etc, in order to satisfy a few speed freaks that will spend their lives downloading and watching videos and playing online games.
There is more to life than that.
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on 24/01/11
1. NBN is coming to my area (Burrum Heads ).
2. I am regional, I do not have ADSL even though my neighbour has it because of telstra's pair gaining and there refusal to do any upgrades, this I may add is a problem that affects people in the suburbs not just regional .
3. there was no business plan when the Post Master General started to lay copper for the first telephones, who then 100 years ago envisaged the Internet let alone put a price on it.
The moment that President Kennedy said we are going to the moon, where was the business plan , who then could envisage that by the time you have gotten out of bed and read this, you would have used a dozen times the technology produced by that flight.
Yet the relatives of General Ludd insisted then as now it is all a waste of money and we are spending our kids future.
4. Lack of imagination will kill the kids future , for 500 years the world suffered a lack of imagination, it was called the Dark Ages.
Mr Turnbull has shares in a company that is investing in NBN and Mr Abbott could not careless about NBN in it's own right, he opposes it because it has been instigated by Labour
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on 24/01/11
Your incoherent rant about past events is irrelevant to our modern society and its expected standards of accountability. Even, if they were relevant, your selected events could be countered by a multitude of examples of the absurb waste of taxpayers money through a lack of foresight and planning.
General Ludd would be very happy that his relatives would want to replace the copper umbilical cord with a fibre alternative when the future is probably in mobile communications. Certainly the paying public are moving to portability at a great rate. With 'cloud' applications just starting, will the future need expensive fixed hardware?
In my opinion a fibre backbone and fast fixed wireless is the most future proof option for Australia. It is also expected to be significantly cheaper and not monopolised by the government. It will also cater for all Australians not only those who can afford fixed broadband and the commitment and premises that go with it.
But, of course, no one knows what the future holds.
Apart from your hoped for personal gain from the NBN, I wonder if a dislike of Telstra and/or your political leanings are relevant to your comments. If you do get fibre to the home one can only wonder what you will do with 100Mb/s (even 1000Mb/s) and 1TB, or whatever, of allowance.
I hope it will be worth your nominal $3000 tax contribution; assuming you are a tax payer, plus other and ongoing costs.
Good luck.
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on 25/01/11
You must not know much about the technology. Wireless is not future proof, and is no where near as fast as fibre.
Wireless is fine for home and office use, but when you start having hundreds of users connect to the same wireless access point, speeds will come to a complete crawl. If the Liberals win the next election, and can the fibre NBN, they may as well not bother with rolling out wireless, as it would be a massive waste of money on technology that is not up for the job.
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on 25/01/11
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on 26/01/11
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on 06/02/11
Would I like 100 Mb speeds? Yes
Will the NBN give the majority of people now slow ADSL, dialup and satellite 100 Mb? No
It will give people with fast access, faster access and not a whole lot more.
As one of the few sane people in this thread has alreqady said, if you can tell me a legitimate reason to NEED (as opposed to want) speeds in excess of 15 Mb, I'd love to hear them.
IF everyone in the country was going to see the NBN delivered to their door at a reasonable cost, I doubt that anyone could argue against that. If you people with dialup and satellite and no/slow ADSL think that the NBN will be giving you all 100 Mb speeds, dream on.
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on 09/02/11
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on 18/05/11
But yes I do WANT those things just like I want my internet. Australia is a supposed to be a first world nation and should be able to provide decent infrastructure with a decent internet connection.
Even if I could get the speed of 15Mb its not so great once you have to share that one connection with other people. I live in a Capital city within 1km of the exchange but yet I would consider my connection not acceptable for anything but browsing text.
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on 09/02/11
I need value-for-money ADSL2+ speeds. Now.
The complaints I see here about slow internet on their current plan are either about:
a) not getting what you pay for out of your current plan.
b) not being able to access ADSL speeds, let alone ADSL2+.
These are completely valid complaints, but these people don't need 100Mbps - they need to get value from their ISP, and their ISP needs the government to step up.
Turnbull is on to something: First, we need for every household to have access to AT LEAST 1500bps ADSL speed internet at AN AFFORDABLE PRICE. NBN 100Mbps is not cheap. Check out: http://www.internode.on.net/residential/broadband/fibre_to_the_home/nbn_plans/
As for NBN: I live in an area of Tasmania that was supposed to get NBN first. Still waiting; although NBN planning notices ARE up on my street. NBN at 100Mbps will take FOREVER to reach every Australian household. Do you want to wait that long?
I've been very patient with my current ISP (AAPT), expecting them to have ADSL2+ on-line here by now. Yesterday my patience ran out. My needs are modest, but my 1500kbps 10Gb plan has been "shaped" to 256kbps for the last 2 weeks! I am unable to work from home! I rely on that! How can they justify charging MORE for inferior ADSL service speeds? They have no NBN plans, so I'm switching to Internode ADSL2+ now, even though I have to pay an early termination fee to AAPT.
ADSL2+ as advertised is enough.
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on 17/02/11
Private enterprise would have solved this back in the 90s without govt spending or intervention. Now it is political football where politics shouldnt be, just like a lot of things.
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on 25/02/11
now my question is ... is Aus ready to catch up with the so called 'third world'.... or would we rather sit on our high pedestals and moan and groan ??? The world is moving on ... and I believe we should be a step ahead ...
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on 28/02/11
Regardless wifi is surely the answer for the last hop as most of the copper access network is beyond use by date and also Optic Fibre only lasts 15-20 years as well in the ground. Even less if overhead. To the Government - stop wasting our money!
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on 28/02/11
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on 05/03/11
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on 06/03/11
Show me a wirless service not fed by a fibre cable and ill switch to it.
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on 09/03/11
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on 18/03/11
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on 21/03/11
Maybe it was time he put the need of Australians ahead of his mates in Telstra
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on 25/03/11
Incidentally, the CSIRO has been testing the old analogue TV spectrum as a wireless internet channel - it does not slow/get choked with more users - just like a TV signal. Who knows what other new wireless technologies will come along in the next few years.
The NBN is ill-conceived and a huge waste of money. There are better ways.
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on 25/03/11
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on 21/03/11
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on 23/03/11
Show me 1 country with comparable people per Sq KM that has significantly higher broadband speeds available.
ADAM - would your friends be willing to pay $300 per month for FTTP?
Of course everyone would love Gigabit internet @ Home! No many of us can pay for it!
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on 25/03/11
My mother in Eudunda can get 1.5Mb/s connection speed, and that's 103km from the city, and that's considered insanely fast, unless you're paying a few hundred dollars.
The fastest internet connection I've ever seen in Australia is slower than any other in any other part of the world I've been to (Which is around 80-90 countries), so we need a significant improvement.
All this about people downloading movies and that instead of going to the cinema to watch them, if they get a fast connection. Guess what. I pirate movies all the time, even with crap speeds. But I'd never go to the cinema anyway. Look at America, or South Korea, who both have booming movie industries, despite fast internet.
It takes me around 2 hours to upload a video to Youtube on the fastest connection I've ever got from my ISP, and that's completely ludicrous. Maybe we don't need 100Mb/s, but we need at least 10Mb/s available cheap to everyone in the country.
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on 25/03/11
We are being left behind by Asian countries who are more digital aware than we are and I blame Telstra. Telstra did not wire up this suburb for high speed internet, what a joke.
So please, hurry up and give me choice, I'll put my money there.
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on 29/03/11
Sure Conroy and his offsiders talk it up as being great, but how many Australians really give a damn.
