Author Topic: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS  (Read 47404 times)

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Offline ivan747

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #50 on: October 14, 2015, 02:11:37 am »
I am quite curious about the reasons for these unbelievable prices. (?)

A Telstra monopoly.

Now we're talking.
 

Offline Rasz

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #51 on: October 14, 2015, 02:23:29 am »
Looking at their prices here, $55 to $83 USD/month

https://www.telstra.com.au/broadband/home-broadband#

interesting, for me it displays $75-115 :) and no connection parameters other than data cap  :-DD

I think this all might boil down to Australian culture of gouging for everything. Historically you have been far away from everything so at first it made perfect sense to charge more for spice, shovels and chocolate. But times have changed. How come ipad sold in AU is more expensive than same ipad that has travelled additional 10000km to US? Makes even less sense for digital goods. Didnt you have a Parliamentary inquiry about this? Did anything change?
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Offline 6581

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #52 on: October 14, 2015, 02:28:28 am »
Relevant: http://www.itnews.com.au/news/australian-internet-fails-pigeon-test-159232

spoiler: a carrier pigeon transferred data faster than telestra

Back in the days availability was a hit and miss, but carrier pigeon technology has evolved and is now a real option in places like Australia. Dave should really consider switching to IP over Avian Carriers protocol (https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt). Sure it has some lag, but it's reliable. Not sure about international connections though, may be a bit too seasonal.
 

Offline vk6zgo

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #53 on: October 14, 2015, 03:05:39 am »
I am quite curious about the reasons for these unbelievable prices. (?)

A Telstra monopoly.

Now we're talking.

Telstra is required by legislation to sell its services to its competitors cheaply enough that they can then onsell it to the mugs OOPS!---customers,& make a profit.

I'd like to sell burgers---I wonder if I can get the same deal from McDonald's? ;D

This raises the question:
If they can sell cheaply to their "competitors" why can't they sell it to me for that price?

Answer: They are not allowed to---that would be anti-competitive!
 

Offline vk6zgo

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #54 on: October 14, 2015, 03:13:35 am »
Serious question, is there a link between the east coast and the west coast?
When i was in Australia in 2010-ish, people told me that internet between Sydney and Perth was only via cables going to Americas to Europe to Asia to west coast, all the way around the planet.
Was that the case, and is it still?

People in the Eastern States haven't a clue about Western Australia!
There have been fibre cables between the East & West coasts for decades.
Before that,there were terrestrial microwave links & satellites.
 

Offline 5ky

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #55 on: October 14, 2015, 06:33:54 am »
Relevant: http://www.itnews.com.au/news/australian-internet-fails-pigeon-test-159232

spoiler: a carrier pigeon transferred data faster than telestra

Back in the days availability was a hit and miss, but carrier pigeon technology has evolved and is now a real option in places like Australia. Dave should really consider switching to IP over Avian Carriers protocol (https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt). Sure it has some lag, but it's reliable. Not sure about international connections though, may be a bit too seasonal.

Your ping would be a quite high, but with these super dense 128GB SD cards, and a pigeon's ability to potentially carry several TB worth of those--I think pigeons are still king for raw throughput :) 

Watch out google fiber!
 

Offline TheDefpom

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #56 on: October 14, 2015, 06:38:08 am »
Wow, those prices are horrendous !

The big companies seem to have held onto their 1990's prices where only the rich and massive companys would have fibre!

I am on wireless broadband in NZ, I get actual speeds of 25Mb/20Mb on that, for NZ$150, with 200GB of data !
Cheers Scott

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Offline vk6zgo

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #57 on: October 14, 2015, 10:56:27 am »
I found this nice comparison of the prices that cloudflare pays for their lines in all of the continents:
https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-relative-cost-of-bandwidth-around-the-world/

Australia is 20x more expensive than Europe and 12x more expensive than USA. They also mention that Telstra is the most expensive ISP in the world!

Basic fact of life:-

A similar population to Taiwan,living in a country roughly the same in area as the contiguous States of the USA.

It cost the same amount to build a backbone Network as it does for a more populous country of the same size,& more than for a more populous smaller country.
There are less people to pay for it.
 

Offline tindel

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #58 on: October 14, 2015, 12:58:55 pm »
I just got a job in Longmont, CO.  We are planning on moving into a neighborhood that has 1Gbps fiber directly to the house... for $50/month for charter members (charter membership is transferable to new homeowners).  This is unheard of in the states.  I had to call them to make sure it wasn't a lie.  Sure enough... the rumors were true.  Check it out yourself.  Most routers don't support this speed!  There are a few reviews online of people getting like 300Mbps or something like that because they can't go fast enough. 

1G up and down by the way!

Even if the house I get into doesn't have the charter membership then the cost is still only $100 and it goes DOWN to $60 after one year.

http://longmontcolorado.gov/departments/departments-e-m/longmont-power-communications/broadband-service

I currently pay $53 a month for 3Mbps Crapcast service.  I can't wait to change services!
 

Offline Rasz

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #59 on: October 14, 2015, 01:58:30 pm »
I found this nice comparison of the prices that cloudflare pays for their lines in all of the continents:
https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-relative-cost-of-bandwidth-around-the-world/

Australia is 20x more expensive than Europe and 12x more expensive than USA. They also mention that Telstra is the most expensive ISP in the world!

Basic fact of life:-

A similar population to Taiwan,living in a country roughly the same in area as the contiguous States of the USA.

It cost the same amount to build a backbone Network as it does for a more populous country of the same size,& more than for a more populous smaller country.
There are less people to pay for it.

there we go again :))
I can get fiber 1GB for 20 euro in the middle of a FORREST in Polish mountains (seriously), while Dave cant get decently priced one (read below 40K for instalation) in your BIGGEST and DENSEST city, so cut the bullshit.
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Offline Artlav

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #60 on: October 14, 2015, 02:28:05 pm »
No.
People in my building complain about the reliability of the BigAir wireless dish on the roof that only has to go a few hundred meters to the data hub a few streets away.
I need a rock solid reliable connection, that means fibre.
I expect a retranslation dish is not the same as having a direct line to the sky, so it might be worth re-considering.

Checked out the numbers...
The best uplink i could find is 5 Mbit/s (20 down), for $5 a month, and $500 equipment price.

Not exactly stellar, but maybe you would find something better in your hemisphere?

 

Offline madires

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #61 on: October 14, 2015, 04:07:45 pm »
there we go again :))
I can get fiber 1GB for 20 euro in the middle of a FORREST in Polish mountains (seriously), while Dave cant get decently priced one (read below 40K for instalation) in your BIGGEST and DENSEST city, so cut the bullshit.

There are two major problems:
1. Big fat telcos which want to make as much money as possible with there old copper wire telephone networks. Laying fiber is expensive and a huge investment
2. The telco needs a positive ROI to stay in business. If connecting an typical single famiily house via fiber costs EUR 5000 how could EUR 20/month create a ROI? Connecting a multi tenant building for the same EUR 5000 creates a revenue of 30 times EUR 20/month = 600/month (just an example).

A lot of the old copper wire telephone networks are financed by taxes. After the privatization of telcos they need to have a business case. There is only sound way to close that gap. The municipals have to take tax money and build local fiber distribution networks. The telcos connect their backbones to the distribution networks via cost effective central offices and pay the municipal a rent for the last mile.
 

Offline tszaboo

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #62 on: October 14, 2015, 07:27:45 pm »
I'm always complaining about the Internet here in Belgium. It is like the 19 century, you have data limit, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to get more than 30 Mbit, residential. When the biggest provider told me that the plan they are selling has a 100GB cap, I laughed and walked out of the door.

Meanwhile the EU broadband strategy is OK:
"EU being covered nationwide by broadband above 30 Mbps by 2020 and 50% of the EU to be subscribed to broadband above 100 Mbps by 2020"
"10% increase in broadband penetration brings up the GDP by 1-1.5%"

Yes thank you very much, you should be indeed pouring money into the internet infrastructure. Which they are doing, 315 Billion EUR the next 3 years. I have no idea how, but east EU cities have by far is the cheapest and fastest Internet speeds, 15 EUR gigabit is normal.
It really feels like any telecommunication company is just charging some arbitrary number they pulled out their asses.
 

Offline g0hjq

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #63 on: October 14, 2015, 07:31:18 pm »
Hi Dave,

In the UK, I think most of the major cities and towns are completely covered by one or two fibre providers.

I live in a residential suburb of Manchester and get Virgin Media 200/12Mb unlimited broadband, unlimited telephone calls and about 300 channels of TV for £80 (AU$170) per month

It's fibre to the cabinet at the end of the street, then 2x twisted pairs and 2 coaxes to the house. It seems to work well, and is completely reliable, but speeds do drop by 50% or more at peak times.

« Last Edit: October 14, 2015, 07:37:19 pm by g0hjq »
 

Offline VK3DRB

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #64 on: October 15, 2015, 12:50:11 am »
NBN = No Bloody Network

I predicted way back in 1984 that fibre-optic connectivity between premises in this vast country with a relatively low population would be far too expensive and slow to implement. That was virtually before the internet existed and before most people had ever seen or used a computer. Not surprisingly, the NBN has become a cost blow-out disaster, and too slow to implement. Our illustrious politicians failed to predict this just a few short years ago. I am not supposed to be as switched on as our politicians and am paid accordingly. In 1993 I predicted the lack bandwidth will be a big controversial issue for country people, but our politicians and media were asleep a the wheel. Nothing on the radar until another 10 years. Helen Coonan, our Minister of Communications and Information Technology demonstrated live on TV on at least two occasions she did not even know what bandwidth was.

As for the NBN, I suggest you look at 4G. Get yourself a decent cross polarised antenna and point it to a decent service provider... www.telcoantennas.com.au is a great resource and their antenna prices are attractive.