The fact is we live in a large sparsely populated country with large distances between the few capital cities. Not in a small relatively compact area with high a population density. Digging holes to run cables is yesterday’s way of doing things. The fiber that’s going to be centenary attached to the existing power poles is going to be wonderful, isn’t it.
If you want superfast broadband you should pay for it big time, not want the average Joe Blow / Pensioner to subsidize you.
I would like to know the percentage of the population that will "really" make use of the superfast NBN Mistake.
We are doing just fine thank with ADSL, ADSL2 and Wireless.
Australia doesn’t need to go further in debt for this extravagance.
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on 25/05/11
Our present technology is,like your views,a dinosaur awaiting extinction.
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on 29/03/11
on 02/04/11
on 04/04/11
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on 04/04/11
It is claimed by Telstra that 75% of the population live in Zone 1 ( the "totally satisfied"), in reality the percentage is much less as Telstra includes areas "that in Telstra's opinion and knowledge could possibly be installed".
This will not happen unless competitors express interest in installing Dslam.
Zones 2 and 3 consist of ESAs where there is no competitive infrastructure and a low
likelihood that it will be installed.
"Though we are instructed that Zone 1 accounts for approximately 75% of the population, the
reality is that not all Zone 1 ESAs have competitive DSLAMs and issues such as the inability
of service providers to quickly install new DSLAMs in exchanges because of Telstra’s
queuing policies and the large number of services connected via RIMs (about 10% of the
population) with no competitive access means that in reality true competition only exists in
about 180 ESAs or 50% of the population".
What does all this mean sealion?
NBN is needed to provide the the same service at a competive price to ALL Australians not just a lucky few
ESA -Exchange Service Area
Quotes - are from http://www.zdnet.com.au/story_media/339304519/ADSL2+%20price%20squeeze%20-%20Internode%20-%20ACCC%20(V3).pdf
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on 04/04/11
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on 09/04/11
And what about the stories that even though the NBN cable goes right past (through) the town if the population is below 150 they won't get connected!
Not ALL Australians have a hope in hell of getting fast broadband.
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on 10/04/11
So we took the plunge and joined Telstra, from day one we had issues, you could watch my internet speed drop as soon as the kids got home from school, to a point where it was at times worse than dial up.
I contacted Telstra and we went through the same old thing, lets test your line, have you got new filters on your phone, lets disconnect the entire phone and just try the modem.
K, I got so frustrated with them! Then we had a Telstra employee come out to my work and I asked him a few questions, it seems that the exchange we are on is just way to congested and that it is using old generation equipment, I questioned Telstra and said that they are not going to update the exchange in the near future – so basically they told me I’m going to have to live with it!
I support the National Broad Band, if it gives me a faster speed and will stop the monopolisation of Telstra I’m all for it!
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on 14/04/11
If you actually think Australian telecomunications technology is just fine, and we are doing a great job of keeping up with trends you need to pull your head out of the sand.
You could try having a chat with just about anybody from the US, Canada or the UK and Europe to know that that is just rubbish. Yeah it might be ok just now but give it a couple of years and it will be useless.
Its the old story with ludites like you......don't spend any money now on infrastructure just wait until it doesn't work anymore and then freak out. its just like what happened with the last drought, it wasn't until we had run out of water and were practically dieing of thirst that our governments began doing anything about it.
Bring it on (the NBN) we WILL need it in the future.
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on 14/04/11
If the higher management had pre-empted the nbn and upgraded their equipment
instead of being tight and provided reasonable internet to those without it ,and also
allowed for expansion (congestion controls),Telstra would have many contracts in place
and many people who wouldnt have screamed for the nbn.
Arrogance and pride can be a destructive attitude .
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on 16/04/11
I have just had my ADSL1 service upgraded to ADSL2+ at the bottom end of the Sutherland Shire in Sydney (where I own a house that my partner and children live at since we moved back from SA to NSW last year), and I'm not too pleased as the difference from the previous service (512/512 ADSL1) is not really all that flash. This is on a phone line that's less than 1 km long. My Dlink router reports 'theoretical' speeds with ADSL2+ of over 25000 kbps down and almost 1000 kbps up. Not seeing anything like that though. Roughly just over 100 kbps down reported by the speed test utility. It's highly likely that NBN fibre will be offered there in the next 5 to 10 years.
Compare this to where I rent at Wollombi in the Hunter Valley (my job's in Newcastle) and have a phone line over 9 km long. I get ADSL1 only and it never gets above about 800 kbps down and 300 kbps up. There will never be any NBN fibre in areas like that and broadband via satellite is way to expensive even with the subsidies from the fed government (plus anything interactive is impossible due to big lag times). So I'm happy to have a low-ish grade ADSL1 working on my 9+ km's of copper. BTW there is zero wireless signal from any carrier on 2G or 3G detectable at the house so that option is unavailable (I have a Virgin 3G wireless service btw that I use when at work).
Craig.
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on 19/04/11
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on 21/04/11
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on 14/05/11
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on 17/05/11
Australia is not a smart country, it is a dumb country and getting dumber. Where are the leaders of vision? Then again, would you expect merchant bankers and lawyers to have vision???
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on 28/05/11
But wait till you get the bill my friend... I hope your on a good income. Its not going to be cheap to use. Out of my range anyway.. I use adsl 2 and its fast enough for high speed gaming. What more could you want.There are great deals out there that are fast and as cheap as, and they dont use telstra. Dozens of countries out there dont have what we have and struggle to get on line for even 20 minutes, then they pay a kings ransom to do even that.Its absurd to say we are behind the times. WA has wireless internet that will give fibre a good run for its money, and for a fraction of the price. Fibre has had its day, its already out of date.
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on 28/05/11
technology that can give us 26 tbps (terabyte) using fibre and what are they putting down fibre
now oh its fibre
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on 03/06/11
Im in sydney, Im with TPG and pay a "whopping" /end scarcasam $29.95 for 500gb (could be on unlimited if I wanted to for the same price) broadband + home phone combo. ($60 total)
Now admittedly im not completely happy with an average 1.1mb/s download speed.
(would be more than happy with 5mb/s)
But for the price im paying I cant complain.
The only thing that would interest me in the NBN is a higher speed for LESS than im paying now for Unlimited or something like 500gb pm im on now for under $50pm retail.
Sad fact is from what ive previously read... that's not going to happen.
I dont want it if its going to cost more than im already paying.
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on 27/06/11
The NBN really needs to cut it. It should provide fibre for much cheaper than it is now.
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on 06/06/11
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on 07/06/11
You WILL be better off.
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on 26/06/11
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on 07/06/11
They use Turnbull
Sadly we have 60% goons and only 40% Pro NBN.
Lets Pray for the miracle...
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on 08/06/11
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on 08/06/11
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on 09/06/11
I am with Telstra because I am lucky enough to get cable. Whilst the advertised speed is less than ADSL2+ in practice it is MUCH better. Why? Well most vendors do not advertise the upload speed. Every ADSLx package I have seen only offers up-to 768Kb/s, my cable connection gets just over 1Mb/s upload. It's still diabolical that this is the best you can get and that there are no home packages that use upload as a selling point.
For most home users today it's all about downloading web pages so download speed matters. But for home offices and heavy users of social networking who share photo's, videos etc. upload speed is just as important. For example I use a VPN to connect to our head office in London - this means that I am effectively on the network there but with only a 1Mb/s connection. What would you say if your home network which probably runs at at least 50Mb/s was cut to just 1Mb/s ? Exactly. I would happily pay the same and swap my 20/1 connection for a 10/10.
In the future upload speed will become more important for more people. So will everyone stop talking about download speed and tell us about upload as well. An NBN that provides everyone with blistering download rates will be crippled if we can't upload at similar rates!
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on 16/06/11
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on 25/06/11
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on 26/06/11
When will we be getting Fibre Optic in the bay? Sooner rather than later.
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on 01/07/11
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on 05/07/11
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on 06/07/11
I have been on BIGPONDS wireless since ISDN shut down.(Nope they never gave me a cut off date, they rather I fight them 3 days before they tell me it is off but no alternative) Wireless not even close to the ISDN reliability.however it is if they look overseas. I line of site to the tower and have spent many bucks on antennas to get above low signal. How the hell can they connect this country on NBN and figure that is is cost effective. each carrier is going to dig in new services to my home then other carrier will dig in new to my neighbours and cut mine and others all the way back to a main junction. seems rediculous for such a cheep and simple solousion like wireless to be made give way to optic. Sure have major cities and centres linked by it and then the rest open to the waves. Sorry but how could this country get a priminister based on some optic fibre. anyway my wireless is down to 9KB at this time while i wait so far 2 weeks for a warranty replacement.. Take ya time Telstra. I have taken my phone and internet to a new provider. Cya .......
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on 07/07/11
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on 08/07/11
What you have to remeber is that wireless encoding technology is progressing at a fast rate. I can guantantee 100% that by time this NBN (via burried cables in the ground) are deployed in a few years, wireless will technology hanging of stoby poles will be matching the old burried speed if not more.
The conversation at that point will be something like "Why did we waist all that money on digging?" By then Taiwan (let's say 2019) will have wireless 1000MB (1GB) at cheaper rates. Maybe more, maybe less but definately cheaper than holes bug by unionised labourers. We will still be behind.
You CANNOT escape the laws of physics and economics. A population thinnly spread over a huge such as Oz are CANNOT have the same speeds at a cheap price. All of you in favour of a wired, taxpayer funded, soon to be out of date, NBN are not in touch with techn history.
Those of us who are think this whole debate is moronic.
The solution? Get the government to give incetives to private companies to deploy backbones that smaller operators can hang wireless technology off. In 10-20 years the speed of wireless will be in the 1000s of MB at cheap costs. We are better of hanging behind the curve and not digging and holes beyond the backbone network with tax payer money.
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on 11/07/11
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on 12/07/11
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on 13/07/11
To say "most of Australia doesn't want 100Mbps fibre internet" is just incredible.
How many australians has he asked?
Once in place it'll be there for the next hundred years. (Until something else better replaces it). Meaning Australia will be ready for the 21st Century. And it will create jobs and industry. My DVD player is already connect to the internet, giving me access to iView and 'pay to view' services, and that's with a 1Mbs connection. Imagine what will happen when it's 100Mbps. Imagine NOT having to travel for 2 hrs each way every day to get to work. You can have a home office and do it all from home, having to actually go into work only once or twice a week. (This excludes jobs that actually require a physical presence of course). Imagine the savings on roads, oil, and all the other infrastructure needed to get to a computer screen miles away.
And that's what our politicians lack, imagination. Most of them still think it's 1950.
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on 14/07/11
Instead we should figure out why private business is not providing proper service here (perhaps telstra ... former monopoly, still controls much ...) & remove those obstacles.
The right solution to a bad situation is rearely "more of the same".
PLEASE no NBN !
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on 17/07/11
bring me the NBN anyday
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on 20/07/11
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on 24/07/11
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on 25/07/11
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on 28/07/11
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on 29/07/11
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on 01/08/11
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on 25/07/11
This is a great country but there are more than a few out there who seem to think Australia can survive in the dark ages!
“Japan is generally slower than what we get here”. Are you talking about rural Japan? After Korea Japan may well be the country with the next fastest infrastructure.
“My wife is American and I used to work there in the 50’s & 60’s”. Well I picked my nose once while driving through France but that doesn’t mean I am up-to-date on their infrastructure.
“Fewer than half of my friends & in-laws in the US have ADSL”. Maybe because they are in the same age group as you and are equally blinkered in their outlook, or lack of ‘forward’ thinking?
Statements like this highlight some peoples resistance to progress / change. “No dear, there’s no point getting one of those telephony thingys, if anyone wants to contact us, they can write a letter.
That’s the problem with today’s society, people generally only think about themselves and rarely look at the future and what is needed for our children and their children’s children.
Jared wants other to justify to him why 15mb/s isn’t enough. Again, someone who only thinks according to their own needs and the now, rather than considering the future and how a lagging Australia will only slip further behind until we look like dumb hicks.
If you must have an explanation as to why 15mb/s isn’t enough right now, then consider this, average Aussie family, mum, dad, 2 – 3 kids, homework, social networking, music, home business, research, streaming TV, music, internet communications with friends and family overseas, are but a few other the uses you might expect in any one day.
Let’s not forget, contention ratio. The further from the exchange, the quicker the speed drops off. Add a few neighbours hammering their connections as well and your speeds drop off further. Like many here, I pay for ADSL2 and get nothing like the speeds I was expecting and unlike you Jared, I can and often do more than one thing at a time, including the time spent using my internet connection.
Ashley pointed out that the NBM was about providing infrastructure for the future, that’s Australia’s future we’re talking about.
Before the tractor was the horse and plough, well Ashley also hit another nail on the head...Australia is already lagging behind. We are still the horse and plough to most other countries Tractors and should have begun work on a NBN 10 years ago.
Consider this, we need to best possible infrastructure now just to try to ‘catch up’, not keep up. By the time the NBN is in, other countries will be considering their next move.
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on 31/07/11
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on 08/08/11
A UK teacher's conference in 1815 was reported to have said "Students today depend upon paper too much. They don't know how to write on a slate without getting chalk dust all over themselves. They can't clean a slate properly. What will they do when they run out of paper?".
We'll look back on this discussion and cringe I think...
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on 01/08/11
Australias population is aging, this money could have been spent to benefit the very people that have worked all their lives. Hospitals and Aged care need more Funds.
YOU WANT SUPERFAST BROADBAND, YOU PAY FOR IT, DONT EXPECT PEOPLE THAT WILL NEVER USE IT TO SUPPORT THIS EXPENSIVE WASTE OF MONEY.
From what Ive read "Fibre to the Node" is more than enough for the majority of Australains.
SO I SAY AGAIN "IF YOU WANT FIBRE TO THE PREMISES", YOU SHOULD BE FORCED TO PAY FOR IT.
I would rarther have a Hospital bed when I need it, thank you.
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on 04/08/11
Cloud = data/application external to local pc.
Microsoft are even creating operating systems based on cloud technology. This stuff relies on reliable and fast connectivity to vendors supplying the cloud services. A clogged up and slow network means all that security and flexibility you paid for is inaccessible. All those backup files, all that customer data, all those price comparisons, even those MS Word Synonyms are not available because the copper connections are too corroded (or more recently flooded).
The internet’s connectivity has become like oxygen, you can't see it but you will really notice when it gets diluted. Keep the air clear with Fibre Optics.
Reply
on 08/08/11
Fibre-to-the-home will provide a faster connection back to whatever PoP you are going to, and back into the ISP's network, but from there the NBN loses their power. The company I work for provides a huge amount of capacity to New Zealand, and also overseas to San Jose, and just because you now have a 100Mbps connection to your house, it's not going to change what we provide to you as a customer unless you're willing to pay for it.
There will be a decrease in price in international IP because of supply & demand, but as it stands, for business-grade, uncontended IP, you're looking at about $50 / Mbps. So if you were a business, and wanted 1:1 contention (which won't happen for residential obviously), then you'll be looking at about $5000 per month, plus the NBN tail cost. Contend that at 10:1 and you'll be looking at $500 per month, plus the NBN tail cost.