If anyone moves office or home one of the first things to consider is what broadband connectivity is available. At home I get 120Mb/s download, 500GB/month allocation, phone rental, unlimited local calls etc for $80 per month (from Telstra) on cable, so I am not interested in NBN, ADLS2, dialup, 3G, 4G or 5G. I would never go back to ADSL2. I am as happy as a pig in the proverbial.

In any case, FTTN was the better decision, not FTTH. Forget copper. Local FTTN LIPDs will be the cheaper and the faster way to go.
 

Offline vk6zgo

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #65 on: October 15, 2015, 02:20:39 am »
"Helen Coonan, our Minister of Communications and Information Technology demonstrated live on TV on at least two occasions she did not even know what bandwidth was."

"Bandwidth" is like happiness in the old song,"different things to different people"

To those of us who were brought up in the era when you actually learnt stuff,instead of just being "tech savvy",it means "occupied frequency spectrum".
This had a direct relationship to data rate--a 5MHz bandwidth bearer could carry signals with frequency components out to 5MHz.
It always meant "occupied spectrum",though!

With technical developments in modulation techniques,frequency compression,& so on,it became possible to send material which previously occupied a much wider spectrum in a much narrower bandwidth.

Computer people,never backward at stuffing up old established terminology,seized upon the term "bandwidth" to refer to the "virtual bandwidth" of the compressed signal,or "what you could send down it".

People trying to refer to what we happily used to call  "bandwidth" have to say "occupied spectrum",because the "tech savvy " generation will get confused.

So,what is bandwidth?








 

Offline arekm

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #66 on: October 15, 2015, 06:40:30 pm »
ubiquiti wireless equipment (ubiquiti power beam for example; https://www.ubnt.com/airmax/powerbeam-ac/) is cheap enough to try it out if you have someone with good internet connection in direct straight line with no obstacles in middle (up to 25/30km). Using here on shorter ranges and it is very reliable.
 

Offline zapta

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #67 on: October 15, 2015, 09:19:59 pm »
To those of us who were brought up in the era when you actually learnt stuff,instead of just being "tech savvy",it means "occupied frequency spectrum".

I think bandwidth is fmax - fmin, not an actual section in the spectrum (that would be a band).
 

Offline DrGeoff

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #68 on: October 15, 2015, 09:38:50 pm »
Well Dave, there's an announcement in 20 minutes about NBN new rollout plans and timetable.
Don't hold your breath...
Was it really supposed to do that?
 

Offline ivan747

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #69 on: October 15, 2015, 10:04:49 pm »

As for the NBN, I suggest you look at 4G. Get yourself a decent cross polarised antenna and point it to a decent service provider... www.telcoantennas.com.au is a great resource and their antenna prices are attractive.


Not a bad idea actually.
 

Offline DrGeoff

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #70 on: October 15, 2015, 10:17:12 pm »
Well Dave, there's an announcement in 20 minutes about NBN new rollout plans and timetable.
Don't hold your breath...

And, as expected, still nothing in the new plan to even start thinking about rolling it out here in the next 3 years.
I doubt we'll see it before 2025, if ever.
Was it really supposed to do that?
 

Offline vk6zgo

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #71 on: October 16, 2015, 01:25:48 am »
To those of us who were brought up in the era when you actually learnt stuff,instead of just being "tech savvy",it means "occupied frequency spectrum".

I think bandwidth is fmax - fmin, not an actual section in the spectrum (that would be a band).

That is why the term "bandwidth" being stolen & given another meaning makes it difficult.
"Occupied frequency spectrum" implies "fmax - fmin" to me,but I can see that it can equally mean "which section of spectra is used".

The classic meaning of "bandwidth" was unambiguous,till they messed with it!
 

Offline MobileWill

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #72 on: October 20, 2015, 07:51:00 pm »
Wow that is insane. I would of never guessed it would cost so much. Here in California I get 120/20 for like $70/mo USD from Comcast. Little envious of people who get 1Gb! That would be sweet except that most websites can't even transmit that fast to you but should help with latency.
 

Offline nowlan

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #73 on: October 21, 2015, 02:50:10 am »
http://www.nbnco.com.au/learn-about-the-nbn/three-year-construction-plan.html

Here is their deployment plan. Turns out im getting HFC 2nd half next year. Despite flats across road already having something? (new build).
What sucks is that their is already (foxtel) cable in my street. I had it 10 years ago.

I live 500m walk from exchange, and get 14mb sync adsl2. Suspect house wiring might be the issue. Should be able to get 24mbit at this distance.
 

Offline DrGeoff

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Re: eevBLAB #17 - The Australian NBN SUCKS
« Reply #74 on: October 21, 2015, 03:36:12 am »
Sadly this appears to be the cost-cutting strategy. If you have coax in your street you weill probably remain connected to that, with all the shared-bandwidth limitations. And they will probably try and charge you more for less than what you already have.
Was it really supposed to do that?
 


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