What would you be willing to pay for a 100Mbps connection to the internet?
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on 08/08/11
Having 5Mbps or 100Mbps will NOT improve your gaming experience.
Games utilise a minimal amount of data while you're playing them.
To give you an example, a Battlefield 2 server recommended bandwidth is 5Mbps of upload for a 16-player server. That's about 312Kbps per player in download speed to be able to play it perfectly fine, with a bit of room to move. As long as you are not dropping packets, then you will get a response time between 30ms and 100ms depending on how far you are away from the server location. The standard response time from Melbourne to Sydney is 30ms plus 15% in overheads usually.
So for all those people who are on anything more than 512Kbps/128Kbps ADSL-1, the NBN is not going to do anything for your gaming. What it will do though is allow you to download faster than normal (depending of course on what the other ends connection is).
Looking at the Internode Stage-1 plans, people will be required to pay $100 per month for a 100Mbps/40Mbps connection on the NBN with a 30GB cap!. If for some reason you could actually hit your 100Mbps limit, which is extremely unlikely, your data cap will last 300 seconds, or 5 minutes, and then they will drop your speed down to 128Kbps. Does that sound like something you want?
The government can continue to build the NBN, there's no doubt it needs to be done to bring Australia up to speed with the rest of the world, but everybody needs to be made aware of WHAT they are doing. It's not a data plan, it's not an internet company, it's INFRASTRUCTURE, nothing more. What happens from that point on is up to companies like Telstra, Optus, AAPT, TPG, Dodo, Internode, iiNet, etc.
The price for data is still extremely high because of our location in the world and the NBN is not really going to change that. The link to the US, Asia, Europe, etc... is already fibred and it still takes 180ms for example to get to the west coast of the USA. Having the NBN is again not going to change that. If you want to fetch some music from overseas, sure, it'll come back to you ten times faster than before, maybe 20 times faster. But what about browsing the internet? Is that going to really speed up? Not really. Most decent websites are text-based and the packets of data still take time to come back from overseas. You might notice a slight increase, but from a 3Mbps connection to a 100Mbps? Not really.
Until ISP's actually get on board with the changes that we're about to go through (the NBN and 100Mbps speeds), then we are going to be no better off. The novice user will be impressed with download speeds of music, etc... but that's all they will get. The extreme user will be happy that they can be on a stable connection like cable is, but they'll rip their data cap to pieces and end up running on speeds barely better than dialup.
Last thing I will say is that businesses WILL benefit from the NBN because they do a lot of transfers between different sites within the same state, etc. On that note however, the CBD's around Australia are pretty much covered by fibre by Telstra, Optus, Pipe, Vocus, Nextgen, Amcom, etc... already, so using the NBN money for anything within 5km of the CBD is a big waste of money.
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on 11/09/11
My point is internet congestion can and does effect ping times. You are probably lucky to be in an area that isn't congested. Others like myself are less fortunate.
Reply
on 11/09/11
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on 14/08/11
Seriously? How do you know? I would say that most of you against people are in the minority, with most Australian's thinking that this is a great idea for Australia. Just because you might think it's a waste of money blah blah blah doesn't mean we all have to listen to you lot.
I say that if I have to pay extra tax to receive better internet, I will. If you don't want better internet etc then fine, don't get it. But some of us don't have the pleasure of logging on and having a perfect connection.
I most say that I'm very lucky compared to some people as I do have a decent connection, but have also fallen into Telstra's grasp. When I first got my adsl2 connection on the northern coast of NSW, it ran great i was getting over 1.7mbs downstream while downloading. Now I struggle to hit 800kbs downstream, even though I can walk up the road around a corner and look at the exchange. This is a 5 minute walk. People may think this is OK but when I'm trying to talk to friends that reside overseas over skype, my partner that is studying at uni at the moment and she is always downloading things for her studies. Plus with computer software nowadays, updates get bigger and bigger every year. Plus almost happen everyday.
When i was growing up in country Victoria, my neighbor lived under 1500m down the road and could get adsl and yet we couldn't. This is still the case now in 2011. With the only option nextG wireless as other carriers have next to no reception. The price difference between wireless and adsl is ridiculous. With bad weather your reception drops etc. Which makes it almost unusable.
Get with the times people it's almost 2012 why are you people scared of change? This can be a good thing for us. We complain we want better roads, better rail networks etc but why not internet? This will help home user's with their online/home business, small business that can have a fast reliable connection and not have to pay for a business plan. It will get cheaper in time, as how many place in Australia have had the NBN rolled out there? Look back 10 years ago, that 512kbs connection would cost you your liver.
End of rant
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on 19/08/11
I don't mind you having a rant but don't make assumption. You might be surprised.
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on 17/08/11
It doesn't matter what you want to know, Mr Google will know it for you.
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on 18/08/11
The fact of the matter is, Internet does rule the world and so much of the world relies on the Internet for more things than just business infrastructure or for the general end user who likes icanhascheeseburger.com . We as a nation need to keep up with the times and solidify our position in oceanic hierarchy. We need to be seen as a Solid, Progressive country not just for the sake of appearances, but in order to maintain a competitive business model to the world.
People might not see countries as businesses, Or school's or hospitals and the like but the fact of the matter is they are. So much more of our most critical functions as a country and as a business are tied to the fate of our Internet infrastructure, from simple investments and records keeping to Security and defence and quite simply we are failing to keep up with standards.
Back in the days I first used the net, the average webpage would be framed 100 kilobytes of data or less because the current advances in computer languages and features did not exist, So using a dial up speed would download the average music file in about 3-5 minutes. Nowadays even the most average site still clinging to the ways of old is 10 times that, and many more still use so much Java and flash that even with current adsl1 Max of 8mb D/L it still takes more than a few seconds for it to load... And that's the simple pages before you input the new wave of Advertising, commercials and other crap now flooding the net..
The main problem is that while a NBN would make speeds absolutely lovely and enable Australia-based usage to be greatly improved, I do think a lot of the advocates for the NBN forget that the average end user will only marginally benefit from the NBN because a lot of people forget "Hey this website that I go to a million times a day is not based in Australia" The easy way to think of it is well.. Australia! Imagine that NT is where all the cities are and around the coast are various towns. Driving from say Sydney to the Alice takes a damn long time traveling at 30Kmh and the NBN will be like traveling at a more appropriate 110Kmh.. But when you get into the Hub, the centre.. There's all these traffic jams and people wanting right of way and pedestrians!!
So to sum that up: Yeah Australia wide NBN is great.. But the same bottlenecks, Exchanges, Pinging and jittering still applies when connecting to a remote server overseas..
Quite simply, the NBN is just one of those things that in my opinion Is needed, but its current configuration is blatantly stupid and the roll-out time is disgusting. By the time all of Australia has access to at least ADSL1 and at most, the current projected speeds of 100Mb/4Mb for NBN cable, we will be behind the world yet again!
"Search for the new record by verizon for details"
The NBN is not as simple as just laying cables here and there, Plugging them into Exchanges and getting everyone to play nice with box installation. The way that it is being discussed right now sounds awfully like a redundant system that in the future (perhaps 50 years) will require another 40 or so billion dollars to bring the Countrywide infrastructure up to the standards of that day.
People can say what they like about the US or Europe but the fact of the matter is that their minimum speeds make our non NBN maximums laughable and for some of the European countries that could fit into South Australia with room to spare the speeds are so fast that it almost reaches the point of Absurd.
We Australians (ok rose colored glasses) have some of the best and brightest people in the world. A lot of our technology is ranked in the top world standards and believe it or not we have defense and military technologies that rival that of the U.S.A.. ....Us! A country with 1/10th the population and 1/10th the budget!! (Of course we are virtually giving away all our technology to other countries because of our lack of funds or interest to use it but that's another discussion) The simple thing is, You give a Master Painter a canvas, brush and paints.. And he will create a masterpiece.. This is the same for the next generations.. Give them the tools and the power and the ability to put their skills to full potential and you will see just how amazing we can be.
When the age of electricity and light bulbs came along, the world was changed. There was no going back to the times of old and the Internet is the same.. We can only move forward but being stuck in political bottlenecks and decisions made by people who will be long dead before the true mistake is finally realized affects us more than we realize. Long term strategy is the most important aspect of the NBN project and if the final result gets decided by computer illiterate, narrow minded and Profit motivated people it will end up costing more and being worth less.
:What is needed:
*Fibre to node - Cheaper, more user friendly and less invasive (note: giant F**ing box with labels "do not touch etc" does not belong in a house)
*minimum 12MB's/1Mbs for users who can't get NBN access
*Decent plan structure to fit with the times. I'm sorry telstra but your days of trying to flog off 10GB plans of ADSL2 at $129 are numbered.
*More competition and End telstra's stranglehold on exchanges
*200GB combined P/OP with 100M/4m plans for $39.95
*Bring back all ISP's infrastructure to Australia. Some fool in India Cannot help me (to quote a conversation, i was suggested to walk down to the market and bargain for a Filter i wanted... no i am not joking)
*End Hypothetical Speeds, or make sure Users are 100% aware of theoretical Maximums AND theoretical Minimums.
*FULL Equal Privatization after government implementation of NBN
*Implement NBN on key infrastructures first i.e Hospitals, schools, Uni's, Defence etc before moving to cities and the general population.
* Investigate being able to implement 1:1 on key infrastructure besides businesses who are rich enough to afford it
(side note: Make all the Idiotic Dimwits at Canberra be last to receive NBN)
(2nd side note: to our pollies....ACT LIKE LEADERS, I'm tired of seeing our politicians acting like fkn children its embarrassing and degrading)
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on 18/08/11
So NBN will give use 100Mbps in certain locations really, well that will depend on a number of factors and at what cost. Many of the comments are right it will be redundant way before it is rolled out. For our friends in the country they will continue to be affected by network latency, no one has worked out how to improve the speed of light yet. There are other technologies that could be adopted right now immplemented in months that would provide substantive improvements at a fraction of the cost. For exmaple in some testing on a 2mbps link a 10mb file download with a network latency equivalent to the host being in the US as the user site being in outback Australia took 4.5 secs. The issue is politicians trying to make a name for themselves at ordinary Australians expense instead of getting real experts to look for a solution that balances performance and cost and can be delivered in a short timeframe.
I am absolutley in favour of investment for the future and we do need to make signiicant investments, but $40B is not needed to meet the requirements now and position us for the future for all Australians. High debt right now is not a good thing, consider the impact of the GFC on millions of Australian retirment funds, Europe and US have massive issues and we are trying to follow them which will further damage Australia. Our economy is a cover-up, mining is doing well but everything else is not in great shape, check out increasing jobless rates, business closures, bancrupcy rates, bank foreclosures, retail sales and the ever reliable word from the taxi drivers who are saying the are way down and they are a great barometer of business health.
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on 21/08/11
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on 05/09/11
Honestly who is kidding who NBN is never going to benefit the people who get slow speeds, they don't matter. The areas that have been upgraded already to 100Mbps is evidence enough of this - their speed before the upgrades was brilliant compared to what we put up with daily. Cable speed crawls to 1.2Mbps (slower than my wireless Telstra dongle) and bursts up to 4.4Mbps. ADSL2 maxxes out at 3.4Mbps (but I am 4ks from exchange) and the copper phone lines static up every time it rains - now where do I live again? That's right in Australia - come on pollies get some real life experience in how the country really works and what it really needs.
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on 08/09/11
>> and bursts up to 4.4Mbps. ADSL2 maxxes out at 3.4Mbps (but I am 4ks from exchange)
you should be grateful! I live on the Gold Coast, recently moved 3kms from my previous residence, transferred to another exchange and my speed has dropped from a miraculous 1.5MB/s to 0.6MB/s and that's on a Metro exchange AND when I'm actually able to get a stable enough connection that doesn't drop out every 10min with spikes over the copper. Bring on NBN as fast as it can be rolled out I say and stuff the cost it's something that should have been done decades ago but for some tight wads that scream about spending money where it's needed. For those fools that think high debt is $40B or so they need to wake up to the fact hat it's a trivial amount compared to to the loss of business, opportunity and enterprise that our much 'beloved' budgie smuggling opposition leader, perhaps he should go back and get a wax job and leave the intelligent thoughts to more than No No No... If they naysayers had listened decades ago and DONE something then when they were told copper pairs were 19th century tech and needed to be replaced we wouldn't be in this situation as we are now.
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on 11/09/11
We all need or in the future will need fast internet. It will become increasing important in education, health, business and entertainment. Important for these things not only in schools, hopitals, or at work but in the home too. Those with serious illness will be monitored from afar etc. Of course private enterprise could provide this service to much of Australia without any input from the goverment, but not at a price that would make it affordable for most Australians and certainly not to low population areas - which is most of country. Private enterprise would not get their money back providing such services to most of the land area of Australia. Like most roads it requires government involvement. Australia is a very different place to Hong Kong - and better for it. We don't want to be that crowded here - ever travelled overseas - almost everone who does agrees, that even though the rest of the world has its attractions, this is the best place to live. It's all down to population, our wealth is not spread too thin and we are not yet overcrowded and so we have a better life style than most of the world. Let's hope it stays that way.
Back to the topic - The downside of Australia is our remoteness, this is one reason we desperately need fast internet. Tony Abbott said something along the lines of - most of us are seen using mobile internet these days - well of course we are mostly seen using mobile, when you're on the move you have no choice and when you're at home you're not on public display, so no one is watching you, so you're not seen. However I suspect Mr Abbott does not, or did not, understand the differnce between mobile internet connection and the wireless router connections used at home. Wireless connections used at home do of course require a land line connection to leave the premises. These then will benefit greatly from the fast NBN network. Even true mobile connections will benefit because it has to go through a land line eventually - no connection is wireless to the source. This is very simple, but I think a bit too technical for poor Tony Abbott - just like economics, about which he has public stated he finds it boring - explains a lot - Do not assume I'm a labor voter, I voted for John Howard three times - one time too many.
Mobile internet connections will always be adversley affected by congestion and to a much greater degree than can said for land lines. On mobile at a congested time or in a congested area you may not get a connection at all, not even a slow one. Ever tried to use your mobile phone in a large crowd of people - Big day out, concert in the park, etc, sometimes you can't connect (provider is a factor) - mobile internet will have the same problem and increasing so if it becomes more heavily used. Then there are the security issues - it is intrinsically less secure because your signal is broadcast and your downloads are broadcast. Admittedly beyond the ability of most people and proably most hackers but easier and safer than trying to tap into a fixed line.
Many argue the NBN will be outdated by the time it's finished - so what - we do nothing and in ten years we don't have even 1Gbps but are still stuck on 20Mbps ADSL2+ while the rest of the world has moved on to even more mind blowing speeds. If we start then it will another ten years before we get a better system i.e. 20 years from now. By then we will truly be an internet backwater and the boat will have sailed. If the Eurpoeans had waited for better and faster ships they could have mapped the globe much faster and with much less inconvenience and less loss of life and discovered that America, China, India and Australia were a part of the powerful Japanese empire. If we are not in a positon where we can take advantage of opportunities as they arise, someone else will and we will miss out.
Greg.
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on 14/09/11
Copper is outdated and the future is going to bring technologies which need fibre optics to achieve designed speeds. (and that is going to be based on the routers and switching used in the future in the same way as we moved from dial up 300baud to ADSL2+ 24000 by altering the switching devices used with the existing copper ..)
Internet usage tends to follow available bandwidth, a few years back streamed video was just a dream and today we are starting to stream at 1080p as household equipment and expectations develop with todays tech. Many contemporary webpages full of pictures and moving things would seem to take all day to load over a connection from 10 years ago ..
We Need the NBN not for today's bandwidth requirements but for tomorrow's needs. The fact is copper won't do the job for much longer and if we don't do it we will find that the copper infrastructure (mostly Telstra owned btw)becomes an expensive joke ..
All the political point-scoring about expense and rated speed are distractions from the real issue.
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on 14/09/11
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on 18/09/11
We will always be a minor player if we don't have cutting edge technology .... we are still using copper wire for our broadband ....HELLO !!
I personally want it ASAP ... I spend a lot of time on the net and I want speed !! ..... and I will pay for i .... initially through the nose until it is used by most !!!
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on 23/09/11
Test run on 23/09/2011 @ 05:55 PM
Mirror: iiNet
Data: 600 KB
Test Time: 26.62 secs
Your line speed is 183 kbps (0.18 Mbps).
Your download speed is 23 KB/s (0.02 MB/s).
This is the speed i receive during the afternoon and Night time. In the morning i get 200+, The NBN will be the best thing for me for what i have been seeing. Telstra owns the lines and have been complaining about the congestion and line service for over 3 and half years. Sick of waiting on Telstra to get off there back side and do something. No doubt spending over 30 hours around in total talking to Telstra CEO which i have to pay for.
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on 26/09/11
I got so bored trying to get a result I started reading about the rot that Turnbull said!
If my life depended on streaming even a low res video on this connection...
I would have been dead 30 minutes ago.
Also there a few or no slots left in the exchange that cant even deliver consistent ADSL speeds to 70% of my city. (After a couple of k's fr the exchange the speed drops miserably... can you say 'old copper wire!')
If politicians legislated that telcos MUST provide even 80% of the speed the telco's claim they can, it would be clear what a disgrace our internet is in this country. Customers in capital cities with cable are mostly good but for the other 90% of the country it's the dark ages.
Speak for yourself Mal... you'll never have to put up with what ORDINARY ppl deal with on a daily basis.
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on 28/09/11
Secondly, in the economics and public policy there is no free lunch. An NBN is an eight lane highway coming to every home. It is nice to have it, but someone must pay for it. And someone is us - at about $7,000 for an average family. What we need is a robust and in some places upgraded trunk infrastructure, but not fibre to home - it is way too expensive and unnecessary.
Thirdly, noone is saying that the current situation with internet access is acceptable, especially in the rural areas. However, internet was designed as and is a mix of technologies. The biggest cost of NBN is in the 'last mile', that could be easily be replaced by slower and still reliable technologies. What Turnbull offers is this patchwork approach - but it is the cheapest and the most practical way of achieving a good access in a most economical way.
Please also keep in mind that Australian construction costs are some of the highest in the world and for a big project like NBN, the costs would inevitably grow, probably 15-20%. I could see CFMEU and others salivating looking at the pie.
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on 29/09/11
I remember about 12 years ago when dial-up access was the norm.
It was slow, sure, but we weren't downloading and streaming like we do today, so it was accepted.
Now 12 years or so later, we are in a completely different era of internet:
High def streaming, skype, facebook, mmorpg's, etc etc.
Then why is it that the majority of people in AUSTRALIA, including me, have poor or very poor "broadband" still? My speeds are disgraceful, typically 2mbs during the day, 6mbs midnight. I have a 8mbs connection, and I'm only 2kms from the exchange!
I also know plenty of people in my area with the same performance issues, some of which are closer to the exchange than I am.
Does this mean that this "broadband" roughly covers 1 or 2 square KMs from the exchange? What an absolute joke.
Why hasn't our telco infrastructure kept up with the huge "internet boom", which has generated huge amounts of money for Telstra. Where has all of this money gone? Why has it not been re-invested back into the infrastructure in upgrades etc so that their claims match their actual performance?
I'm sick of Australia being the laughing stock of the online world. We are one of the most highly taxed countries on the planet, yet we have sooo much lacking. :(
Maybe I'll go to Mal's place to use his, and send my travel expenses to Gillard.
I'm sure neither of them know how to use a PC anyway.
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on 29/09/11
Can't wait for the NBN, but if it means switching to an ISP that does offer it. I may hold off.
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on 02/10/11
I am on holiday in Queensland at the moment and read in a local paper that a town here has had fibre network available for over twelve months and has not had a single customer sign up. Apparently it is because the customer would have to pay the price of installation of several thousand dollars. The truth is that the NBN is forcing us to pay the cost whether we want it or not.
I do believe hospitals, schools and government agencies should have high speed internet connection. Many of them have it already and the rest can have it for a lot less than $40billion.
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on 01/11/11
we can all live without power, houses and all the wonders of the modern era too, is going back into caves wearing leaves really where we want to be going? I can promise the rest of the world wont so why do you want too?
I mean come on the hardware running all of our fixed communication technology is so rubbish. My street was built on land reclaimed from a swamp, every time it rains the moisture crashes the internet and even affects the phone. Should i be buying 2 cans and string? No the issue needs fixing and my street/rural town is just one of many many maaaany areas that are lacking in basic modern communication services (not even able to get all the new freeview tv channels /sigh)
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on 06/10/11
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on 06/10/11
Broadband Speed Test Results
Test run on 06/10/2011 @ 09:42 PM
Mirror: iiNet
Data: 15 MB
Test Time: 4.17 secs
Your line speed is 30.07 Mbps (30070 kbps).
Your download speed is 3.67 MB/s (3759 KB/s).
Graph
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on 01/11/11
Test run on 01/11/2011 @ 11:50 PM
Mirror: TPG
Data: 15 MB
Test Time: 39.58 secs
Your line speed is 3.17 Mbps (3166 kbps).
Your download speed is 396 KB/s (0.39 MB/s).
I trust you are paying almost 500 dollars a month for that speed, since it is basicaly 10 times better than me. You better be paying that much or why am I being punished for not living in a lucky area? Oh i thought Australia was the lucky country, guess not. Taree NSW must not be part of Australia.. greetings from russia? no sorry just cause lucky city folk with thier exchanges every 20 meters get nice speeds doesnt mean the rest of the nation can get boned and be happy about it
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on 11/10/11
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on 11/10/11
Test run on [*11/10/2011*] @ [*06:59 PM*])]
[(Mirror: [*Optus*]
Data: [*3 MB*]
Test Time: [*23.06 secs*])]
[(Your line speed is [*1.06 Mbps*] (1062 kbps).
Your download speed is [*133 KB/s*] (0.13 MB/s). )]
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on 11/10/11
I live 60 km west of brisbane and have bigpond wireless internet that is useless
Most the time i have a problem getting my emails and for loading webpages 75% of the time well forget it.
Have given up ringing them as they do bugger all.
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on 12/10/11
FOR MY ADSL2+ plan on Bigpond, speeds are supposed to be up to 24000kbps....
BUT!! I get 1648 kbps:
"Mirror: Telstra Bigpond
Data: 3 MB
Test Time: 14.86 secs
Your line speed is 1.65 Mbps (1648 kbps).
Your download speed is 206 KB/s (0.2 MB/s)."
THAT IS THE TOP LEVEL ADSL2+ speed here folks....on the fastest plan offered by telstra
On ADSL2+, speeds are up to 24000kbps. My speed is a joke!!
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on 15/10/11
[(----------------------------------
Test run on [*16/10/2011*] @ [*12:35 AM*])]
[(Mirror: [*TPG*]
Data: [*3 MB*]
Test Time: [*10.46 secs*])]
[(Your line speed is [*2.34 Mbps*] (2342 kbps).
Your download speed is [*293 KB/s*] (0.29 MB/s). )]
I live less than 100 meters from the exchange in Maroubra and to be honest I have more faith in Telstra than the government to get stuff done. Im not against the nbn but it is a massive waste of money for something that will be outdated by the time its finished. Internet speed is not the issue, its the fact that we have become used to the mediocrity that is big business and government in this country. The health sector is a shamble, public transport is worse, infrastructure is abysmal and does anyone really think the NBN will be any different.
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on 29/10/11
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on 31/10/11
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on 31/10/11
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on 05/11/11
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on 08/11/11
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on 11/11/11
ADSL 2 + could give everyone 24 mbps at a really cheap rate but the network and exchanges are so poorly maintained it cant do it. ie its the wires not the technology that holds it back.
24 is more than enough for any home user, most sml to med businesses. LArger busines and schools & Hospitals etc should have access to 100 everywhere but to get 100 to Morris in Jingalee for collecting weather data and watching movies whilst his wheat grows (with all due respect) is madness. The money has to come from somewhere and corners will be cut to do too much.
Once again we will end up with a cheap shit version and everyone loses, yet another typical balls up of this government.
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on 28/11/11
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on 01/12/11
Right there is the problem with your statement and counters your whole defense of the Liberals policy, copper can be pushed to some speeds but not 100 mps constant and also lacks the bandwidth capacity, your confusing bandwidth to speed, and in your defense so do alot of people.
The only viable plan was hybrid coax but it proved to 90% as expensive as fibre to home and so was dropped in favour of all fibre plan, expensive to begin with but more scalable later.
And the next person that makes claims of future tech in the pipe line really needs to read up on the tech being researched there is nothing practical to replace fibre for at least 20 years, CRISO claims of TV bandwidth proved to be very premature and is now only planning for it to be used in the bush, in 10 years time and thats trail stage, the curse of scalabilty and bandwidth raised its head yet again, and that is the key to why fibre is king, and will be for up to 50 years.
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on 02/12/11
Those in the bush can have wireless, that's generous of you James.
Obviously you have never been involved with wireless broadband, nor incurred the cost of wireless plans Optus post paid wireless is $80 for 16 gig.
Cut off on exceeding data limit, constant line drop-outs, speed variations as low as 56k dial-up speed
In comparison, Optus naked ADSL2 250g + 250g for $80.
No excess usage charges - speed is limited to 128kbps once peak or total data is exceeded, no line drop-out reasonable constant speed.
Please note also that ADSL naked speed is used as the advantage of bundling land line etc.is not available.
The nearest ADSL connection to me James is 50 metres, but there are no more ports available and Telstra have no plans to rectify the problem.
Once you have suffered wireless as your only internet connection you would not force it onto anyone else, only satellite rates worse than wireless.
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on 04/12/11
Anther thing connecting a home to the street with fiber by the time you dig the trench an lay the cable an connect up has been averaged out at $2000 a house so assuming at least 15m hoses to connect that's $30 Billion dollars you can spend later saving assuming 5% interest $1.5billion dollars in interest each year until you spend it and considering that the whole system has been quoted at almost $36 billion it is easier to spend $6 billion and wait for profits than spending $36Billion in one lump or if this cost has been ignored then it is $36billion instead of $90 billion so take your pick.
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on 05/12/11
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on 07/12/11
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on 12/12/11
Test run on 12/12/2011 @ 09:07 PM
Mirror: Telstra Bigpond
Data: 3 MB
Test Time: 52.21 secs
Your line speed is 469 kbps (0.47 Mbps).
Your download speed is 59 KB/s (0.06 MB/s).
Ive live about 2.5hrs from sydney in Bathurst. These are the speeds max speeds i currently get off my ADSL network (Yes i cant get ADSL2+) now all you people whining about only getting 1MB+ Line speed should take a step back and just have a look at what other people have to live with, shit i saw a post from someone saying they were D/Ling at 1000+KB/sec and they said it was crap, cmon mate, get a grip!
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on 17/12/11
Fact. We are all being charged full rates for what is basically a mediocre service for the majority of us
Fact. We are subsidising those few who get great speeds etc. They pay the same rate and get all the perks - wwe pay the same rates and get zilch.!
Fact. Bigpond sas you can get up to 20mbs on ADSL2 - but this figure is theory..not fact
Fact. Bigpond say 110k is the min acceptable speed for ADSL2 but charge you as if you are getting 20Mbs. Most of us are lucky to gget 1/6th of that figure at best.
Fact. Bigpond don't openly advise that as low as 110k is acceptable for ADSL2 as far as they are concerned!
Fact. Bigpond website states 50% of ADSL2 users on the 20mps plan can get speeds greater than 10mps and that 70% on the 8mps plan can get 6mps or more. Ever met one who did??
Fact. These figures represent an unobtainable 'dream' to the majortity of us.
Fact. If they adjusted (just dreaming again) their charges to refelect the actual speeds we do get, most of us would only be paying a fraction of what we actually do now.
Fact. any other product that did not deliver performance it supposedly could achieve would be the subject to a Consumer Affairs inquiry.
Fact. Sth Korea has the fastest internet in terms of download speed, averaging 17.62 Mbps - followed by Romania at 15.27 Mbps, and Bulgaria, Lithuania and Latvia. The United States musters a very pedestrian 4.93 Mbps — only good to be 26th in the world
Fact. Australia should be up there in the top 10 if not the top 5.
Fact. Telstra could have laid cable everywhere years ago but choose not to..it being more important to import and pay vast salaries to outsiders who did nothing in the end to help us out.
Fact. Optus did a fair job rolling it out but stopped.
Fact. Govt should have legislated to fix this years ago but didn't
Fact. The Nat Broadband rollout is far too much and far too late.
Fact. Streets without cable are being discriminated against because of the telco's failure to supply all with the same services.
Fact. Anyone else discriminaring like that with another consumer product would be investigated.
Fact. Most of us have had enough and require either a better service or amended charges to represent the poorer service we get
Fact. I (you too I bet)have had enough of this telco talk fest which has not resulted in any real improvement to speeds or services for years.
Fact. we require some action now and not on going excuses as to why not
Fact. If we all got together and supported each others claim for better services and speed we might just get somewhere.
Otherwise a great, happy and safe Christmas to you all
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on 21/12/11
The NBN came about because of not just this government but of governments over a 12 year period getting the mess around by Telstra, but the final straw was Sol and his stance and fund raping practises.
17 years ago Telstra was asked by the then government, what they were going to do with the majority of the copper cabling in Australia that was now life ex, Telstra replied "not our problem", it was from there and several real STUPID government plans to update Australia (OPAL) being the dumbest, that the NBN was born out of frustration and some degree of revenge againest Telstra, however at 11 billion pay out, I wish the government got annoyed at me also.
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on 23/12/11
75-year-old has world's fastest private internet connection
Let me show you my grandchildren at 40Gb/s
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/12/swedish_woman_has_fastest_internet_connection/
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on 01/01/12
But why should I have to pay for it.
Fibre to the node is adequate for almost all users, so why why put Australia into debt for a service thats not needed by most?
You want the service you should have to pay for the installation.
That goes for the bush as well as the city.
The money saved could go into other areas such as health care.
PS All internet users that want to have Fibre to the home to make illegal downloading more convenient / faster had better think again. The anti-piracy police know what you are thinking and are preparing the necessary laws and tools to catch you.
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on 01/01/12
Let's not do a half-arsed job to start with. Spend a little more to do it once, and do it right! It's ALWAYS cheaper in the long run.
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on 02/01/12
As for ppl saying we dont need it cause we rely on underwater cables anyway for global communications. Thats right, and my pings become so much more stable and predictable the second they leave the horrid australian network its amazing. Might have 10-20ms variation over an hour of pings on the US side of the internet, but 50-120ms variations inside the australia networks.
PS give the money to healthcare? well it again would be going into the bush. In fact the only things the cities really have to complain about is overcrowding, traffic jams and the public transport running late. Then again dont move into a small town like me, theres no trains, just a 2 times a day bus run...
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on 03/01/12
As it is I have to pay through the roof for mobile wireless internet as dial up is the only other option in my area (not that the speeds I get are much more than that)
We have a major issue in the country with medical services too, conferencing via the internet with specialists would go a great way to help those that are stuck waiting months for a visiting specialist or have to travel to the city (a days drive away)to see a one.
It is not just businesses being left behind, education also suffers with poor internet speeds - Australia is going backwards whilst the rest of the world enjoys low cost high speed services in both the private and public areas.
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on 07/01/12
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on 09/01/12
Your internet is about to get cheaper, faster, and include more data. So what's the problem?
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on 04/01/12
_________________
Tony Abbott -
"18,200 homes and businesses lying along the fibre-optic cable infrastructure laid down so far at a cost of $1 billion"
"The billion dollars that they have spent so far on the roll-out works out at $250,000 per connection,"
"So by any means this is a monumental rip-off."
NBN Co -
"was pleased with the 4000 connections achieved by the end of 2011 and expects numbers to ramp up in 2012 as more retail service providers begin offering broadband plans and Australians began migrating to the network from existing services."
_______________________
What else would both of the above say!
The ALP / NBNCO isn't going to say "we are wrong", they are hell bent on driving Australia into a mountain of debt. Remember the good old days when Australia had $$$ in the bank.
Im on the Central Coast of NSW. The distance to my local exchange is greater than 4 Klm so Im on Vodafone Wireless. Currently Im achieving 4.47Mbps Line Speed and 559KB/s Download speed (OZ Speed Test). What more could I want?
I for one WILL NOT BE CONNECTING TO THE NBN IF IT EVER ARRIVES AT MY LOCATION.
A Question! - Would I be wrong in thinking that Wireless / Satellite
Internet is a good fit for the Country areas of Australia.
Thats provided reasonable speeds can be obtained, I beleive they can!
The "Bush" has Tunnel Vision when it comes to the NBN.
"You promised us Fibre and thats all we are going to accept".
No matter it will send Austraia into further debt.
PS - When you get really sick in the Bush a specialist at the other end of a piece of Fibre isnt going to be any good to you if there are no local Doctors or Hospitals.
- The Education System isnt going to "Self Destruct" if Schools dont get Fibre. I thought the biggest whinge teachers had is that they dont have Aircond in every classroom ("for the kids"). You can have a network in a school situation running Education Software without a Fibre Connection.
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on 04/01/12
I also suggest that before you launch into your next poorly informed tirade, actually do some research into what your writing about.
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on 06/01/12
Lets forget about Julia's past statements concerning a Carbon Tax.
I admit I didnt vote Labour in the last few elections.
(Im finding it harder every day to find somebody that will admit to voting Labour).
"News Flash" for Peter "Politicians Lie" OK.
As for me being poorly informed - Yes Ive been out of the field for 12 years.
BUT I still have a brain that works.
All my instincts tell me that the NBN Rollout as proposed is an extravagance.
I dont care one way or the other about whether the NBN is rolled out to the Bush or to my metro location as I will not be utilising it.
What I do care about is that the job in done in a way thats not going to send the country into further debt.
There is a way to deliver very close to the same result for a lot less outlay.
BRING ON THE NEXT ELECTION SO AUSTRALIAN'S CAN HAVE A SAY ON WHETHER WE AGREE WITH LABOURS POLICIES.
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on 06/01/12
"Everbody has an Axe to Grid". Dont they!
Refer to http://www.ozspeedtest.com/news/comments/1817/telstra-s-marketing-chief-kate-mckenzie-tackles-her-biggest-challenge/
27-04-10 By Peter Faux
"Why do i live next door to someone ( 50m ) who has broadband and I can only get satellite both connections come out of the same pit at the front of the block and if i went back to dial up you will piggyback me as before reducing download to 28.8."
Dont expect me to feel sorry for you though.
I am in a similar situation.
No satisfactory landline connection AND I am a Telstra Shareholder.
The Labour government has "scr?wed Telstra Shareholders over".
So I went Wireless and its great.
Why dont you do the same and forget about the "Dream of Fibre" that may / may not eventuate.
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on 09/01/12
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on 05/01/12
How can I say such a thing!? The NBN will bring all these wonderful things, mainly speed, which is Australia LIMITED that's right all those lovely high numbers will (hopefully be achieved) in Australia only! they have no development for any international links which is far more important that a couple of milliseconds shaved off Aus to Aus transfers. The way they are marketing this Holy network is like Australia doesn't have the internet at all.
I'm sorry digging up the ground, laying some fancy shiny wire not upgrading international links, is plenty to appease the mass idiots but when the next government has to fix up this mess then and only then will people realise how stupid this NBN was.
This whole NBN was quickly and poorly put together just to win votes. It should of been a much bigger plan involving state of the art wireless, better upgraded exchanges, upgraded international links like with hmm what are they called...freaking SATELLITES! And of course in areas fibre optics.
NBN= Too little, too late and costs too much.
Sorry for the rant, sick of people expecting this NBN to solve all their problems like Lag in games etc. etc...
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on 09/01/12
Australia currently has plenty of international bandwidth, with upgrades in the pipeline, and no doubt new cables will be built as needed (as has happened in the past).
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on 09/01/12
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on 15/01/12
We have more bottlenecks of congestion within our own landmass and service areas of rotting copper cabling that shouting about overseas links more than just premature its down right straw clutching pathetic.
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on 19/01/12
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on 27/01/12
Also, I would like to point out, those fools who come on here with ADSL+2 and say they dont need faster speeds, what age are you living in? ADSL is BARELY faster then dialup, and is easily the most unreliable service you could imagine.
I am now signed up to the Telstra Ultimate cable plan, and believe me, the speed is worth it. Especially since Telstra doesnt charge any more then what they do on the Telstra Cable Extreme Liberty plans.
So in all, Stop your unguided, sad whining, and accept that technology will be moving forward, with or without you.
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on 03/02/12
NBN Co’s fibre optic broadband service offers telcos and ISPs wholesale speeds of up to 100 Mbps*. It aims to serve 93 per cent of Australian premises by 2021. The remaining 7 per cent of premises will receive high-speed broadband via fixed-wireless and satellite, with the rollout of both services expected to be complete by 2015.
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on 04/02/12
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on 04/02/12
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on 05/02/12
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on 05/02/12
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on 07/02/12
The ping does not stress the connection enough to see large enough variations in ping time with an increase in Internet speed.
In reality, ping time doesn't affect the speed of your Internet, and is not an argument for not having faster Internet.
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on 05/02/12
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on 07/02/12
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